Hilary Barrett, I Ching

I’ve been reading Multiplicity: the new science of personality by Rita Carter. I’m only part way through, so this isn’t a good representation of the book, just half an idea that struck as I was reading. The basic thesis of the book is this: your character as an individual is not so ‘individual’ (ie indivisible) [...]

This is from Havi at Fluent Self, who once again is writing about Yi without knowing it. This time she’s unwittingly explaining Hexagram 11, line 1, as a matter of fractal flowers. Hexagram 11 is about Flow, working with it or creating it or stepping into it. There is no issue here with lack of [...]

On the one hand, ‘Already Across’ is certainly a good, literal translation of the name of Hexagram 63. The old character for ‘already’ shows someone turned away from a food pot, implying a completed action. The historical resonances of the book as a whole imply that this is the moment when the Zhou have already [...]

This morning I picked up a book at random, opened it at random, and found myself reading what Thomas Moore has to say about jealousy in Care of the Soul. He relates it to the myth of Hippolytus, a young man who was a devotee of the goddess Artemis, something of a misogynist, avoided women [...]

‘Gradual advance. The woman marries. Good fortune. Constancy bears fruit.’ Hexagrams 53 and 54, Gradual Advance and the Marrying Maiden, are what Stephen Karcher calls ‘The Great Marriages’. So what does ‘marriage’ mean? To a large extent, that depends on your perspective: in old China, marriage for the man means opening his home to a [...]

The more closely I look at the Image – the Daxiang wing, I mean – the more I think whoever wrote it was a sage. One tiny example… you know how most of the hexagrams’ Images tell you what the ‘noble one’ would do? And then there are three that tell you about the prince, [...]

I’m sorry to go so quiet lately. I’ve been having wonderful experiences with Yi, and readings, and connections and shifts happening… and all to do with clients’ readings, so I can never share them here in public. (I’m very happy that I’m blessed with clients who share my joy in these things and laugh in [...]