Skip to content

Interpreting hexagrams

Comments on whole hexagrams, individual lines and so on

Another thought on Hexagram 14

The name of Hexagram 14 is Great Possession, and the character for ‘possessing’ also means ‘offering’ – suggesting that the two ideas are not so far apart as they might seem.

Interpreting this one, I’m often reminded of Molière’s play, The Miser. (Or was this in Plautus’s original, The Pot of Gold?) The miser has kept a pot of gold buried in his garden for years, sneaking off to gloat over it when no-one’s looking. Of course one day someone is looking, and the hoard is stolen, and he bewails his fate. Some witty character offers the consolation that he still has a dank hole in the ground to gaze down, so what has he really lost?

I Ching Community: 2.6, dueling dragons

I Ching Community Discussion Forum: 2.6 dueling dragons A great thread on hexagram 2, line 6: ‘Dragons battling in the fields, Their blood indigo and gold.’

ICC: Hexagram 3

Dobro asked, “How can it be advantageous to carry out what one thinks right, and at the same time to abstain from moving things in a conscious direction?” Helpful and thought-provoking answers here.

I Ching Community: Hexagrams of sleeping and dreaming?

I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Hexagrams of sleeping and dreaming? Peter asked, “what hexagrams reflect processes of sleeping and dreaming?” Some good – and interestingly different – suggestions are coming up. Do you dream in water, light or thunder?

A picture of Hexagram 44 from Paulo Coelho

:||||| Hexagram 44 seems to be the most-debated hexagram of the lot. Should we be afraid of what the yin line in the first place represents? Of encroaching evil, temptation, the thin end of the wedge? (Not to mention the unspeakable horrors of ‘a bold girl who lightly surrenders herself’.) Or should we be nurturing a new life, welcoming it with respect? Much discussion ensues.

When I read good books, I sometimes find myself wanting to pencil in a hexagram in the margins. These excerpts from Paulo Coelho’s Veronika decides to die seem to me to paint a vivid picture of Hexagram 44 – an aspect of it, at least.