Hilary Barrett, I Ching

This is just a speculative post, or a starting point for speculation…
I’ve started thinking of the trigram li – fire and light – as being like eyes, particularly when it’s the inner trigram. Then sometimes it seems to look out at the outer trigram, and sometimes it seems to look through the outer trigram, as [...]

One of the fascinating things about the structure of the Yijing is the way one hexagram in a pair (an odd-numbered hexagram with the even-numbered one that follows it, that is) can point to the other. It might contain it, or imply it, or give you a different perspective on it, like looking at the [...]

Hexagram 34 is Great Vigour – or Power, or Strength. The old character shows a scholar, or an impressive man, and half the character for ‘tree’. It means robust, powerful, in the prime of life. Combined with the character for ‘great’ – a man standing straight – this gives a powerful impression of virile strength [...]

The other day, I responded to a client’s I Ching Course assignment about a reading with five moving lines. Since I’m not a fan of systems that reduce the number of moving lines (I reckon that if your answer were contained in a single moving line, you’d have received just that one), I always have [...]

You can learn a lot about moving lines in the Yijing by looking at where they’re headed – that is, the hexagram that would be generated if this line alone were changing. Arguing doesn’t lead to good fortune – unless it’s done in an awareness of being ‘Not Yet Across’. Returning that’s moved by a [...]

Hexagram 35: Advancing, Prospering, Flourishing – I love getting this one in readings and introducing people to it.
‘Prospering, Prince Kang used a gift of horses to breed a multitude.
He mated them three times in one day.’
(There are other possible translations – it could be that Kang was received at audience by the ruler three times [...]

Here’s a whole field of study where (as far as I know) we’ve barely scratched the surface.
Each hexagram line ‘points towards’ the hexagram created when it changes, its zhi gua. It’s natural enough to go through the I Ching line by line and see how each one reflects the relationship of its two hexagrams – [...]