Yin-Yin-Yin-Rén
The yin breath takes shape below,
and things all turn upstream to meet it.
1
He goes out to meet somebody who is not the answer.
Nothing straight in it, and something crooked.
They were never going to stand side by side.
2
The water-dragon lies deep in the pool.
Up on the hill its eggs open anyway.
A man says something quietly and a whole people answers.
3
Something fine goes back and forth.
The uncanny thing notices before anyone holy does.
That noticing is itself the omen.
4
The skirt has found its jacket.
His eye like a pearl, her pin catching the light.
Straight. The dark has moved the bright.
5
Yellow sits in the middle and rides there.
It is not upright.
Nobody should stand next to it.
6
Black goes out to meet yellow, heaven to meet earth.
What passes between them keeps moving.
Like calls to like and gets an answer.
7
Far away he curses him, close up he hits him.
Then he meets his father by accident.
He has lost track of what a father is.
8
Blood comes in at the gate.
He meets it in the courtyard and holds it there.
The good men around him are the wall.
9
The damp comes up to meet the legs of the bed.
It works its way into the wall and then the roof.
The falling started inside.
THE IMAGE
An imperial greeting delegation with silk canopies, ceremonial halberds, and bronze horns meeting an arriving foreign envoy and diplomatic caravan at the ornate southern city gates.
THE COMMENTARY
Something is coming toward you, and you are also moving toward it. The encounter may be a person, opportunity, challenge, truth, or consequence that has already begun shaping the situation before the meeting becomes visible.
Meeting asks for discernment because not every approach is the right one. Some encounters join things that belong together; others bring incompatible forces into proximity and reveal that closeness alone cannot create harmony.
Do not rush toward what merely answers your desire to be met. Pay attention to recognition, correspondence, and timing. The right meeting often feels less like conquest than like two movements finally reaching the place where each can answer the other.