Hilary Barrett, I Ching

Archive for May, 2008

Fire inside and outside

Saturday, May 31st, 2008

I first read this story in Women Who Run with the Wolves, and it was one of those ‘scribbling hexagrams in the margins’ moments for me. You can read a longer version of the tale here, but this is the core of it: Vassilissa was a beautiful young girl who lived with her father and [...]

The vessel with a jade handle

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

The Vessel, ding, is the name of hexagram 50. It refers to a particularly beautiful and sacred bronze vessel, fit for food to be shared with the ancestors, strong enough to inaugurate a dynasty. You move your ding by inserting a carrying handle through its ‘ears’, loops on its rim. Hexagram 50, line 6, says [...]

I Ching Challenges

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

In my latest members’ survey, I asked: “There are times for everyone when talking with the I Ching doesn’t feel as spontaneous and easy as it could be. The natural flow through asking, receiving an answer and integrating it into life gets blocked somehow. I’m interested in how you experience this: What’s the single biggest [...]

A note on hexagram 30, line 4

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Hexagram 30, Clarity, has a lot to say about understanding transience. The fourth line is especially emphatic: ‘Sudden, Comes, Burns, Dies, Thrown out.’ Here is something that flares up brightly, but dies away for lack of fuel. Wilhelm sees someone who ‘rises quickly to prominence but produces no lasting effects.’ Stephen Karcher sees ‘an omen [...]

Yijing software news

Monday, May 12th, 2008

If you’re interested in storing (and maybe also casting) your readings in Yijing software, you have a range of very good options nowadays – much better than a few years ago. The venerable San Shan Yijing is still available, with its outstanding functionality and contents somewhat obscured by a counter-intuitive interface. (You can judge this [...]

Hexagram 12 – negative souls?

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

I’ve been revisiting the idea of the ‘non-people’ in hexagram 12. The most helpful way to understand them, most of the time, is as people we regard, for whatever reason, as not quite ‘like us’ enough to be real. Most of the time, the problem is with the labelling and consequent failure of communication, not [...]

I Ching glossary available now to Friends

Monday, May 5th, 2008

In case you missed the notices in the forum… the Words of Change Yijing glossary is available now from your membership information page. It doesn’t yet have a formal sales page, but you can read a little more about it here. Just for this week (until Saturday 10th May) it’s only available from the membership [...]