It's a very interesting post, and rang lots of bells with me as a diviner. Metaphors get the job done for me, too, it's just that they were generally written down about 3,000 years ago. I even found one of 'your' metaphors, the top-heavy corn-stalk, to be a perfect match for one of Yi's. (Yi = the I Ching)
All of which made me wonder whether maybe some of Yi's miniature stories - a buckling ridgepole, a struggling pig, a lost horse that returns by itself... - might not have arrived here originally in much the same way yours did.
Anyhoo... I blogged about this and sent you a trackback, but it didn't show up.
Here's the article:
Where did the images come from? | 'Answers' I Ching blog