Editorial JCM 131

So here we are - another year over, a new one just begun … Let’s hope that the water rabbit brings less challenges than the rat, ox and tiger. On this note, on new year’s eve (Gregorian) I did my annual reflection on the previous year, then looked forwards into 2023 to ask myself what would be important. I use a list of questions to guide my thinking; the first one is, ‘What were your aims in the last year?’ I realised that I had not actually done any such goal-setting for over two years. Somehow it had not seemed appropriate or worthwhile in such tumultuous times. I had been aimless - a leaf blowing in the pandemic winds. A Taoist take on this might be that I had chosen ‘free and easy wandering’ as a response to the chaos. Perhaps I was ‘in accord with the times’, as one translation of the I Ching puts it. The I Ching can be refreshing in this way; so often we want to engage in dynamic, exciting, yang action - but one of the best pieces of advice I have received was the I Ching telling me that to be in accord with the times I should … limp!*