Guanyin fortune stick
7
Lower stick
On the road, blocked again and again by danger,
dragging through mud and water, then over mountains,
you still hope to seek your fortune in some far place,
thousands of miles away, and cannot get back.
jadealmanac.com
Wading through mud and water belongs to Su Ying, a queen of folk ballad set in the reign of King Jing of Zhou. When a western kingdom sent a talking parrot as tribute, only she could coax it to speak, and the king's praise turned a rival consort, Mei Yuchun, against her. Framed on a capital charge, she was saved only because a loyal minister, Pan Ge, let his own wife die in her place. Su Ying fled by night and, on the road, gave birth to the crown prince at the White Horse Temple. The story is ballad tradition rather than history. Exile, danger behind, no road back: that is the lower grade of this stick, and the reason its verdict prefers holding your ground to setting out.
Rushing about, blocked at every turn, danger on danger: the line piles up obstacles the way a hard road piles up stages. Readers take it as a plan meeting resistance from several sides.
Dragging through mud and water is a common phrase for messy, unfinished business that clings. Crossing mountains after it adds distance and labor, so interpreters expect slow, dirty progress.
Hoping to find work in a far place echoes the old gamble of leaving home for better prospects. Here the line treats that hope itself as the mistake.
A thousand villages and ten thousand miles is the stock measure of hopeless distance. The real cost, temple readers say, is that the move cannot easily be undone once made.
奔波阻隔重重险
带水拖泥又渡山
更望他乡求用事
千乡万里未能还
Seven characters a line, as printed in the BW Monastery edition.
Sources for the story: https://www.k366.com/guanyin/28784.htm; https://services.shen88.cn/chouqian/guanyin-7.html; https://www.masterseanchan.com/guanyin-oracle/lot-7/; https://www.fatekeep.com/blog/3640.
Optional: the temple way
At a temple the stick is not yours until two moon blocks agree: one flat side up and one round side up, a holy cup.
Stick 7, "Wading Through Mud and Water", is a lower stick, a cautionary stick. Step back and you gain, step forward and it's hard; keep to what you have, and don't reach too high.
Do good works and pray for the bond.
Very good in the second half; business average.
Keep your feet on the ground and guard what you've built.
Draw another stick , or for a straight yes or no, throw the moon blocks
The verse follows the BW Monastery edition of the Guanyin set; the English rendering and reading are Jade Almanac's own. A drawn stick is a tradition and a prompt for reflection, not advice about health, money or the law.
