Taoist Translation of the I Ching

The work on the Taoist translation took a long time dealing with the first two hexagrams, all Yang and then all Yin lines. There is far more commentary in the Chinese text on these two than any other hexagram. The Taoist translation of these two hexagrams was an entire work of its own. Everything else in our Taoist translation would stand (or fall) based upon them.

The Taoist translation of the four oracle slogans of hexagram One would set the tone for everything that followed. In an earlier book on tai chi Gia-Fu had used “groovy” which turned dated and nonsensical very quickly after publication. He was very clear he needed to find a term that would wear better this time. Yet he also needed to make a clean and substantial break with the Confucian/German Protestant Wilhelm terms.

In this introductory time working on our Taoist translation we worked on the overall context for the Taoist translation, there was also the opportunity for deep introspection and counsel from Gia-Fu. I dug down below my issues with my eating and my weight. I quickly delved beyond my issues with relationships and not getting along with folks in general.

Down to my fundamental issues with being born into the House of JADE (Judith, Albert, Daniel, Esther) which had functioning together four years before I was born as a result of my parents winning a landmark copyright case that came with both a huge (to them) award of attorney’s fees and instant recognition as the hot shot intellectual property firm.

The Taoist translation work went along. Working with Gia-Fu in an unknown language to me was trying. I was also in the midst of deep inner work. I came to my own insights of the child within myself and my own understanding how important it was to reach in and love and embrace that child absolutely.

By this time it was the 4th of July. A time for the new Stillpoint to party from 11 am to 10:30 pm, laughing, dancing, beating out music on the kitchen pots, drinking, smoking and taking a sauna. The next day I recuperated from the excess. By the end of that week Gia-Fu and I had resumed our Taoist translation and finished hexagram One, which meant we were over the hump. He was enthused and eager we finish it all before I left in August.

Within days we were working on three more hexagrams and the Taoist translation work was rolling along and I was able to work easily with the Chinese dictionary and with Gia-Fu. I also read Legge and Blofeld and worked upon getting into the meanings of the hexagrams.

My respect for Wilhelm’s scholarship grew as we worked on three hexagrams a day reviewing the Chinese text and 4 editions of English translations. I was seeing the beginnings of my own commentary on the Taoist translation of the Yi taking shape. “I can see its got to be a light, fluid, personal poetry yet still a deep scholarly devout work.” [FRK journal 12 July 1974] This still is the goal for my Flux Tome, but the insight for it appeared on its own then as part of the Tao of 1974.

Gia-Fu used a Chinese copy of the Imperial Edition of 1715 and all its commentary to focus his Taoist translation. By the 21st of July, after a wild birthday party for one of the Stillpoint folks, the Taoist translation took a new turn. The focus upon the commentaries in the Imperial Edition of 1715 brought a need to rework the earlier word-for-word Taoist translation.

The goal of completing the whole Taoist translation by mid-August continued, though it was clear there would be many twists and turns we couldn’t yet see along the way. I was feeling the magic of the Stillpoint experience…” a fantastic interaction of mind, body, soul, relationship and environment.” [FRK journal 21 July 1974]

We finished hexagram 64 of our Taoist translationon 24 July 1974 which was the day the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes. It was all the Tao of 1974 working itself out in our lives as in the nation, but we didn’t notice any of it at the time. Only looking back now do I realize how much we all tracked in our personal reality what the President was dragging the Nation through from the White House.

On 25 July “Gia-Fu and I finished the final Draft of the Taoist translation of the 1st six hexagrams. For the first time I felt proud of the text—it is turning into a significant Taoist translation--—different from and superior to Wilhelm!” [FRK journal]. The next day I spent 6 straight hours working on the Taoist translation and typing up our final draft. By the 1st of August the final draft of our Taoist translation of all 64 hexagrams was all typed up on my typewriter by my hands.

That evening I noticed that the moon was full, an appropriate marker for the completion of this monumental task of Taoist translation. Gia-Fu gave me a hard back copy of his Chung Tsu text complete with his personal chop mark seal as well as calligraphy and the line “To Frank Stand on unknown Wander in nowhere Gia-Fu 1974”

The first week in August we all left. Gia-Fu and Jane left for Aspen, I took off to Boulder with my Xerox of our Taoist translation manuscript and Gia-Fu’s check refunding my room and board payment. After Gia-Fu left on my last night before leaving too, I took all 9 of us from Stillpoint out to Mexican restaurant for dinner with two pitchers of margaritas, after dinner whiskeys and smokes—I noted in my journal the wonders of credit cards.

I went from Stillpoint to Boulder, CO by bus. From the time I stepped off the bus I met various friends from earlier in my life, including a fellow who was with me over the entire course of the Survival Walk in 1970 culminating in the first Earth Day. I heard Naropa speak of the spiritual rebirth and Rimpoche talk about Tantra and then I saw him walking around with Allen Ginsberg (who I hadn’t seen since he gave a talk in the park during the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago).

The next day 8 August 1974 Nixon resigned. The Tao of 1974 took me on to visit old friends in Marin County, CA. I traveled by bus and hitchhiking to where I remembered their house was from our prior visits. I was tired and glad to get to bed.

Unfortunately, my friends were in the messy part of a marital break up. The next morning I was awakened by the sound of banging, crashing, breaking glass and my general uproar as my friends were violently fighting, or at least the husband was and grabbed his wife and forced her into their car and off to talk out their issues.

I found myself alone with their hysterical 2 year old in her crib awakened by the crashing and screaming and upset as I was. However, the small child pulled rank on me. Her upset trumped mine and I had to step up and be the calm comforting adult she needed that moment. After several hours of trying to calm the little girl down not even able to answer her question “Where is my Mommy?” she finally tired and went to sleep. I was grateful for the peace.

They came back about four hours later. They were able to talk about their issues. The wife decided she would soon take off for a week’s camping trip alone to sort out her feelings. The husband rapped with me about his and my visit continued with the whole family. The Tao of 1974 had brought me where I was needed at the moment when I could help.

By the 13th of August I was enjoying San Francisco, staying with my brother’s old girlfriend while I went downtown to the St. Francis Hotel for the astrology conferences. I didn’t find the AFA astrology convention of 4,000 all that interesting when I first arrived, but I enjoyed walking about Union Sq. and that area of SF.

I met Marc Jones that afternoon and he was most kind and welcoming, remembering me from my paper I had sent him. There were Sabian Assembly meetings each day at 6:30 pm after the AFA sessions. Marc would be giving workshops each day at noontime with a big meeting on for 5 hours on Saturday. I met up with the folks from the Chicago Sabian study group and I was well settled into the conference.

I had the opportunity to chat with Marc and we discussed my writing and I Ching work. He also made some editor’s remarks on my work. I enjoyed meeting him. I met several of the Sabian students who would be important in my life a bit later. Paul Meunier of Belgium had come to the conferences, and also Helen Lee, a Sabian student in whose home I would write my I Ching Primer a few years later. The Tao of 1974 was a remarkably powerful and efficient engine.

I had dinner with a fellow I met at the Conferences who had several housemates. One knew the I Ching hexagrams inside and out like me, another knew nothing of them. His annoyance at our conversation in hexagram numbers gave birth to the 2 natural number oracle technique explained more fully in the psychic reading section through the Nav Bar.

20 August 1974 I flew through Seattle airport with its beautiful views of the city and its surrounding waters to Spokane to join my mother for a visit to the World’s fair. We also visited my cousin Bob Kegan and his wife in her parents delightful place across the ID border out in the rustic woods.

The only thing I remember of the fair was visiting the Soviet Pavilion where they claimed the first fellow to translate Teilhard de Chardin’s work into Russian had discovered the Noosphere. This came in handy when I later read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and realized Smith and English supporters had done the same to Dr. Quesnay, the inventor of Physiocrat economic theory and the first (and perhaps only knowledgeable) economist.

I was back in Chicago in a few days, read my mail and learned I was expected in law school sooner than I thought. I would have only a few days to mail stuff to Boston and get ready to fly off to graduate school. I checked in with my friends from New Towne and another of my mother’s annual garden parties. During Labor Day weekend I flew off to Boston and started settling in to my apartment and my friends and family settled there.

The Tao of 1974 was still moving strong. It would take me through law school and on to Europe to discover the inner secrets of the I Ching hexagram structure which would become the essence of my Flux Tome insights. Those have expanded to include the explanation of the King Wen Sequence of the hexagrams, giving them their number values from 1-64.

Continue the Narrative to Flux Tome page

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