Introducing the Zagua The Yi became the Yijing, a Classic book, as it grew its Ten Wings: ten bodies of commentary and reflections on the oracle and its hexagrams. The Zagua, ‘Mixed hexagrams’, is the tenth and last of these: a short, simple, rhyming description of the hexagrams in pairs.… Read more »A patchwork of hexagrams
The Yijing mentions rain several times – in Hexagram 9, and then in 38.6, 43.3, 50.3 and 62.5. What does it represent? Wilhelm, writing about 50.3, has a succinct answer: ‘The fall of rain symbolizes here, as in other instances, release of tension.’ Wilhelm is (here, as in other instances)… Read more »Rain
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
A set of three lines Something I learned from Scott Davis*: it’s worth taking a second look at anything that shows up in the Yijing in a set of three. *Though come to think of it, there are about eight reasons why I might’ve got a clue a little earlier…… Read more »Lost and found
Things that come in threes One of many things about Yi that I first became aware of when Scott Davis pointed it out: there’s a tendency for motifs to occur three times. (He gives the example of whether words are trusted – not in 43.4, not in 47 – not… Read more »Not robbers, but marital allies
The relating hexagram, the one revealed by the moving line changes, can show the aspect or quality of the cast hexagram embodied in those lines. One way to imagine this is to say to yourself, ‘The reading shows how [primary hexagram] might do [relating hexagram].’ That works well in readings, because… Read more »Nourished by synchronicity: 38 zhi 27
Back in 2007, I wrote about the nuclear family of Hexagram 37, People in the Home. That’s the four hexagrams that contain 37 as a nuclear, coiled in potential within their inner lines. If you unpack lines 2,3,4 and 3,4,5 from any of these hexagrams – – you see Hexagram… Read more »Nuclear families of 37 and 38
