Introducing the 缶 fou jar Here’s another character that occurs just three times in the Yijing: fou 缶. This is a vessel for holding liquids, something like an amphora, with a narrow neck and large body. It’s originally a pottery jar – that’s the first meaning of the character –… Read more »Three pots
The background Early this year, I told people that I’d be running a Yijing Foundations Class in May. Not just the course, which is always available in a self-study version, but an online class with weekly video sessions, a private forum, and lots of individual help and opportunities to practise… Read more »Taking a decision with Yi’s help
What’s an annual reading for? Every year on my birthday, I cast a reading for the coming year. Not as a prediction – imagine the gloom and suspense if you spent a year under the shadow of 24.6! – but for guidance. Perhaps it’s a little like the people who… Read more »Getting started with my annual reading
I’ve written before about looking at groups of changing lines, and seeing how they point towards their changed hexagram – just as a single line would do. (I’ve just added all those posts to a series, so you can find them all easily.) Here’s another for the collection: Hexagram 62,… Read more »Clarity and the flying bird
Hexagram 30, Clarity, has a lot to say about understanding transience. The fourth line is especially emphatic: ‘Sudden, Comes, Burns, Dies, Thrown out.’ Here is something that flares up brightly, but dies away for lack of fuel. Wilhelm sees someone who ‘rises quickly to prominence but produces no lasting effects.’… Read more »A note on hexagram 30, line 4
Happy Diwali! I wondered what hexagram to write about for today… then learned from Wikipedia that ‘Diwali’ actually means ‘line of lights’ and that in Nepal, the first day of celebrations are marked by thank-offerings to the cow. So it had to be Hexagram 30. ‘Clarity. Harvest in constancy. Creating… Read more »Care of the cow
You never know what’s out there until you look… Here’s Gill, up in West Yorkshire, posting an introduction to the I Ching and also a couple of readings about it on her own blog. She asked about explaining it in this way, and received Hexagram 30, Clarity ( 🙂 )… Read more »Sometimes It’s Peaceful
