Hexagram 49, Radical Change Fire in the lake: awareness shining through all kinds of human interaction and exchange. I’ve imagined before that this could be the shaman’s eyes shining through his mask; it’s certainly the light of astronomical awareness shining through the calendar. ‘In the centre of the lake there… Read more »Light inside: Hexagrams 49, 55 and 63
The character yue, a ‘summer offering’, is one of those interesting ones that appears three times in the Yi: ‘Being drawn. Good fortune, no mistake.With truth and confidence, it is fruitful to make the summer offering.’ Hexagram 45, line 2 ‘With truth and confidence, it is fruitful to make the… Read more »A small offering
People quite often ask me about the Yijing’s vocabulary of periods of time. But as I worked my way through them – seven days, three days, ten years… – I found one that I haven’t been asked about: a whole day. Just like seven days, three days and ten years,… Read more »All day
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
In my last post, I talked about how the Daxiang paints pictures of individual hexagrams, as a whole. In this one, I’d like to try a change of perspective, zooming in and zooming out, to see what comes into focus. Commentary on the lines The Image builds on and humanises… Read more »The genius of the Daxiang (part 2)
Recently, I heard someone say that the phrase ‘no mistake’, wu jiu 无咎, occurs so often in the Yijing that he tends to ignore it in readings. Well… you know how I generally feel about ignoring bits of readings… so, naturally, I dived back in to see what more I… Read more »Not a mistake
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
