Shock in the background I’ve been mulling over how Hexagram 51, Shock, feels as relating hexagram. After all, a relating hexagram is often the background to an answer – scene-setting, a personal theme, the chapter heading for this part of your life. How does something as abrupt as ‘Shock’ work… Read more »51, Shock, as relating hexagram
Eight hexagrams of the Yijing are formed from doubled trigrams (chong gua 重卦) – the same trigram above and below. These hexagrams give us the names of the trigrams. They also – as Bradford Hatcher explained – provide some of the best evidence that the original authors of the oldest… Read more »The eight doubled-trigram hexagrams
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
Ni, 泥 , simply means ‘mud’ – soil, putty, to daub with plaster. It’s the clay that was baked into bricks and tiles. I normally look for how a word is used in the Book of Songs, or the Book of Rites, but ni doesn’t appear anywhere in either of… Read more »Nothing quite like it
You know how the lines of some hexagrams unfold and tell a story? Hexagram 53 traces the journey of the wild geese; 1 follows the dragon’s journey across the skies; 48 describes well-repair. Well… I’m wondering whether something similar might not be happening in Hexagram 51. The name of the… Read more »The story of Shock
Thunderbolt and earthquake The name of Hexagram 51, zhen 震, means Shock, Quake, and encompasses both thunder and earthquake. (Nowadays there is a specific word for earthquake made of the components ‘earth’ and ‘zhen’.) The old character has two components: rain, and chen, the name of the fifth Earthly Branch in… Read more »Hexagram 51, Shock
As I’ve probably mentioned from time to time, I’m working on an enlarged and improved version of the Words of Change Yijing glossary, to be included as part of the upcoming journal software. This gives me the perfect excuse for lots of completely engrossing research and exploration into Yi, while… Read more »Marriage and Mandate
