‘See the great person’ (or ‘great people’) is one of the Yijing’s recurrent phrases: in Hexagram 1, lines 2 and 5, in the oracle texts of hexagrams 6, 39, 45, 46 and 57, and in 39, line 6. (There’s also just ‘great person’ – without the advice to see them… Read more »Seeing the Great Person (a story)
I’m experimenting with a different kind of post: taking just one line of the Yi, looking at what the translators and interpreters make of it, and seeing what I can learn from the different perspectives. Let’s start with the fifth line of Hexagram 44, Coupling – a strange line, in… Read more »Melon perspectives
It’s a common source of confusion and frustration with I Ching readings: ‘My answer has multiple moving lines, and they contradict one another. How am I supposed to make sense of this?’ Here’s an article to help you with that. Why ‘revisited’? Many years ago now, I wrote a rambling… Read more »Multiple moving lines, revisited
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
Name and nature: the enigma of guai Hexagram 43 is called 夬, guai, which is generally understood to mean‘decision’ or ‘resoluteness’ or ‘breakthrough’. The oldest forms of the character show a hand holding up an object – a token of authority, perhaps, or an archer’s thumb ring. In some early… Read more »Hexagram 43, Deciding
What is Jie 介 ? The character jie 介 occurs three times in the Yi: 16.2 ‘Boundaries of stone,Not for a whole day.Constancy, good fortune.’ 35.2 ‘Now advancing, now apprehensive.Constancy, good fortune.Accepting this armour blessing from your ancestral mother.’ 58.4 ‘Negotiating opening, not yet at rest.Containing the affliction brings rejoicing.’ As… Read more »Borders and boundaries
Talking with Yi is a conversation – and with regular readings, we develop a relationship with the oracle. We habitually talk about it as a person: ‘Yi’ rather than ‘the Yi’; something we can ‘get to know’ rather than just ‘learn’; something that speaks. (The roots of the word ‘oracle’ are… Read more »Divination is a relationship
