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I Ching

Which came first: trigrams or hexagrams?

I started a thread about this at the I Ching Community, and people have contributed some excellent information and ideas. Follow the link at the top of the page to get to the beginning of the discussion.

The prince

I first met Margaret Pearson at a talk she was giving in Clare Hall, Cambridge, about the Yijing and her upcoming translation. She handed out excerpts from her first drafts, including Hexagram 11, and I started reading with great interest. Simple, fluent translation… a couple of ‘why did I never realise that?’ moments… A gently lucid commentary that I can see myself quoting in readings in future.

Then I looked at the Image – and there, instead of the usual ‘ruler’ or ‘prince’, was the queen, ‘guid[ing] the natural forces of both sky and earth’. Oh dear, I thought. She’s just arbitrarily converting the male to the female, I thought. After all, this character means a male ruler, right?

Um. It ain’t necessarily so.

How long does a reading last?

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?

E-Jing-A-Ling Thing Hexagrams

E-Jing-A-Ling Thing Hexagrams – or ‘The hexagrams as you have (without doubt) never seen them before.’ In amongst the barking lunacy are insights. Ever conceived of hexagram 12 as ‘the Cabbage’? Also this page finally tells you what the answer is when a coin lands on its side: the Pi… Read more »E-Jing-A-Ling Thing Hexagrams

Taking a woman?

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?

The salient – from Harmen

The salient – Harmen’s Dagboek More from Harmen! This time Hexagram 58 gets the treatment, line by line, and once again we’re invited to rethink what we thought we knew.

What’s a webinar?

I just got an email asking this. Oops – very good question.

A webinar is like a seminar, but online – so participants can come from all over the globe. On the day, I will be sending out a link and global password to ticket-holders, and we will all log in to a glorified ‘chat room’. Unlike the ordinary kind, this has both text and voice chat, and I can also send out web pages for everyone to look at – which means I can display ‘slides’ of whatever we’re talking about. Also, if you come you can make your own recording of the complete event – voice, text and slides together – with a couple of mouse clicks.