Some Yijing imagery is immensely straightforward to relate to. I was having the ‘What do you do?’ conversation a few weeks ago, and a friend asked me what kind of thing readings said, and how they answered questions. ‘Imagine,’ I said, ‘you’re asking about taking on a new voluntary role,… Read more »Crime and punishment
I’ve written about the trigram li, fire and light, and the role it plays as inner trigram, inside the hexagram. Here’s a look at fire on the outside… In the ‘Trigram Associations’ pdf that’s part of the Yijing Foundations Course, I simply wrote that, The outer li illumines more expansively, with less concentrated focus… Read more »Fire outside: hexagrams 14 and 21
Make hay while the sun shines Hexagram 35 is one of the sunniest in the Yijing: ‘Advancing, Prince Kang used a gift of horses to breed a multitude.In the course of a day, he mated them three times.’ Look, it says, you are recognised, you have wonderful gifts, and now… Read more »35 as relating hexagram
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of a ‘culture hero’: A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group (cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or discovery. Chinese mythology seems to be especially full of these: people who are recognised as heroic because they invented millet farming,… Read more »Hexagrams as culture heroes
The Xugua – its scope and limits As you may know, I’m a huge enthusiast for the Sequence of Hexagrams: its hidden patterns, the ways it creates meaning, its big reflections and arcs and the way it adds depth to readings. The Xugua, the 9th Wing… is not really about… Read more »Telling the story
Complementary hexagrams are paradoxical things. On the one hand, there is no hexagram more different from 21, Biting Through than 48, the Well: Every line is changed, so they have nothing in common. If it’s time to bite through, then it is exactly not time for well-maintenance. And on the other… Read more »A shared dao of 21 and 48
Another example reading for you, this one for Jennifer Louden, whom I just introduced. I’m reading for as many of the Festival of Change speakers before the event as would like to be read for – obviously, not everyone has something share-able going on that calls for a reading. But… Read more »A reading for Jennifer
