We love the layered profundity of the Yijing’s imagery – the way it can speak direct to the soul, giving us entirely new ways of seeing our situation. We know that the Vessel of Hexagram 50 might be a university, or a mindset, or a state of health, or any of countless sacred containers. We know that the Nourishment in hexagram 27 can be emotional, social or spiritual – we might take it as a cue to look at our deep needs, and how we are trying to meet them.
And also… sometimes a roof beam is just a roof beam. Sometimes the Yi is astonishingly direct.
14 line 2, for instance:
‘A great chariot to carry loads.
With a direction to go, no mistake.’
This line always makes me think of ‘vehicle’ in analysis of metaphor – that’s the image the metaphor gives us to think in. (For instance, if you call a beautiful woman a ‘rose’, the rose is the ‘vehicle’.) This line, with its connection to Hexagram 30, Clarity, can be about having a big enough idea or understanding that it can carry your whole life to a new place.
I’ve also seen it, several times, referring to a removal van.
Then there’s Hexagram 47, Confined: the name of the hexagram means to be trapped, surrounded, hard-pressed, hemmed in, in straits, exhausted, impoverished, and so on. We contemplate its trigrams, the powerful flow of water as the whole outer lake drains down into the inner stream, and reflect on the current of psychic energy downward and inward, away from interaction and into inner resolve. So did the Image authors, who saw the noble one ‘carrying out the mandate, fulfilling her aspiration’.
And it can also mean ‘Your car is boxed in by a fire engine.’
Yi can be very literal about the human body, too. This old tennis reading is one of my favourite examples, not least for the way the oracle was playing games with my expectations. In a similar vein (though less fun): Marien asked about her week ahead, casting first 39 unchanging – Limping, Difficulties – and then, when she asked what kind of difficulty, 34.1:
‘Vigour in the toes.
Setting out to bring order: pitfall.
There is truth and confidence.’
You might be able to guess what happened next – or you can read it here.
On the same thread, I came across Hexagram 27 as a reminder to eat lunch, and Hexagram 44 in answer to ‘How can we have a baby?’ (They did, and they did.)
And from the life-changing to the trivial, it turns out Yi also talks very literally about modern technology. I once struggled for a long time with a web page that refused to appear. Yi’s comment: 8.6: ‘Seeking union without a head.’ The page was missing its closing tag. And there’s this example with 48.1.3 to 60 talking about a stale cache of menu segments. Or – a bit less hopelessly geeky – 8.3 for an email sent to the wrong person.
…and so on...
Funnily enough, this occasional literalism is yet another reason why the oracle’s imagery can never be replaced by abstract explanations.
Of course, an image that applies absolutely literally might also have layers – which is only another way of saying that synchronicity happens. It often works that way for me: a reading’s imagery will be reflected very directly in daily life, and that will give me a picture of something bigger at work. Thank heavens for an oracle that explains things to me nice and slowly…