It’s a not-unfamiliar experience with readings: the oracle text of the hexagram says one thing, and then a moving line says something quite different. You probably know the basic principle: the moving line text takes precedence. It’s the ‘You Are Here’ sign to the hexagram’s overall scene-setting. Still, it’s worth… Read more »Puzzling over 54, line 1
In my last post, I mentioned all the meaning packed into a tiny space in Hexagram 56, line 6. The nest is burned, line 6 changes, and you can see the bird flying away, into Hexagram 62. Because the Yijing’s lines move, it creates this kind of magic all the… Read more »Hexagrams in conversation
In Part II, chapter 7 of the Great Treatise (Dazhuan), nine hexagrams are singled out. The authors of the Yi, it says, knew sorrow and disasters (or, specifically, they worried about disasters), and therefore… and it goes on to list the qualities of these nine hexagrams. You can read the… Read more »The ‘character’ hexagrams
If you’ve been working with Yi for a while, you’re probably familiar with the idea of looking at the hexagram each individual moving line would change to on its own, to give you a better context to understand its meaning. You might have heard them referred to as zhi gua,… Read more »Two-line changes
I’ve been looking at the patterns that take shape within the ‘container’ formed by hexagrams 3 and 50, and wondering what they might mean. Here’s a bit more wondering. It looks as though hexagrams 3 and 50, living energies and vessel, form a mould, within which an individual life (or… Read more »Casting the Vessel, so… (part 2)
También disponible en español Hexagram 10 tells you that you are ‘treading the tail of the tiger.’ The first question to ask yourself about it is always – naturally enough – ‘What tiger? Where?’ There is something here that could devour you; you need to know what it is. In… Read more »Hexagram 10, Treading
When I cast a reading for the week, sometimes I find the reading tells me about the week; sometimes I find the week tells me about the reading. And usually it’s some mix of the two. This last week Yi suggested I look out simply for Hexagram 10 – no… Read more »Hexagram 10 and the experience of divination
