‘DIY’ tips for I Ching divination
Talking with Yi is a conversation – and with regular readings, we develop a relationship with the oracle. We habitually talk about it as a person: ‘Yi’ rather than ‘the Yi’; something we can ‘get to know’ rather than just ‘learn’; something that speaks. (The roots of the word ‘oracle’ are… Read more »Divination is a relationship
I’m very, very pleased to announce the birth of The Resonance Journal, version 2.0! With this version, you can: Print your entries …which also means you can use your computer’s ‘print to pdf’ driver to share individual entries. Protect your journal with a password And adjust the size and… Read more »New Resonance Journal, now with password and printing
The Yijing as a whole is a rather disconcerting book. It can say things we don’t understand, or, worse, things we understand perfectly well but don’t want to know. A reading can be reassuring, can reinforce your thinking, or it can give you a real jolt. ‘I have had this truly… Read more »How to make Yi less disconcerting
One of many interesting things I found in Richard J. Smith’s The I Ching: a biography was an account of Zhu Xi’s approach to divination. Zhu Xi (1120-1200) wrote firmly of Yi’s identity as an oracle, not just a ‘book of wisdom’. In addition to creating the yarrow method we use now,… Read more »Advice from Zhu Xi
Possibly the most Frequently Asked Question about interpreting readings: ‘This line says one thing, but that one says the opposite! How can I make sense of the reading when it contradicts itself?’ It happens a lot: you ask how to go about something, and one hexagram says it’s fruitful to… Read more »‘If, then’
When we approach a reading, we generally have some principles in mind for how the parts of the answer will fit together and work as a whole. In the beginners’ course on this site, I outline the framework I’ve found works best: the cast hexagram’s the basic answer, the relating (changed)… Read more »A framework for readings
How often have you heard someone say they need to consult with Yi (and perhaps need help with the interpretation) because they’re ‘too subjective’ or ‘too emotionally involved’ with the topic? In a way, that can be true. We can be too close to something, too caught up in its… Read more »Yi, emotions and decisions
