‘DIY’ tips for I Ching divination
Something I just tried, that seems to work quite well: putting a question to Yi, reflecting on the answer – and drawing a single tarot card as a cue – or a clue – to ways to think about it. Asking what I needed to reflect on about helping more… Read more »I Ching and tarot together
On his TarotTools site, Mark McElroy keeps coming up with creative suggestions for tarot ‘exercises’ – which, with the minimum of adaptation, could just as well become questions for mind-stretching I Ching readings. A recent article of his, Make Better Choices, suggests questions such as, ‘What core value might I… Read more »Good ideas from tarot
Someone asked me in an email about what special qualities you need to read the Yijing, and about how intuitive I am. Eeek. 😯 When I first started out with Yi, I would have had a short and simple answer to that second question: not in the least intuitive. The… Read more »What gifts do you need to read the Yijing?
I imagine anyone who’s consulted with Yi must have had the experience. Ask question; receive answer; say ‘Huh??’
And this is where it’s easy to go wrong – where the desire that caused us to ask in the first place won’t accept this lack of clarity, and we find a reason to ask another question, quick. (I touched on this in my post on ‘How long does a reading last?‘ – in response to which Steve Marshall pointed out that answers to big questions can last ten years and more.)
Here’s a very-frequently asked question. This relationship may have been going ecstatically well or this project may have been an intolerable risk yesterday/ last week/ last month, but is that still the case? How long does a reading apply for?
There’s a phrase in the Judgements of hexagrams 31 and 44, along with 4, line 2: ‘taking a woman’. Its usual interpretation is ‘taking to wife’, though it’s the same word used to mean ‘take by force’ or ‘capture an animal’. What are we to make of the phrase? And does it mean something different in readings for men and women? And what have translators and commentators made of it?
I often get emails asking what the I Ching is and how to get started. And while there is enough to reflect on in the I Ching and its traditions to keep anyone engrossed for several lifetimes, getting started with it is absurdly simple.
