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Index of posts
This month's podcast features one of those readings where Yi really takes your breath away: 'How beneficial would it be for me to join the next course on family constellations?' Yi's response: Hexagram 18, Corruption, changing at lines 2, 3, 4 and 6 to 16, Enthusiasm. changing to Lux (as ...
This is another post about the differences between hexagrams: this time, Hexagrams 23, Stripping Away, and 41, Decreasing. Both are about loss, about ending up with less, and - given human nature - we tend not to be pleased to receive either one. But how are they different? Names and ...
As you might have guessed from the title of this episode, it's about a reading with Hexagram 22, Beauty, changing at line 1 to 52, Stilling: changing to It was all about becoming imperfectly visible - which the reading's owner has just begun to do on her Youtube channel... https://livingchange.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/episode48.mp3 ...
There's more than one story of the Yi's origins… Mythical origins The story begins in the 29th century BCE with Fuxi, China's first emperor, who may have had the body of a serpent. It was through his insight that the trigrams were discovered, and people could begin to understand their ...
An annual reading, this time: the first thing Maria does on her birthday is to sit down and ask to be shown a reading for the coming year. Here's hers for 2023-24: Hexagram 36, Brightness Hiding, with no changing lines. Since this was an unchanging reading, we had the time ...
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 ...
I've written before about Yi's kindness, but it's something I keep rediscovering. There's the gentleness of its responses to people in crisis - all degrees of crisis, without judgement. One of my own favourite readings comes from a moment when I suddenly felt I'd experienced the final straw, had nothing ...
In this episode, Katarina and I discuss her reading about moving to a new part of the country - Hexagram 7, the Army, changing at line 2 to 2, Earth: changing to As we talk about her plans, you can hear the qualities of the hexagrams - that meeting of ...
We love the layered profundity of the Yijing's imagery - the way it can speak direct to the soul, giving us entirely new ways of seeing our situation. We know that the Vessel of Hexagram 50 might be a university, or a mindset, or a state of health, or any ...
Confusion... Hexagram 8's called bi, Seeking Union or Belonging (or Union, Alliance, Grouping, Joining, Holding Together, Closeness...)
And Hexagram 13 is tong ren, People in Harmony (or Fellowship, Cooperation, Community, Union of Men...) According to the dictionary, we have one hexagram name that means (amongst other things) 'to share with, join, ...
And Hexagram 13 is tong ren, People in Harmony (or Fellowship, Cooperation, Community, Union of Men...) According to the dictionary, we have one hexagram name that means (amongst other things) 'to share with, join, ...
A reading where we already knew the outcome - which really gives us a chance to learn from it! The reading's about a family argument, and pausing to find a new way to respond, and the advice was Hexagram 5, Waiting, changing at lines 2 and 3 to 3, Sprouting: ...
Clarity's recent member survey (still open here if you missed it) is teaching me a lot about who I'm writing for, how to help, what to improve, and so on - thank you for taking it! Still, I think my favourite part, the question I'm most glad to have asked, ...
Episode 44 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast is about an artist getting started with showing her art, one step at a time - Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward, changing to the Repeating Chasms of Hexagram 29, which made their presence felt as an emotional background. changing to I hope ...
Hexagrams - you probably know this - come in pairs: 1 with 2, 3 with 4, and so on, through to 63 with 64. Sometimes it's obvious why a pair of hexagrams belong together, sometimes less so. It only really sank in for me recently why Hexagram 43, Deciding, would ...
Have you ever tried to explain your relationship with the I Ching to someone? Maybe explaining how you took a decision, solved a problem, reached an insight? Or do you find it simpler just to avoid the subject altogether? Naturally, I find myself mentioning the oracle more often than most: ...
Abundance, the citadel Hexagram 55 is Feng, Abundance - which is also the name of the Zhou interim, military capital city where they prepared, gathered allies and resources and watched the heavens for signs of their mandate to overthrow the Shang dynasty. So its themes include having an abundance of ...
A new listener's reading for this podcast episode: 'What to expect in this relationship?' And Yi's answer - changing to Hexagram 41, Decreasing, changing to 26, Great Tending (or Taming or Nurturing...), with changing line 3: 'Three people walking,
Hence decreased by one person.
One person walking,
Hence gains a friend.' Hexagram 41, ...
Hence decreased by one person.
One person walking,
Hence gains a friend.' Hexagram 41, ...
When I was preparing for our latest Well Gathering on the subject of Hexagram 6, I posted the above image to Facebook and invited people to guess the hexagram. The first guess posted was Hexagram 38 - which is completely understandable, but it got me thinking... The muddle Both hexagrams ...
...to Clarity, that is, and all its members. I registered the domain name 'onlineClarity.co.uk' on 26th April 2000, so I reckon this is our birthday. So for our 24th, I commissioned an upgrade to the Hexagram Search feature of the I Ching Community, and that's just gone live today. As ...
Question: "What advice can be offered for more effectively providing meditative peace and healing through playing Shakuhachi flute music?" Answer: Great Vigour in Flow. changing to A Yeeky thing I mentioned during this reading: the idea of a dabagua, or 'big trigram' hexagram. If you take the trigram dui, lake ...
Alberto Ramon has been developing his approach to Yijing readings for many years now, and recently published a new book: Conversations with the I Ching. Its subtitle: 'An intuitive approach to understanding the answers, with 85 explained readings.' I'm finding it a worthwhile read. What I like about this book ...
Hexagram 53, Gradual Progress, has two lines about the high plateau: 'The wild geese gradually progress to the high plateau.
The husband marches out and does not return,
The wife is pregnant, but does not raise the child.
Pitfall.
Fruitful to resist robbers.' Hexagram 53, line 3 'Wild geese gradually progress to the high ...
Question: 'What do I need to know as I prepare to finish this book and send it out into the world?' Answer: Hexagram 2, Earth, changing at lines 4 and 6 to 35, Advancing: changing to As Kat and I discussed this one in this latest podcast episode, we mentioned ...
On the one hand... ... it makes me unhappy to hear that someone isn't consulting the Yijing because they 'don't have time'. This is distressing and unnecessary. You can connect to a reading intuitively in a matter of minutes, have that unmistakable sense of being spoken to, and develop an ...
There are two lines in Hexagram 27, Nourishment, that refer to 'rejecting the standard': ‘Unbalanced nourishment.
Rejecting the standard, looking to the hill-top for nourishment.
Setting out to bring order – pitfall.’ Hexagram 27, line 2 'Rejecting the standard,
Dwelling here with constancy: good fortune.
Cannot cross the great river.' Hexagram 27, line 5 ...
Rejecting the standard, looking to the hill-top for nourishment.
Setting out to bring order – pitfall.’ Hexagram 27, line 2 'Rejecting the standard,
Dwelling here with constancy: good fortune.
Cannot cross the great river.' Hexagram 27, line 5 ...
This episode of the podcast could also be entitled 'light dawns in the end,' as it took a while for me to join all the dots between the querent's situation and the reading. It's a great example of how Yi talks to the whole person, though, as well as answering ...
Some Yijing imagery is immensely straightforward to relate to. I was having the 'What do you do?' conversation a few weeks ago, and a friend asked me what kind of thing readings said, and how they answered questions. 'Imagine,' I said, 'you're asking about taking on a new voluntary role, ...
Hexagram 36, Brightness Hiding, might be one of the easiest to connect with. Isn't there a story in the Sorrells' I Ching Made Easy of someone in an abusive relationship who received Hexagram 36 and broke down in tears of recognition and relief when she heard the story of Ji ...
The listener's reading for this episode has an unusual premise: Beebee was trying to work out why what she was trying to manifest in her life wasn't happening. Where was the block? She asked, "What actions are needed from me in order to achieve my desires?" And Yi responded with ...
Tradition tells us that Hexagram 63, Already Crossing, has its trigrams in the right places: water is above fire, like the pan on the stove; things are cooking; everything is in good working order. And then by contrast, Hexagram 64, Not Yet Crossing, with the same two trigrams in reverse ...
A new podcast reading: how to find more fulfillment in life? Not (in this reading) by doing stuff - more by feeling your way deeply into experience. The answer was Hexagram 57, changing at lines 2 and 3 to 20, Seeing: changing to I quoted from LiSe Heyboer's page on ...
There's a well-established tradition that these trigrams portray fast-moving fire burning through mountain vegetation.
Kong Yingda (574-648AD) wrote, 'When fire is on top of the mountain, it races through the grass and shrubbery, a condition that does not leave it in one place for long. Thus this provides the image for ...
Kong Yingda (574-648AD) wrote, 'When fire is on top of the mountain, it races through the grass and shrubbery, a condition that does not leave it in one place for long. Thus this provides the image for ...
The trigram picture of Hexagram 50, the Vessel, is a dynamic one: wood in the fire, burning. The wood is becoming fire; the food in the vessel is cooking for the ritual meal. 'The vessel.
From the source, good fortune.
Creating success.' Hexagram 50, the Oracle This is an exceptionally fortunate beginning, ...
From the source, good fortune.
Creating success.' Hexagram 50, the Oracle This is an exceptionally fortunate beginning, ...
Hexagram 23, Stripping Away, is not generally much fun. Of course, we all know there is no such thing as a negative hexagram. But it's a rare reading when the sight of 23 fills one with joy. Stripping away means loss; usually, it means having something taken from you that ...
Episode 37 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast features a listener's reading. She's wondering whether her desire to create a business is her real path, or whether she could be losing herself. Her reading - Hexagram 48, the Well, changing at line 3 to 29, Repeating Chasms: changing to ...
The next three hexagrams with trigram li outside are 30, Clarity (doubled li, inside and out), 35, Advancing (fire over the earth) and 38, Opposing (fire above the lake). Each one has a different kind of trigram interaction, but the outer light always seems to be expanding awareness: spreading the ...
Episode 36 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast - a reading of my own, received in a way that might be new to you. I was asking for guidance in a new situation, and the response was Hexagram 27, Nourishing, changing to 54, the Marrying Maiden. (The completely positive ...
The Yijing Foundations Class is an opportunity to learn all the essentials for clear, confident readings, in a small group of up to 12 students. This gives you the best of both worlds: all the individual support you need, plus the chance to learn from your fellow-students' readings, experiences, questions ...
I've written about the trigram li, fire and light, and the role it plays as inner trigram, inside the hexagram. Here's a look at fire on the outside... In the 'Trigram Associations' pdf that's part of the Yijing Foundations Course, I simply wrote that, The outer li illumines more expansively, ...
A podcast reading with two radically contrasting hexagrams: 23, Stripping Away, changing to 42, Increasing: changing to Maria's question: 'How should I lead my spiritual life to know the truth?' In this reading, she and Yi trace a path through what seems like an impossible situation. Links I mention in ...
The muddle If you're new to the I Ching, you could be forgiven for wondering why there are apparently two hexagrams called 'Obstruction': Hexagram 12 (according to such translators as Cleary and Richter) and Hexagram 39 (according to Balkin, amongst others). Neither hexagram is one you'd generally rejoice to see ...
I went away for a week this summer and met a lot of new people. As you can imagine, the "what do you do?" conversations are always interesting for me. "What do you do?"
"Divination, with the I Ching." And once we had got past the "you do what with the ...
"Divination, with the I Ching." And once we had got past the "you do what with the ...
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 ...
Adeola shared a remarkable question and reading for this episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast: "How is this travelling life shaping my character? (what kind of person am I becoming?)" Yi's response: Hexagram 14, Great Possession, changing to 53, Gradual Progress: changing to I hope you enjoy this ...
36, Brightness Hiding With Hexagrams 13 and 22, and maybe even 30, I could build up a picture of how li inside projected its light through the outer trigram, bringing awareness and enlightenment to it. When I get to Hexagram 36, with light inside earth, this becomes altogether trickier. It's ...
Recently, when I don't have any particular news to link to, I've taken to making my forum signature read, "You are the expert on your own readings." I've found this is something people really need to hear. There's a very widespread tendency to rush to commentaries, or the helpful people ...
One intriguing way to learn more about hexagrams is to study them in groups: contrasts and opposites, groups that are joined in sequence, nuclear families, and so on. Recently, I've been looking at the groups of hexagram that share a trigram in the same position, like for instance mountain on ...
Episode 33 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast features a listener's reading about moving to a new country. How best to make a positive transition to this new place, wherever it may be? The Oracle answered with Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, changing at line 2 to Hexagram 40, Release: changing ...
Before you start reading this article, or anything anyone writes about how to consult the Yijing, do bear in mind that there are no rules for this. All I can share is what I've found works best in readings, for myself and for other people: the approach that will help ...
'Where to go?' was Lilian's reading for this episode of the podcast; Yi answered with Hexagram 47, Confining, changing at lines 2 and 4 to 8, Seeking Union - changing to - which is a lovely example of Yi answering the person even when I couldn't quite see how it ...
It probably shouldn't surprise me to discover that 57, Subtly Penetrating, as relating hexagram is very hard to pin down. That seems to be just the nature of the hexagram. But the most general way of looking at a relating hexagram still works here: imagine how the primary hexagram is ...
In this episode, Katie - a psychotherapist in training - asks, "What do I most need to know right now?" Behind this question lies a worry that she ought to be doing more, or achieving faster or maybe starting a side business: she was wondering, she said, whether she ought ...
The Yi is an oracle; it speaks. (The word 'oracle' has its roots in the Latin orare, to speak, and oraculum, the name of the priest/ess who gave voice to the god.) Other oracles people use now, like tarot, have interpreters to speak their meanings, but Yi is unique: it ...
Here's the 30th episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast - a short one, this time, with a reading of my own. I asked for an auspice or advice for joining a new orchestra, and received Hexagram 38, Opposing, changing at lines 2 and 4 to 27, Nourishment: changing ...
Make hay while the sun shines Hexagram 35 is one of the sunniest in the Yijing: 'Advancing, Prince Kang used a gift of horses to breed a multitude.
In the course of a day, he mated them three times.' Look, it says, you are recognised, you have wonderful gifts, and now ...
In the course of a day, he mated them three times.' Look, it says, you are recognised, you have wonderful gifts, and now ...
Here's a new episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast for you, with a listener's reading about a relationship problem that a lot of people will be able to relate to. Danielle's reading was Hexagram 41, Decreasing, changing to 42, Increasing: changing to Seven minutes or so into the ...
As you might know, I'm very keen on keeping things as simple as possible - not least the questions we ask the Yijing. But this can cause some bafflement when I advise against asking questions that are looking for a 'yes' or a 'no' answer. What could be simpler than ...
At the very end of Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, in its final line, 'results bring a change of heart': 'Enthusiasm in the dark.
Results bring a change of heart,
No mistake.' And then at the very beginning of Hexagram 17, Following, its first line begins with an official's change of heart: 'An official ...
Results bring a change of heart,
No mistake.' And then at the very beginning of Hexagram 17, Following, its first line begins with an official's change of heart: 'An official ...
A couple of things I've noticed at the I Ching Community…
- how much good, natural, intuitive interpretation goes on there, and also
- how if people get stuck, it's often because they haven't looked at the whole reading.
In this podcast episode, Elisabeth asks Yi, 'What approach or attitude should I adopt to have the best chance of serving other people through my writing?' Yi answers with Hexagram 61, Inner Truth, changing at lines 1, 4 and 6 to Hexagram 47, Confining - very apt hexagrams, as the ...
Eight hexagrams of the Yijing are formed from doubled trigrams (chong gua 重卦) - the same trigram above and below.
- Qian, Creative Force, Hexagram 1
- Kun, Earth, Hexagram 2
- Xi Kan, Repeating Chasms, Hexagram 29. (For some reason, this hexagram alone mentions 'repeating' in its name.)
- Li, Clarity, Hexagram ...
Three lines Here's another phrase that appears three times in the Yijing: 富以其鄰, fu yi qi lin, 'rich in one's neighbours'. In 9.5, you are rich in your neighbours - 'There is truth and confidence as a bond.
Rich in your neighbours.' while in 11.4 and 15.5, you aren't - 'Fluttering, ...
Rich in your neighbours.' while in 11.4 and 15.5, you aren't - 'Fluttering, ...
In this 27th episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast, Anita shares a reading about trusting her new relationship. She received Hexagram 30, Clarity, with no changing lines - the hexagram made by doubling the trigram li, fire and light: 'Unchangingness' can colour a hexagram's meaning in interesting ways ...
I've just added another ebook to the little 'library' page of free downloads for all Clarity members. It's a handy compilation of the articles I wrote this year about periods of time in the Yijing: 'seven days', 'three days', 'ten years' and 'all day'.
Hexagram 8... ...is called bi 比, which means…
- association, neighbouring, being close together
- matching, joining, belonging with
- comparison, analogy, metaphor
A reading of my own for this episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast: what are the characteristics of a good question? Yi answered with Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, changing at line 2 to 40, Release: changing to I've written about 16.2 a couple of times before - about its ...
To celebrate my upcoming birthday, I'm doing something I've never done before - making a big, fat special offer on Change Circle, the membership that's the heart of Clarity. Just briefly - from now until Wednesday, December 7th - you can get lifetime access to Change Circle for a single ...
I mentioned in a recent post how the hexagram picture of Hexagram 38, gui, Opposing, looks like the eyes in its name. The six lines together illustrate two eyes that see differently, or squint - which is one of the meanings of gui. What about the trigram picture, though - ...
In this episode, Tricia shares her reading about how to leave a conflict behind. Yi answered with Hexagram 59, Dispersing, changing at lines 2, 4 and 5 to 35, Advancing: changing to It's a remarkable reading - I really enjoyed exploring it with her, and I hope you will, too ...
On not knowing the first thing about the Yi Back in 2015, I titled a post, 'I don't know the first thing about the Yi'. By this I meant not knowing how it came to be - how people first knew that a certain pattern of lines belonged with certain ...
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 summer ...
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 summer ...
Well, this is fun, isn't it? Shortening days, falling temperatures and prices leaping joyfully as the newborn lamb. So, though it makes me very happy when people buy things from me - seriously, I do appreciate you! - I thought I'd write a post about what's available here at Clarity ...
In this episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast, Rachel asks the Yi how she can 'lose habitual hardship' - shift her experience so not everything is about crisis management! Yi answers with Hexagram 26, Great Taming, changing at lines 1 and 6 to 46, Pushing Upward: changing to ...
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, ...
It's only natural that we should turn to the Yijing with medical questions: we're vulnerable, uncertain and out of our depth, facing the unknown, so of course we want to consult the oracle. Or if we encounter someone else dealing with a medical crisis who asks for a reading, of ...
A listener's reading for this episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast: Vidia asked, 'How can I move forward and be of service?' Yi answered with Hexagram 8, Seeking Union, with no changing lines - a beautifully simple answer that gave us the opportunity for a deep dive into ...
Here's another period of time mentioned three times in the Yijing: 'Corruption. Creating success from the source.
Fruitful to cross the great river.
Before the seed day, three days. After the seed day, three days.' 'Brightness hidden, flying away,
His wings hanging down.
The noble one is on the move,
For three days, eats nothing,
Has ...
Fruitful to cross the great river.
Before the seed day, three days. After the seed day, three days.' 'Brightness hidden, flying away,
His wings hanging down.
The noble one is on the move,
For three days, eats nothing,
Has ...
A Change Circle member recently mentioned getting a whole series of readings with 15 as relating hexagram, so I thought I'd dig in and explore how it works there, as the background to a reading… Integrity, humility… The name of Hexagram 15, qian 謙, means humility - or perhaps integrity, ...
Why ten years? Years, in the Yijing, usually come in threes. I've counted seven mentions of 'three years', most of them indicating a long period when something doesn't happen:
- 13.3 three years without rising up
- 29.6 three years without gain
- 47.1 and 55.6, three years without meeting anyone
- 53.5 three years without pregnancy
- 63.3 ...
In which you will encounter hesitation, second-guessing, repetitious readings, decision, 'contradictory' moving lines (what do you do with those?), a good dose of common sense and a particularly persistent troll. Also these readings... Hexagram 18, Corruption, changing at line 3 to 4, Not Knowing: changing to Hexagram 49, Radical Change, ...
People often ask about the significance of the specific periods of time mentioned in the Yijing. Does this literally mean seven days, or ten years? Very occasionally, it can - but normally, these periods have symbolic value. It's interesting to see that 'seven days' get three mentions in the Yijing: ...
Sergio asked a big question for this podcast reading: how to deal with his sense that his life lacked meaning. Yi's response was quite a modest, domestic one: Hexagram 37, People in the Home, changing at the fifth line to 22, Beauty: changing to 'With the king's presence, there is ...
Measuring Hexagram 60 is called Measuring, or Limits - not in the sense of imposing restrictions, but of knowing where the edges are, and discovering or negotiating what's workable. The original concept is the knots and segments of bamboo, and hence all ways of dividing up something big into smaller ...
Something I just came across… Alan Seale, in Create a World that Works ( a book I haven't read, and no doubt should) described four levels of engagement with experience - from the most easily accessible to the most creative: Drama - the blow-by-blow, he-said-she-said reliving of events, in a ...
The Yijing is an optimistic oracle: omens of good fortune come more often than those of misfortune. But on four* occasions, it goes one step further and promises great good fortune: 'Enriching the home.
Great good fortune.'Hexagram 37, line 4 'Great good fortune, no mistake.'Hexagram 45, line 4 'Welcomed pushing upward,
Great ...
Great good fortune.'Hexagram 37, line 4 'Great good fortune, no mistake.'Hexagram 45, line 4 'Welcomed pushing upward,
Great ...
'Not yet across, creating success.
The small fox, almost across,
Soaks its tail:
No direction bears fruit.' There are ten places where the Yi says that 'no direction bears fruit', or (in the Wilhelm/Baynes version) 'nothing furthers': 4.3, 19.3, 25.6, 27.3, 32.1, 34.6, 45.3, 54.0, 54.6, and finally 64.0. It's easy to see ...
The small fox, almost across,
Soaks its tail:
No direction bears fruit.' There are ten places where the Yi says that 'no direction bears fruit', or (in the Wilhelm/Baynes version) 'nothing furthers': 4.3, 19.3, 25.6, 27.3, 32.1, 34.6, 45.3, 54.0, 54.6, and finally 64.0. It's easy to see ...
This podcast has a reading of my own, about creating a home. Yi answered with Hexagram 53, Gradual Progress, changing at line 5 to Hexagram 52, Stilling: changing to If you'd like to discuss a reading with me for a future episode (it's free, as a 'thank you' for sharing), ...
A little background Let me set some context for this one. Back in November 2021, I'd just finished planting garlic round the half-dozen raised beds I've created over the years, then mulching the beds with a good layer of compost, ready for sowing the following spring. The next day, we ...
If you try for an 'eagle's-eye view' of the Yijing, you get to admire its architecture: the intricate connections between hexagrams, the Sequence, two-line changes and so on. What if you zoom in, instead, for a mouse's eye-view? Here's an example of that. I've translated Hexagram 4's Oracle like this: ...
A reading for an I Ching Community member, Honey, aka MeltingPot247, with four moving lines full of darkness and warnings - What do I need to know about this relationship as it is now? The answer: Hexagram 32, Lasting, changing at lines 1, 3 4 and 6 to 41, Decrease ...
Here's an interesting experiment you can play with: a reading without an oracle. That means setting out to receive guidance from the world without using anything intended for divination: no cards, runes, coins, stalks, charts or anything of the kind. Instead, you might listen to the first few words you ...
I'm repeating myself here, but never mind - it bears repeating. The Yi is wonderfully made, with mind-boggling depth. One of the ways this manifests is in the relationships between changing lines and their zhi gua, the hexagram that follows from the change. For example, 49.3 changes to Hexagram 17, ...
In this episode, Raka shares two readings:
'What if I go back to university for postgraduate studies?' Yi answers with Hexagram 22, Beauty, changing at line 2 to 26, Great Taming: changing to and
'What if I just leave this whole university thing?' ...which gave her Hexagram 20, Seeing, changing ...
'What if I go back to university for postgraduate studies?' Yi answers with Hexagram 22, Beauty, changing at line 2 to 26, Great Taming: changing to and
'What if I just leave this whole university thing?' ...which gave her Hexagram 20, Seeing, changing ...
A Change Circle member asked for examples and impressions of Hexagram 56, Travelling, as relating hexagram. After I'd trawled through my journal for examples for her, I thought I'd like to keep digging, so here's the result… I'd expect the relating hexagram to describe subjective more than objective reality, and ...
In this episode, I share a couple of readings from my journal:
- 'What about leaving this volunteering role?' 32.3 to 40
- 'What do I do when I'm there?' 61.4.6 to 58
Hexagram 63, Ji ji, Already Crossing, is followed by Wei ji, Not Yet Crossing. Wei 未, 'not yet', is the opposite of ji 既, 'already'. It occurs three times in the Yi in addition to its appearance in Hexagram 64: in the Oracle of Hexagram 48, and in 49.5 and ...
It can be interesting to look at how the names of the hexagrams are used in the text of the Yijing - I mean, besides in the eponymous hexagram. This happens quite a bit, and while sometimes it's obviously just normal usage of a common word (like you 有, 'having' ...
In this podcast episode, Lucy asks why she's hesitant to use her gifts - and Yi responds with Hexagram 7, the Army, changing at line 4 to Hexagram 40, Releasing: changing to The moving line: 'The army camps on the left,
No mistake.'Hexagram 7, line 4 ...which certainly casts new light ...
No mistake.'Hexagram 7, line 4 ...which certainly casts new light ...
'Above the mountain, there is water. Limping.
Noble one turns himself around to renew his character.'Hexagram 39, the Image When the Image authors talked of 'turning oneself around' in Hexagram 39, they were picking up on a theme in the older layers of text. To start with, the Oracle says that ...
Noble one turns himself around to renew his character.'Hexagram 39, the Image When the Image authors talked of 'turning oneself around' in Hexagram 39, they were picking up on a theme in the older layers of text. To start with, the Oracle says that ...
Here's Wikipedia's definition of a 'culture hero': A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group (cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or discovery. Chinese mythology seems to be especially full of these: people who are recognised as heroic because they invented millet farming, ...
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 ...
For this 15th episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast, I asked the oracle to explain the whole idea of a 'New Year' to me. 'What's a creative way to imagine New Year? What's its deeper significance?' Yi responds with Hexagram 57, Subtly Penetrating, changing at lines 2 and ...
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 ...
Introducing the Image Sometimes we explain things to ourselves by comparing and contrasting - like the Zagua. Sometimes we tell stories, like the Xugua (Sequence of Hexagrams). And often, we paint mental pictures. The Yi is overflowing with pictures, of course - not least the ones created by its component ...
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 ...
In this fourteenth episode of the I Ching with Clarity podcast, Sasha shares a relationship reading: Hexagram 29, the Repeating Chasms, with no changing lines: If you've ever wondered what to make of an unchanging reading, this one could be helpful: we take our time exploring the hexagram's atmosphere, its ...
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) ...
Episode 13 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast features an author who's on the cusp of sending her book out into the world, just not quite sure why she doesn't feel ready for this. Is this the time, or should she wait? Yi gave her Hexagram 42, Increasing, changing ...
It’s a not-unfamiliar experience with readings: the oracle text of the hexagram says one thing, and then a moving line says something quite different. You probably know the basic principle: the moving line text takes precedence. It's the 'You Are Here' sign to the hexagram's overall scene-setting. Still, it's worth ...
Pamela contributed a thoroughly unusual reading for episode 12 of the podcast... She asked, 'What do I need to know about the snake?' and Yi answered with Hexagram 8, Seeking Union, changing at lines 1, 3 and 5 to 36, Brightness Hiding: changing to Here's the snake in question (with ...
This was going to be a simple post A worried client emailed me. He'd just been organising his journal, listing all his readings, and found there were a whole lot more on one topic than he'd thought. He said he was wondering if he'd become 'a bit of a Yi-aholic.' ...
This is episode 11 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast, featuring another listener's reading. Sarah asked, "How can I better convey my authentic and true self with others?" and Yi replied with Hexagram 45, Gathering, changing at lines 4,5 and 6 to 23, Stripping Away - changing to It's ...
This is by way of a follow-up to my 'Dispersing Nourishment' reading. I thought I'd share as it's another reading that shows how Yi helps with the small stuff, and on multiple levels. Besides, I appreciate the eloquence of the trigrams in this one. Background, reading… My joints ache - ...
This is an embarrassingly 'first world problems' kind of reading, but happily Yi doesn't judge - and it was tremendously helpful at the time, so I thought it would be a good one to share. The background How were things for you in March 2020? Round here, they were just ...
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 - ...
Episode 10 of the I Ching with Clarity podcast features a listener's reading. Lynn Keller's book, Thanksgiving in America, is just coming out; she asked Yi what her focus should be now with the book, and received Hexagram 33, Retreating, changing at lines 3 and 4 to 20, Seeing. changing ...
When I teach the Yijing Foundations Class - which I'll be doing again in September - I concentrate on the few really necessary basics for good readings:
- ways to relate to all the imagery (words and trigrams)
- understanding the structure of a reading (primary, relating, lines positions)
and also - knowing what you're asking
How lucky we are that scholars have dug out some of the ancient stories 'behind' the Yijing - stories its authors would have known naturally, but that can require some real ingenuity to ferret out nowadays. Hexagrams 55 and 56, Abundance and the Traveller Hexagram 55 is Abundance, and Abundance, ...
I'm sharing two 'behind the scenes' readings of my own in this one - encouragement from Yi that nudged me along the path towards relaunching the podcast. The questions: 'What about restarting the podcast soon?'
and
'How about this idea of a podcast solely of readings?' There's also a lovely example of ...
and
'How about this idea of a podcast solely of readings?' There's also a lovely example of ...
I've been writing a lot lately about seeing readings with fresh eyes, engaging with the imagery directly, as if for the first time. Here's a post about the other side of that coin - about the joy of being familiar with Yi, so that readings are like chatting with an ...
If you're new to the I Ching, this episode and the one before it will make the readings in Clarity's podcast much easier to follow. Here’s the audio version of the beginners’ course, part 2. (You can find the written and illustrated version of the course at https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/learn/beginners/ .) ...
If you're new to the I Ching, this episode and the one that follows will make the readings in Clarity's podcast much easier to follow. Here's the audio version of the beginners' course, part 1. (You can find the written and illustrated version of the course at https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/learn/beginners/ .) ...
Next month, I'm restarting the Clarity podcast. Formerly 'Living Change', now just the 'I Ching with Clarity podcast', it'll have a new episode each month, and every episode will discuss a real-life reading. (Actually the next couple of episodes will come sooner than that and won't be readings: I'm going ...
I was lucky enough to play in a good youth orchestra with a conductor who had plenty to teach us. One of many things he said that stuck with me was that, when playing something familiar, you should imagine someone in the audience who's hearing this music for the first ...
The second line of Hexagram 11 generates some of the most strangely varied translations. Here are two from the same book - John Minford's I Ching, which contains two incarnations of the Yi, as 'Book of Wisdom' and 'Bronze Age Oracle': 'Embrace the wilderness, ford the river. Do not forsake ...
Some of the Yi's most interesting phrases come in threes. The advice not to chase what's lost, for instance, or 'not robbers, marital allies'. This is another of those: 'the moon is almost full'. 'Already rained, already come to rest.
Honour the power it carries.
The wife's constancy brings danger,
The moon is ...
Honour the power it carries.
The wife's constancy brings danger,
The moon is ...
This is a challenge I set for Change Circle members in the first week of our Imagery Class: to find a way to respond to a reading without interpreting it. The idea is to create a space where we can interact with all the layers and facets of the Yi's ...
This isn't one of those posts where I explore many different experts' translations and interpretations of a line. Instead, it's just things I've learned from a combination of reading experiences and a line pathway. What's a line pathway? A line pathway is what LiSe calls 'mirrors': a group of four ...
There are a few websites without which this one would be only a pale shadow of itself. Here are four huge thank yous… Hermetica.info This is Bradford Hatcher's site, and contains much of his life's work - work that Yi described better than I can. The individual help and support ...
On 26th April, 2000, I registered the domain name onlineClarity.co.uk. (Back then, adding 'online' to your business name showed you were really up-to-the-minute with the interwebs. Or something.) So I think that makes today Clarity's 21st birthday. I want to celebrate by doing more of what Clarity's been doing for ...
Here at the very beginning of Not Knowing, there's a line that says, 'Sending out the ignoramus,
Fruitful to make use of punishing people,
To make use of loosening fetters and manacles.
Going on in that way is shameful.' Or, you know, something along those lines. It's a little too early to be ...
Fruitful to make use of punishing people,
To make use of loosening fetters and manacles.
Going on in that way is shameful.' Or, you know, something along those lines. It's a little too early to be ...
There are just two 'outer mountain' hexagrams in the Upper Canon: 41, Decreasing, and 52, Stilling. Hexagram 41, Decreasing The Oracle Hexagram 41 is Sun 損: decrease, damage, harm, weakening. So the words of the oracle that define it are startling - 'Decreasing has truth and confidence.
From the source, good ...
From the source, good ...
Two more hexagrams with mountains on top, two more intriguing trigram pictures… Hexagram 26, Great Taming Hexagram 26 is 'Great Taming'; 'taming', chu, originally means simply to rear domestic animals. Great Taming - rearing big animals, like the horse, bullock and boar in the moving line texts. By extension, it ...
I've just added a new page to the 'Learn' section of the site, introducing the fan yao: what this line is, what it shows you, and how to use it in readings. Also something of a health warning, as it can be quite misleading if you're not clear on how ...
A bucket-full of cold water to start with I'm not normally very enthusiastic about I Ching cards, simply because the oracle was never designed to be consulted that way, and it shows. Where tarot creates meaning with the relationship between a card and its position in the spread, the Yi ...
I talked in a previous post about gen, mountain, as the outer trigram of Hexagrams 4 and 18. There, it 'nurtures de', with a dual obstructing and protecting function that feels something like mentorship. The next appearances of mountain outside come in the 20s, a series of hexagram pairs with ...
Long, long ago, when Justin (the programmer) and I started incubating the idea of Yijing journal software, we settled on building it in Java so it would work for Windows and Mac. And thanks to much attention and TLC from Justin, that's what it does. However... it all turned out ...
When you're looking at a hexagram through the lens of its trigrams, I think it's important to see how they work together, as a trigram picture rather than a dry list of attributes. However, it's still interesting to single out a trigram and a position (inside or outside), to compare ...
I've been having another look at the mysterious fourth line of Hexagram 1, Creative Force: 'Someone leaping in the abyss.
No mistake.'Hexagram 1, line 4 A story of dragons This line is generally understood to be part of the story that begins in line 1, with the dragon still asleep underwater, ...
No mistake.'Hexagram 1, line 4 A story of dragons This line is generally understood to be part of the story that begins in line 1, with the dragon still asleep underwater, ...
Hexagram 12 is no fun at all... 'Blocking it, non-people.
Noble one's constancy bears no fruit.
Great goes, small comes.'Hexagram 12, Oracle The noble one is typically imaginative and willing to learn; constancy means persistence, loyalty, holding firmly to the truth... and none of this is going to make any difference. The ...
Noble one's constancy bears no fruit.
Great goes, small comes.'Hexagram 12, Oracle The noble one is typically imaginative and willing to learn; constancy means persistence, loyalty, holding firmly to the truth... and none of this is going to make any difference. The ...
The Yijing's changing line texts are in conversation with the hexagrams created by each change. But they can also have quiet exchanges with their fan yao, the 'reverse line' that travels in the opposite direction. For instance, 11.2 changes to 36, and in reverse, 36.2 changes to 11: 11.2 and ...
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 ...
Here's a lovely message I had last year from PeterS, getting on well with his Resonance Journal: "I should note that a pressing reason for me to adopt Resonance Journal is the sense that I was building up a collection of readings for which I was taking careful notes (in ...
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 ...
As I was saying in my last post, Hexagram 61, Inner Truth has a hatchling in its name, and a crane with her young in it second line. Its paired hexagram is Hexagram 62, Small Exceeding - is the pair and complement of - and this has its own calling ...
In my last post, I mentioned how ten pairs of tortoises hexagrams lead us from Hexagram 41 to 61, where the crane calls back across the space between hexagrams. This line is a not-so-hidden gem, beautiful in its own right: 'Calling crane in the shadows,
Her young respond in harmony.
I have ...
Her young respond in harmony.
I have ...
I've written all about this before, so now I'm simply going to repeat myself. In my defence, I will point out I'm in good company: 'Maybe increased by ten paired tortoise shells,
Nothing is capable of going against this.
From the source, good fortune.'Hexagram 41, line 5 'Maybe increased by ten paired ...
Nothing is capable of going against this.
From the source, good fortune.'Hexagram 41, line 5 'Maybe increased by ten paired ...
There's more than one way to engage with the trigrams that make up the Yi's hexagrams. The one that I find most engrossing - that most often shows me hidden beauties of the book, and most often makes for powerful, transformative readings (not unconnected!) - is to look at them ...
(This post's one of a series about the hidden gems of the Yijing. They may quite often describe things I've mentioned before, but I think they bear repeating. The idea is to point to especially lovely or ingenious or playful ways that the Yi creates meaning and speaks to us ...
Lately, I've been noticing differences between approaches to the Yi. We might describe what we do in the same words - we all 'consult the oracle' - but what actually happens next is not at all the same thing. And I think these differences come down to how we conceive ...
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 ...
This post is for Liz, who commented, "Hi Hilary,
Ok. Point blank - what does crossing the great river mean?" How does it feel? This is a better question to ask, because divination does not work by replacing images with what they mean. First, you use your imagination to get inside ...
Ok. Point blank - what does crossing the great river mean?" How does it feel? This is a better question to ask, because divination does not work by replacing images with what they mean. First, you use your imagination to get inside ...
I just listened to an excellent story that... well, I won't spoil it for you. Here's the teaser: What if a device could tell you exactly how satisfied you’d be with any decision? What if you could carry the future around in your pocket? What if you never had to ...
Hexagram 47, Confined Confining is de’s test. It is hard-pressed, and wholly connected. It is used to lessen resentment. Wilhelm/Baynes calls 47 the 'test of character', which is memorable - but the meaning isn't so much what 'puts you to the test' as the test that identifies something by differentiating ...
I've just added a dedicated blog index page to the site's menu. (You'll find it under 'blog' and also under the search icon for good measure.) You can use this to scan a compact list of all posts, or filter the list by category or series. You'll also find a ...
If you've opened your Resonance Journal today, you'll have noticed the 'Update available' button is active. Click it! Your journal will update to version 2.5.1, which includes some nifty new features. If you don't have a copy of the Resonance Journal, you can download a trial from here. It's available ...
Here are the next three ‘character’ hexagrams... 32, Lasting Lasting is de's steadfastness. It means [encountering] miscellany and not [feeling] disgust. It provides for a single de. As you can see from the [square brackets], I haven't quite managed to find English equivalents to the Chinese words for this one ...
In Part II, chapter 7 of the Great Treatise (Dazhuan), nine hexagrams are singled out. The authors of the Yi, it says, knew sorrow and disasters (or, specifically, they worried about disasters), and therefore... and it goes on to list the qualities of these nine hexagrams. You can read the ...
Some 15 years ago, I wrote on this blog about the non-people of Hexagram 12. 'Blocking it, non-people.
Noble one's constancy bears no fruit.
Great goes, small comes.'Hexagram 12, the Oracle Back then, I emphasised how the idea of 'non-people' (fei ren, 匪人) could mean labelling people and sticking them in boxes, ...
Noble one's constancy bears no fruit.
Great goes, small comes.'Hexagram 12, the Oracle Back then, I emphasised how the idea of 'non-people' (fei ren, 匪人) could mean labelling people and sticking them in boxes, ...
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 ...
You know how the lines of some hexagrams unfold and tell a story? Hexagram 53 traces the journey of the wild geese; 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 hexagram, ...
It's one thing to consult the Yijing; finding the confidence to act on what it says is something else. (What if I've got this wrong?) Yet readings without this, without change, are theoretical at best, and at worst... maybe something more serious than a mere waste of time. We need ...
(The story so far: I asked what to write about, and Yi's response - 37.1.2.5.6 to 46 - gave me the idea of writing about what makes for a friendly, domestic, quotidien, integrated relationship with the Oracle. I've written about lines and ; here's line 5.) What makes for an ...
The second line of Hexagram 37 (and the second thing Yi suggested I write about) says, 'No direction to pursue,
Stay in the centre and cook.
Constancy, good fortune.'Hexagram 37, line 2 This line places us, and our readings, firmly at the foundations of Maslow's pyramid: Chiquo / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) There's ...
Stay in the centre and cook.
Constancy, good fortune.'Hexagram 37, line 2 This line places us, and our readings, firmly at the foundations of Maslow's pyramid: Chiquo / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) There's ...
A while ago - as participants in our weekly Well Gatherings will know - I asked Yi what to write about on this blog, and received Hexagram 37, People in the Home, changing at lines 1, 2, 5 and 6 to 46, Pushing Upward. It's a rich reading that works ...
Every article and every commercial email nowadays says something about 'these challenging times' or 'these uncertain times'. And of course, we know an oracle for that: Yi is made for challenging, uncertain, bewildering times when none of our normal responses or resources is helping. Talking with Yi lately, and seeing ...
It seems like a good time to provide another way for people to connect and help one another with/through Yijing readings. So I'll be hosting 'Well Gatherings' - an hour of chat and sharing readings - via Zoom each Monday for the next month or so. Who it's for Normally, ...
Hexagram 12 is called Pi 否 - Blocked, Standstill, Stasis, Negation. It encapsulates the experience of being denied and stymied. The noble one's constancy bears no fruit: despite your best, most creative efforts, it just isn't happening. The Sequence into this one is (as so often) quite enigmatic: 'Things cannot ...
Divination means we're connected. It demonstrates that there's no such thing as 'isolation': the cosmos has 100% uptime. You can toss three coins six times, any time, to experience its absolute connectivity. Yi's connection works, as it always has, through imagery. It doesn't just talk (though it certainly does that, ...
I've mentioned this before, and no doubt will again... the question you ask the Yi matters. It's important to understand that this isn't about choosing the right wording for your question. The words really don't matter. 'Argh - help!' can be a perfectly-formed question for the Oracle, leading to a ...
Consulting the I Ching? You will need...
- to know what you're asking
- a sense of how the parts of a reading fit together, and
- to be able to get inside the oracle's imagery.
Opening other hexagrams I mentioned in my post on Hexagram 58 how its meanings of joy, communication and exchange are connected with the action of breaking things open, opening them up. When lines change and Opening is joined with other hexagrams, it seems to be opening them up for exchange ...
Archery in Hexagram 40 Hexagram 40 is Release: its core theme, from the simple decision of the Oracle to the clear air after the storm of the Image, is the release of tension. That might remind you of archery, which is a special, intentional kind of tension-release: deliberately drawing the ...
I'll be opening for readings very shortly. To make sure you're notified when I open and have a chance to book a slot, please sign up on the readings page for 'Ways of Opening', a pdf guide to finding your question. (And have a look through it - I hope ...
In context After Hexagram 57, Subtly Penetrating, comes 58, Opening. It's an inverse pair: 58 is 57, turned around: There's a change of orientation: 57 faces inward, 58 outward. 57 enters in - the Sequence says it's like entering the home - and 58 opens out, shares and circulates. When ...
Hexagram 12 - Blocked? 'Blocking it, non-people.
Noble one's constancy bears no fruit.
Great goes, small comes.'Hexagram 12, the Oracle However clearly we understand that there are no 'bad' hexagrams, we're probably not over the moon when we cast Hexagram 12. It's at least nice to be able to think ...
Noble one's constancy bears no fruit.
Great goes, small comes.'Hexagram 12, the Oracle However clearly we understand that there are no 'bad' hexagrams, we're probably not over the moon when we cast Hexagram 12. It's at least nice to be able to think ...
Hexagram 36 is called Ming Yi 明夷, Brightness Hiding or Brightness Wounded. The double meaning of 'Yi' here (a completely different word to the name of the book) allows the hexagram name to contain a whole story: when wounded, you hide; once bitten, twice shy. It also means something ordinary, ...
The Yijing doesn't just talk to you one reading at a time: it communicates a lot through the patterns and themes that recur through many readings. The Resonance Journal has always been brilliant for finding these patterns in your readings: they're a click or two away, via the Cast History ...
'Dispersing blood.
Leave, go out and far away.
Not a mistake.'Hexagram 59, line 6 'Dispersing blood'? What does that mean? Wilhelm says it means avoiding an existing danger, 'dispersion of that which might lead to bloodshed' for both oneself and others. Lynn, following Wang Bi, has the same idea: ...
Leave, go out and far away.
Not a mistake.'Hexagram 59, line 6 'Dispersing blood'? What does that mean? Wilhelm says it means avoiding an existing danger, 'dispersion of that which might lead to bloodshed' for both oneself and others. Lynn, following Wang Bi, has the same idea: ...
Its name and nature At the very end of the Yijing comes the hexagram called Not Yet Across - the embodiment of incompletion and imperfection, an ellipsis in hexagram form. It's a very large-scale, oracle-sized joke about our expectations of tidiness and order. The Chinese name has two characters: 未濟, ...
Does computerised casting work? From time to time, someone will ask me whether it's acceptable to cast the I Ching - that venerable, 3,000-year-old oracle - by tapping a button on a screen. And quite a bit more often, I'll hear from someone how they received an answer that spoke ...
Fire on the mountain The trigrams of Hexagram 56 show inner mountain and outer fire. The picture, for me, suggests the nomads' campfire. It has limited fuel and a limited duration, and the travellers will need to resolve any disputes before the ashes are cool, so they can move on ...
Following your flag The name of Hexagram 56 is lu 旅, Travelling. The Chinese character (which also means a division of troops) originally shows people around the flag, and was normally written simply with two people under the flag, almost as if sheltering under a roof: An ancient Chinese ...
The person who emailed me this question found the expression 'superior man' quite off-putting. I can see why: arranging half of humanity into superiors and inferiors, inviting the reader to identify not just as a good person but as someone better than the rest... none of this feels sympathetic to ...
I'm going to be sharing a few mini-videos of some of my favourite Resonance Journal features. Here's one about the 'Cast History' search. The point of this is that Yi doesn't just communicate one reading at a time; the connections between readings can be quite eloquent, too. And sometimes it ...
Starting on Sunday, September 15th, a small group of like-minded students will embark on a 12 week journey from 'The Yijing is fascinating, but I'm not really confident with it...' to a fluent, dependable, individual relationship with Yi as guide and companion. (Might you be one of them?) This is ...
All kinds of mind, all kinds of entrance The Yijing can speak to all kinds of people - I think this may be one way in which it's unique. Tarot, for instance, is undoubtedly a multi-faceted system, but to use it fluently you'd better be moved by its images and ...
ROQs, as you may know if you came to June's 'Connecting with Imagery' workshop, are Really Obvious Questions. They're the simplest, most child-like questions you can think of:
- what's this?
- what do you do with one?
- what's it like?
Here's an example reading of mine, showing how trigrams can cast more light on changing lines. The background I was contacted a while ago by someone (I'll call her S) who wanted to invite me to participate in a project of hers. Actually, that's not quite how it happened. S ...
Following up on my last, long post with the example reading, I thought it might help to share this tiny excerpt from Yijing Foundations, where I explain how to imagine the structure of a reading without falling into the trap of pigeon-holing the second hexagram as 'future': Sign up for ...
As I prepare for the Yijing Foundations Class, I'm realising there are really just two essential elements for dependable readings: being able to connect with imagery, and knowing your way round the structure of a reading. This post's about structure. At its very simplest, a reading's structure is just the ...
Hexagram 3 is the first hexagram where the two kinds of line mingle, and so it's associated with the very beginnings of life. The Sequence says, ‘There is heaven and earth, and so the ten thousand things are born.
Overflowing the space between heaven and earth, the ten thousand things.
...
Overflowing the space between heaven and earth, the ten thousand things.
...
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 ...
Some 11 years ago (!) I wrote about people telling me they didn’t have enough time for the I Ching, and the gifts of time it offers. Well... we haven't got noticeably less busy since 2008, and I still hear this quite often. What distresses me most are the people ...
The Yijing's full of imagery. Even though the first impression when you open it is one of wall-to-wall text, it's also a picture book. In last month's 'Connecting with Imagery' workshop I put a reading on the screen and asked people to mark all the images they could see. They ...
Refurbishing? Remodelling? The I Ching Community will be migrating, fairly soon, to some new forum software. I don't want to say, 'We're moving,' because at the end of the process the forums will still be accessible at the same address as before. But they'll look somewhat different and work somewhat ...
What are we Waiting for? Wilhelm says Hexagram 5 is about waiting for it to rain. SJ Marshall says it meant waiting for rain to stop. So too does Stephen Field: the hexagram name means 'to stop for the rain', but originally would probably have had the 'water' radical added ...
For a really good understanding of your own Yijing readings, I think there are basically two things you need to know:
- How the parts of a reading work together.
- How to connect with its imagery.
It's easy to become preoccupied with how beautiful, subtle and complex the Yijing is - there are endless layers and dimensions to discover - but more than anything, I keep coming back to its kindness. For example, the readings I cast when a close friend had just been diagnosed with ...
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 ...
I've had some questions about the Paired Hexagrams Course. Rather than just talking about it, I thought it would be better to show you some of it - so here's the introductory lesson. It simply runs through the three kinds of pair, so you can see clearly what they are ...
Marriage is one of the Yijing's most-used recurring images - and in relationship readings, it's one of the easiest to relate to. Hexagram 54, the Marrying Maiden, has told a lot of women, quite straightforwardly, that she's not the most important thing to him. (Maybe another woman is, or maybe ...
The 'powerful woman' problem In Hexagram 44, we are encountering, meeting or 'coupling' with a powerful woman. 'Coupling, the woman is powerful.
Do not take this woman.' To 'take' her means to seize, as one might seize a criminal, but in this usage it's something like the old-fashioned English, 'taking a ...
Do not take this woman.' To 'take' her means to seize, as one might seize a criminal, but in this usage it's something like the old-fashioned English, 'taking a ...
I hope this post will make sense. It's something I thought of in the small hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep, and started counting complementary hexagrams instead of sheep (as you do...) - Here's a picture of the Sequence of Hexagrams: Hm... maybe that could do with some ...
I've left a longer gap between posts here than I intended, mostly because March has been very full of ’cello-y things. Still, there's a reading from one of these that cast a new light on Hexagram 31 line 3 for me, so I can at least share that with you ...
About getting stuck... Lately, I've been writing a series of sunny posts about how Yi helps: how it brings understanding and insight, of yourself as well as other people; how it triggers little inner shifts that can change your life; the odd magic of everything falling into place. And... let's ...
Writing lately about ways Yi helps reminded me of possibly my favourite chapter of the Dazhuan (the 'Great Treatise', 5th and 6th Wings of the Yijing): 'Yi is a document that should not be set at a distance.
Its dao is ever-changing,
alternating and moving without rest,
flowing through the ...
Its dao is ever-changing,
alternating and moving without rest,
flowing through the ...
A Resonance Journal retrospective Over four years ago now, we first brought out the Resonance Journal: software to keep a journal both of your Yijing readings and also of dreams, synchronicities and simple daily experience, and to reveal and explore how all these things connect and resonate together. We've come ...
Looking away Hexagram 52 is called gen, 艮, and so too is the trigram that's doubled to make the hexagram. It translates as 'looking away': in the ancient character, you can see a reversed human figure with a great eye. Nowadays, it apparently also translates as 'tough, hard to chew' - something ...
Not just for decisions It's no secret that Yi is tremendously helpful when it comes to decision-making. You look at your options, single out the most likely one, and ask Yi, 'What about this?' And the oracle tells you what to expect if you take that road - be that ...
Update: Since this post was published, I've filled all the available places for readings now and 'closed' again. If you're interested in a reading in future, please be sure to get yourself on the list for 'Ways of Opening': that way I'll be sure to email you when I next ...
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 ...
One of the good things about our little rented home has always been the thick shield of trees that stands between us and the road. Great glossy green laurels, disappearing in late spring under huge white blossoms, blanketing the whole house in heavy scent. The slender, fragile-looking deciduous tree with ...
Its name (and nature) Hexagram 55 is unusual in that its name contains two meanings - The character feng 豐 means abundant, bountiful, plentiful. The ancient character appears to be an elaborated, decorated version of the character for 'drum': see Richard Sears' site -
Do you need to be psychic to read the I Ching? Well, if you do, I'm in trouble. Yet this is something readers - maybe mostly tarot readers - often claim: that their psychic powers have been apparent from early childhood, and it was always clear that they were destined ...
'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 ...
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 ...
I love Robert Moss's books; they're inspiring, wise and lucid. He mirrors my understanding back to me - that we belong here, that life has meaning and the cosmos actively wants to communicate this to us. Also, he does this in a very practical, down-to-earth way: this communication, through dreams, ...
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 ...
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 ...
I've been browsing with growing fascination through the Takashima Ekidan. Published in 1893 in Tokyo, this is an English translation by Shigetake Sugiura of an original Yijing translation by Kaemon Takashima, a successful serial entrepreneur and respected diviner. ('Eki' is the Japanese name for the Yi, and I believe 'dan' ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
I'm very, very pleased to announce the birth of The Resonance Journal, version 2.0! With this version, you can: Print your entries ...which also means you can use your computer's 'print to pdf' driver to share individual entries. Protect your journal with a password And adjust the size and ...
Decrease, Increase Hexagrams 41 and 42, Decreasing and Increasing, are an especially clear hexagram pair: the two of them together describe a single phenomenon, seen from two perspectives. There is a single flow of energy, life and abundance, and it moves as a cycle: 'Decrease, Increase, the beginnings of abundance ...
A few years ago now, I first noticed the Vessel Casting pattern in the Sequence, and got tremendously excited about it. For the past couple of months, I've been developing those ideas and their application in readings for Part 5 of 'Exploring the Sequence', which Change Circle members can find ...
Its name and nature The name of Hexagram 37 is simply 家人, jiaren, 'Home People' - which also means the members of a family. Here's the old form of the character - - where you can see that a 'home' is an animal - a pig - under a roof ...
The Yijing as a whole is a rather disconcerting book. It can say things we don't understand, or, worse, things we understand perfectly well but don't want to know. A reading can be reassuring, can reinforce your thinking, or it can give you a real jolt. 'I have had this ...
Short review Don't buy this one. Buy Minford and Redmond instead - or save up for Field, which I feel is worth its somewhat eye-watering price. Longer review Here's the publisher's blurb for Paul Fendos' new I Ching: 'The Book of Changes: A Modern Adaptation and Interpretation attempts to breathe ...
Hexagram 4 has an exceptionally clear, direct Oracle: 'Not knowing, creating success. I do not seek the young ignoramus, the young ignoramus seeks me. The first consultation speaks clearly. The second and third pollute the waters, Polluted, and hence not speaking. Constancy bears fruit.' It's often the one that gives ...
A short story In typical Yi style, this is a very short story: 'Traveller in a place to stay, Gains property and an axe. My heart is not glad.' 'Subtly penetrating under the bed, Losing your property and axe. Constancy, pitfall.' These are lines 56.4 and 57.6, and they have ...
One of many interesting things I found in Richard J. Smith's The I Ching: a biography was an account of Zhu Xi's approach to divination. Zhu Xi (1120-1200) wrote firmly of Yi's identity as an oracle, not just a 'book of wisdom'. In addition to creating the yarrow method we ...
Hexagram 48 line 6 says, 'The well gathers, Don't cover it. There is truth and confidence, Good fortune from the source.' Bradford Hatcher, who has dug more wells than your average Yijing scholar, suggests that this is an artesian well, one where the water rises spontaneously. That certainly fits with ...
By and large, we know what sort of thing we expect Yi to say (though not, heaven knows, what it will say): 'Here's what you're doing' or 'here's what would happen' or 'here's how to cope with that' - something along those lines, describing or advising. Only every now and ...
Possibly the most Frequently Asked Question about interpreting readings: 'This line says one thing, but that one says the opposite! How can I make sense of the reading when it contradicts itself?' It happens a lot: you ask how to go about something, and one hexagram says it's fruitful to ...
Name and Nature The name of Hexagram 27 translates literally not as 'Nourishment' but as 'Jaws' - not something we call it, because shark. But it does help to remember that it's not specifically about nourishment (of whatever kind), but rather about the framework that makes nourishment possible. Just looking ...
Simple Two lines in Hexagram 7, the Army, talk about carting corpses: line 3: 'Perhaps the army carts corpses.
Pitfall.' and line 5: 'The fields have game
Fruitful to speak of capture:
No mistake.
When the elder son leads the army,
And younger son carts corpses:
Constancy, pitfall.' The core meaning is surely intuitively obvious: an ...
Pitfall.' and line 5: 'The fields have game
Fruitful to speak of capture:
No mistake.
When the elder son leads the army,
And younger son carts corpses:
Constancy, pitfall.' The core meaning is surely intuitively obvious: an ...
Line 3 of Hexagram 37, People in the Home, is full of noise and emotion: 'People in the home scold and scold, Regrets, danger: good fortune. Wife and child giggle and giggle. In the end, shame.' What's the story behind this? Traditional interpretation... Read any traditional translation - Wilhelm/Baynes, Lynn, ...
I've treated myself to another new Yi book - Geoffrey Redmond's I Ching (Book of Changes) - a critical translation of the ancient text - and it got me thinking about the different aspects of the book that are visible to different people. The good... To start, though, a sort-of ...
I've been thinking about Hexagram 35 - and especially how it shows up as a relating hexagram. Introducing Hexagram 35 The name of this hexagram is 'Advancing', or 'Progress' or 'Flourishing'. The oldest form of the character seems to show arrows in their sheath: Those arrows - along the text ...
Looking simply at the shape of hexagram 33 with a naïve, imaginative eye... ...we might see the entrance to a cave. And if you look at the picture painted by the trigrams, heaven above the mountain, then it conjures up the idea of a hermit who Retreats to the mountain-top ...
I've been mulling over this line - part of a recent open reading of mine - for a while. 'Seeing the realm shining out. Fruitful and useful to be a guest of the king.' Changing this line takes you to Hexagram 12, Blocked - a situation where no messages get ...
Integrating trigram imagery into a full reading is sometimes tricky: we don't, after all, know what the trigrams represented to the people who first wrote the book. So attempting to justify text in terms of trigrams can get one tied up in all sorts of over-elaborate knots. However... those original ...
When we approach a reading, we generally have some principles in mind for how the parts of the answer will fit together and work as a whole. In the beginners' course on this site, I outline the framework I've found works best: the cast hexagram's the basic answer, the relating ...
A thought on Hexagram 4. We think of Not Knowing as a default state, a starting position: children don’t know at first, so they learn; we start off not knowing, so then we consult the oracle. (Though preferably not for a second and third time...) In today's news, the BBC ...
Crossing the line: guo Hexagram 28 shares its core concept with 62: Exceeding, guo, great or small. I wrote about this a while ago: Hexagrams 28 and 62 are both about guo: ‘passing, going by, exceeding’. The central idea is crossing a line – whether that’s a standard of morality or ...
How often have you heard someone say they need to consult with Yi (and perhaps need help with the interpretation) because they're 'too subjective' or 'too emotionally involved' with the topic? In a way, that can be true. We can be too close to something, too caught up in its ...
A friend who works as a coach/counsellor, who's learned from and drawn on probably hundreds of sources as she develops her own way of helping, has recently had a couple of teachers ask her for payment for her use of their intellectual property. I was bemused, because this is something ...
I wrote before about why we want to do readings for other people - in essence, because we want to help, and we know what Yi gives, and we want to share that. As I prepare for the Reading for Others Class, I've really been learning a lot from the in-depth responses people ...
Hexagram 8 is called Bi - 比 - a very ancient, simple character that originally depicts two people side by side. It implies both that they're together, and that they can be compared to one another, and so the word means belonging, seeking union, holding together, comparing, neighbouring, side-by-side... really, to translate ...
In 2014, Sheffield's half marathon was cancelled. It was some kind of last minute organisational shambles: not until the spectators were lining the route and the runners waiting at the start did the organisers report that their water supplies hadn't shown up, so they couldn't go ahead. The runners started ...
Plans for Clarity in 2017... I don't have my calendar filled in with a Grand Plan for the Year, because you know how those turn out. (I'm learning that they turn into colour-coded confetti by about mid-February.) But I have some plans for the first few months, and it occurred ...
Each year on my birthday, I ask Yi for guidance for the coming year. Then over the course of the year I revisit the reading, finding guidance and gleaning understanding as I go. At least, such is the theory. Last year's reading, cast on 7th December 2015, was Hexagram 55, ...
A 'nuclear story' (my term for something many people have described before me) is found within a single hexagram, by 'unpacking' its trigrams and nuclear trigrams. It unfolds a kind of 'hidden adventure' for the hexagram. I realise I've written this up for Change Circle members in some detail (see this ...
I wrote about a core message of Hexagram 23 when it's your cast hexagram: how it demands a true tabula rasa, not just a 'rethink'. What about 23 as relating hexagram - what can that mean? Of course, there are 64 different ways a reading can change to Hexagram 23, but ...
The essential message of Stripping Away is devastatingly simple: 'Stripping away. Fruitless to have a direction to go.' Your 'direction to go' can be whatever plan you have in mind, your purpose or vision or intent, or something as slight as a curiosity to explore in a certain direction. The root ...
Background Well... in the first weeks of September I was bubbling over with ideas for blog posts. I'd write two, and 'schedule' one to be published later so as not to overdo it. And then I published that last one on Hexagram 23, and waited for inspiration to strike again ...
Version 1.5 of the Resonance Journal is ready! This version includes Volume 1 of Bradford Hatcher's Yijing - the full translation with commentary - as a built-in translation to explore via the hexagram browser and select there for use with your reading entries. If you already have the Resonance Journal installed, you must ...
I wrote about how Stripping Away, in its ideal form as depicted by the Image, might be painless - but that's not how the process starts, and not our dominant experience of it. Hexagram 23 typically shows up as something you have to undergo; it is fruitless to have a ...
In a little post on hexagrams and scale I wrote, Just on this blog, I found three readings I’d shared with Hexagram 23. They were, in order:
- auspices for using a certain technology during a webinar. (I persuaded myself I could use it anyway, and it failed impressively.)
- foreshadowing ...
Yi tends to shape people's thinking, and when it gets hold of an artist or writer the consequences can be thoroughly interesting... I mentioned Will Buckingham's Sixty-Four Chance Pieces once before, but I'll happily jump on this opportunity to recommend them again. These are 64 short stories, one inspired by each ...
The second chapter of David Pankenier's lovely book, Astrology and Cosmology in Early China - Conforming Earth to Heaven - rejoices in the title, 'Watching for dragons.' In it he talks in detail about the dragon of Hexagram 1, and also proposes a whole new idea about why the dragons ...
The fourth kind of Yijing story I mentioned when I first called it a 'Book of Stories’ was
- the huge narrative arcs of the Sequence – ‘you are here’ on the grand scale.
Tucked away in a hidden corner of Harmen Mesker's Yijing site, there's a very interesting blog, Lessons from the Lake. Its author is learning from Harmen how to read the Yi through its trigrams, and as she puts what she learns into practice she writes clear, detailed posts about it all ...
The Image of Hexagram 3, Sprouting, says, ‘Clouds, thunder, Sprouting. A noble one weaves warp and weft.’ or as Bradford Hatcher translates, 'sorts warp from weft'. What the noble one does is just two characters: jinglun, 經綸. Jing is the same word as in Yijing and literally means the warp threads on a loom, ...
I've just opened the (virtual) doors for a new I Ching chat service... What this is A 30 minute chat on anything I-Ching-related - a line you're stuck on, a reading where you could really use a fresh perspective, an image or hexagram that keeps coming back, even a knotty ...
...disguised as an archaeological discovery about Chinese pre-history. You might have seen the reports: someone has found clear evidence of a great flood in China. Here's a good account of the discovery with a link to the full paper: in a nutshell, there was a great earthquake in about 1920BC which caused ...
Short version: here it is, with my apologies. (I didn't know anyone still used it!) Backstory: A few years ago I commissioned Ewald Berkers (creator of the I Ching Community's indispensable hexagram search) to make us a new online I Ching. I did so because the old reading, the one in two ...
As you can see... we have a new Clarity website. I really hope you like it! Here's an explanation of the changes and a guide to the new site. Why change the design? Because the old one was old - some nine years old, in fact - which means it ...
or 'Where did Hilary go?' For the last several months, I've been working on redesigning the website - which has been so time-consuming that really only Change Circle members have seen much of me. It has all taken just a bit longer than expected... But we are almost there. All that's ...
A few posts ago, I tried to list all Yi's ways of telling stories:
- those little one-line vignettes
- allusions to the culture’s big stories – both history and myth
- the individual steps of the Sequence of Hexagrams (‘Here’s how you reach this place.’)
- the huge narrative arcs of the ...
I'm not sure what kind of geek it takes to appreciate this reading - probably something quite extreme - but I think it's brilliant and wanted to share. The background: a helpful programmer had fixed up a Wordpress plugin for me, for use in the redesigned version of Clarity (still ...
If you think about it, some stories play a big part in our conversation even though we never tell them in full. With a story everyone knows, you don’t need to tell it, you only need to allude to it. So 'No, he isn't Prince Charming' becomes a short way of saying, ...
This sounds interesting: a two day course in London on 9 Star Ki astrology and its roots in the Yijing. If you're interested I would recommend getting in touch with the organisers soon, as they're only taking six students. Click the image for more information: ...
También disponible en español Hexagram 23 is called Stripping Away. The old character shows a knife, and a less-clear component that might be a well winch or a bag for filtering wine, separating the wine from the dregs. As LiSe shows, that blends into the meaning of the whole. But the knife component ...
I started work recently to research a post on Hexagram 23, Stripping Away - a hexagram of loss, whether that means painlessly shedding what's outlived its usefulness, or having something you're very much attached to torn away. Looking through a dozen reading experiences with this one, I was struck again ...
I imagine anyone who's lived with Yi for a while has also got used to the idea that the world around them gives them signs, and often these signs resonate strongly with readings. I had a 'big' Hexagram 10 reading a few years ago, and saw tigers everywhere. (Pictures of ...
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, ...
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 ...
It's not uncommon to have the experience of a reading confirming what you already know - even if you hadn't quite acknowledged that you knew it. But what when the reading simply goes against what you feel is right? You're drawn to do something, you're excited about doing it, your intention's taking ...
Just a quick note to say here is version 1.4 of the Resonance Journal. (Note: if you already have the software installed, you need to run this updater program instead.) It has a shiny new random entry option. You simply select 'Review Random Entry' from the 'entries' menu (or use the keyboard shortcut ctrl+m) to bring ...
Hexagrams 9 and 26 are 'Small Taming' and 'Great Taming' - the same activity on a different scale. That activity is xu, 畜: rearing livestock, and farming in general. (Stephen Field actually translates these two hexagrams as 'Lesser Stock' - mostly goats - and 'Greater Stock', namely the horses, cattle and pigs ...
I spend a lot of time exploring and writing about the endless depths of Yijing readings. There are those little seeds of meaning hidden in the etymology of individual characters, the long resonances across the structure of the Sequence, the pictures to be painted with trigrams and stories to tell ...
También disponible en español Hexagram 20 is called Seeing - but if your I Ching experience began with Wilhelm, then you'll be familiar with the idea that the shape of the hexagram itself is a picture of an ancient tower: 'A tower of this kind commanded a wide view of ...
Last March I explained how I don't know the first thing about Yi (namely, why these line-patterns mean these words). I'm happy to report that I still don't, and I'm still lit up with curiosity and fascination for this strange and beautiful old creature we call Yi - and I think ...
Here's an excellent article I stumbled across about the real meaning of synchronicity: Synchronicity and the mind of God: unlocking the mystery of Carl Jung's "meaningful coincidence". A quotation (among many I could have chosen): "The universe is a reflection of an underlying spiritual reality; all phenomena express the deeper ...
I've been blessed with some wonderful reading clients over the past year, and I'm hugely grateful for the experience. I've witnessed clarity dawning, knots untying themselves, blocks dissolving - Yi at work. I love it. And... I realise there's something I need to tweak a bit to create more space ...
Reading a book about healing, I came across two diagrams of the relationships between external events and emotional response. The first, very simple, diagram, showed our common misconception. It had two boxes, one for 'external events' and one for 'emotional response', and an arrow pointing from events to response. That's ...
También disponible en español Hexagram 6 is called Conflict, or Arguing; its name also means bringing to court and calling for justice. Fittingly enough, it's best understood through contrasts and oppositions. The authors of the oracle seem to have thought so, too: its Oracle is laid out as a series ...
From its first appearance in the first words of the Yi, the creative flow through the four characters yuan heng li zhen is tangible. Its power is felt in the other five hexagrams with the whole, uninterrupted formula. But the natural cohesion of the four-word formula can also be felt ...
Hexagram 1 says yuan heng li zhen - from the source, creating success, constancy bears fruit. Hexagram 2 says yuan heng li pinma zhi zhen - from the source, creating success, a mare's constancy bears fruit The remaining hexagrams can be seen as 'children' of these two - 62 ways of blending ...
También disponible en español Hexagram 1 is so simple it's tremendously hard to get to grips with. The simplicity starts with its shape - - six solid, 'yang' lines, pure and whole, light with no shade, no nuances, no spaces, no 'picture'. The significance of those six solid lines is ...
Complementary hexagrams are paradoxical things. On the one hand, there is no hexagram more different from 21, Biting Through than 48, the Well: Every line is changed, so they have nothing in common. If it's time to bite through, then it is exactly not time for well-maintenance. And on the other ...
I've just made Language of Change available separately. It's a Yijing glossary covering common phrases, words and omens ('crossing the great river', 'feudal lords', 'regrets vanish'…) and also some key concepts (centrality, offerings, marriage...), and it's available in pdf (digital) format for £7, here. This is the same glossary that's included ...
(Or - how I learned that while there are problems inherent in asking for a prediction, there are even more problems with trying to make rules about what kind of question is best.) The well-known problems with asking for a prediction It's not what we want to know Often, wanting ...
A thoroughly useful guiding principle for both diviners and translators: this means something. For diviners with/ translators of the Yijing, the principle needs elaborating: this means something, whether or not I have the faintest glimmerings of a clue what it means. That should really be inscribed in every Yijing book and ...
The changing lines Continuing from my previous post: Yi’s answer to ‘How to use the Sequence in readings?’, 25.4.6 to 3… 25.4: ´There can be constancy. No mistake.´ Line 4 is just across the threshold between inner and outer; it’s just stepped out into the world. So – in any ...
I'm working, bit by bit, on an advanced Yijing course – sharing ideas with Change Circle members as I go along. I've started with the Sequence of Hexagrams. On the one hand, this is a nice, simple place to start, as using the Sequence is about as un-technical as you can ...
The Sequence - for all the remarkable patterns it contains - is about the simplest 'tool' you can add to your interpretive repertoire. No complicated operations are required to find the preceding hexagram, and no concept more profound than steps along the road: 'You pass through this to reach here.' ...
The King Wen Sequence of hexagrams (who knows who really created it or how old it might be?) is a source of endless fascination. People keep on finding patterns in it. The first to catch my interest was Danny Van den Berghe's discovery of a 'landscape' of trigrams (download the ...
(Continuing a series on hexagram 57, because it makes sense to approach this hexagram of all hexagrams incrementally!) What does Subtly Penetrating mean in readings? Well... like any hexagram, it means what it says and what it is, and no amount of commentary changes that. But I have noticed a ...
'No one can tell me, Nobody knows, Where the wind comes from, Where the wind goes.' AA Milne, 'Wind on the Hill’ Xun has to be the most elusive hexagram. It's awkward to translate (you need one word that means penetrating, interpenetrating, subtly, imperceptibly, gently, submitting...) and ...
For updates... If you'd like to be kept updated on these changes, subscribe to the associated forum thread. Where I start from... Yi is pretty extraordinary. I know, this isn't exactly breaking news. But I keep noticing it all over again: partly because I keep looking at more complex structures ...
Here is a cautionary tale about involving Yi in decision making, how this can get you tied up in an endless series of unpromising readings, and the tremendously simple way to avoid this. Why is this a cautionary tale? Well, because I've managed to act out the full story twice ...
This oracle, as I keep saying, isn't a slot machine. It's not 'insert question, get answer'. Someone who is completely familiar and comfortable with Yi does not therefore receive the answers to all their questions and live in a state of perfect certainty. What they are is deeply engaged in ...
Why look for the stories behind the hexagrams? To start with something uncontentious: the people who wrote the Yi had wisdom and intelligence (as well as mind-boggling genius), and were well-informed, and had good reasons for their choices. One of the things they appear to have been well-informed about is ...
I asked Yi for work advice recently, and received hexagram 58. It seems that work has a lot to do with communicating - who'd've thought, right? So I will do more of that and less keeping of things under wraps, and if I ever seem to have gone a bit quiet, please ...
From time to time, someone asks me about the validity of consulting with a computer program. Does it work - are the answers real? I always say yes, it works. What matters is not the physical method, but the quality of your attention. I have plenty of experience to back ...
Hexagram 44 is - famously - a tricky one. 'Coupling, the woman is powerful.
Do not take this woman.' That's all it says - which is more than enough to give rise to all kinds of ideas. The traditional one is that the woman represents something malevolent, the seductress, power-grabbing ...
Do not take this woman.' That's all it says - which is more than enough to give rise to all kinds of ideas. The traditional one is that the woman represents something malevolent, the seductress, power-grabbing ...
Here's a new I Ching worth getting: Lars Bo Christensen's Book of Changes, available (in the US and UK) for Kindle and now also on paper. His aim is to create a coherent, usable and authentic translation of the Zhouyi core text. That's interesting in itself, as 'usable' and 'authentic' are usually separated ...
Lars Bo Christensen has brought out a very interesting new translation of the Zhouyi: Book of Changes - the original core of the I Ching. I should post a full review one of these days (short version: yes, definitely buy it), but for now I just wanted to share something that's ...
Well, here I am getting started teaching week 1 of the I Ching Foundations Class, so it's hard to think of a better title for a blog post... Oh, I know quite a few things about Yi. I know some of its history and the stories behind its words, and how its ...
I've taken my courage (and three shiny 10p pieces) in both hands and created another video. This one with my face in... It's about how to consult the I Ching with three coins. I had wondered whether to include this in the Foundations Class, when most people are already familiar with it, ...
Thinking about the I Ching Foundations Class has got me thinking about what's actually necessary to be able to interpret your own readings with some confidence - not with a cast-iron assurance that you'll never make a mistake, just enough confidence that you can have a useful, creative, supportive, working relationship with ...
Here is a remarkable article from Alexa over at the Quotable I Ching, about Hexagram 44 and desire - and, yes, insect bites. Remarkable for how she captures the spirit of the hexagram - and without mentioning the 'powerful woman' even once. She says the 'encounter' of 44 is like ...
I haven't made a post like this before, but I can see the wisdom in making public commitments, so here goes... this is what I intend to offer you through Clarity this year. I Ching classes I'll run a series of live online classes - using a combination of live calls ...
'...and now the conclusion.' So as I was saying... trigrams, in Hexagram 63. On the inside, li, fire and light: vision, awareness, lucidity. As an inner trigram, li tends to mean insight into the nature of the time. On the outside, kan, dark depths and unceasingly moving waters that can ...
63 seems a good choice of hexagram to write about at the turn of the year, with its theme of endings-and-beginnings. Hexagrams 63 and 64, of course, stand at the very end of the Yijing, and they deal with themes of completion and arrival - or not. Their very order ...
The blog has gone quiet lately, and is likely to remain quiet until I finish up the 'Enliven' email course. This is an eclectic mix of ideas for bringing your relationship with guidance to life (hence the title!) through keeping a journal. That includes dreams and synchronicities as well as Yi ...
Here it is - https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/journal/download.php Please download and enjoy - the 30 day trial should give you plenty of time to explore. It includes...
- my Language of Change Yijing glossary (not yet available anywhere else)
- quick ways to enter a reading you've cast yourself, as well as a 'three coin' cast ...
(Note… of course this post is inspired by the Resonance Journal.) At the beginning of my last Resonance Journal video, I mentioned a couple of (embarrassingly obvious) reasons why it's good to be able to remember readings. I thought I could enlarge on that a bit for a blog post, ...
I'd been planning on writing a devastatingly insightful post about some rarefied, recondite connection you can find between readings with the Resonance Journal. Maybe the karmic significance of a repeated nuclear hexagram emerging as primary when you ask a Big Question - something deep and meaningful like that. Only when ...
A couple of months ago I wrote about 'Essentials for Yijing readings' and included that old favourite hobby horse of mine: the commentary is not the answer, along with some examples of commentary - Wilhelm's, Karcher's and mine - that was decidedly not what the oracle said. All three examples ...
Thinking about why we're creating the journal software, I found myself writing a sort of personal creed. Here it is - Living Connection Nothing definitive - of course - but heartfelt. If you like it, please share it freely ...
I'm just coming to the end of the 'omens' section as I revise and enlarge 'Words of Change', my Yijing glossary. This involves testing out ideas by looking at every instance of each omen, along with all the example readings I can find. Since I'm going into more detail this ...
Since I wrote about 'Four ways Yi works with dreams’, I've been on the alert for how this conversation's working for me. Here's an example from my journal. I'd been divining - and worrying - about how I was going to promote the journal software. I've never been very good ...
Talking about 'line positions' sounds painfully dry and academic. (Not least if it makes you think of the formulas about line correspondence and so on.) What to call them instead? 'Hexagram layers'? Too much like a trifle. Maybe 'line voices', or places to stand, ways to engage... What I'm trying ...
Responding to emails from someone struggling with his readings started me thinking about the basic principles of interpretation - the real essentials. Of course I have picked up a bunch of background knowledge along the way, and it all contributes, but people can do perfectly useful readings without most of ...
======================== Update It took longer than planned, but the Resonance Journal software is now available for download. ======================== Announcing... at last... with fanfare... The Yi-plus-dreams-plus-signs journal software - that's been in a sousaphone-sized pipeline for a while - is really taking shape now. We'll be calling for half a dozen ...
Where you find the noble one We mostly come across the junzi, the 'noble one', in the Image Wing of the Yi. But he also features in many oracles and lines of the original text. Here's the whole list: 1.3, 2.0, 3.3, 9.6, 12.0, 13.0, 15.0, 15.1, 15.3, 20.1, 20.5, ...
Hexagram 9 says, 'Small taming, creating success. Dense clouds without rain Come from my Western altars.' The dense clouds without rain suggest that what we need is tantalisingly close, just not quite here yet. Those 'Western altars' are probably a subtle reference to the Zhou, people of the West. Before ...
- or, How just a Smidgen of Background Knowledge can take you a Surprisingly Long Way. As soon as you start talking with the Yijing, it’s apparent that there are things here you don’t understand. ‘Crossing the great river’, for instance. You probably don’t make a habit of wading rivers, ...
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 ...
Four years ago 😯 , I posted about my first encounters with shadow hexagrams. And last week I was reminded of them again when a friend asked me to look at his connected-hexagrams-generating script that included Ideal and Shadow, along with many more of the creations from Stephen Karcher's divination-laboratory ...
A wise person said to me recently, 'There's only one oracle.' She meant that there's only one reality speaking to us - so it shouldn't surprise us when dreams, Yi, guides, synchronicities and all turn out to be working together. On reflection... this turns out to happen more often and ...
I thought I'd make a quick post about this to be sure no-one who's interested misses out. Change Circle are resuming regular monthly calls, on the 4th Saturday of each month. We'll talk about a variety of Yi-related things: anyone can bring a reading for discussion, or we may settle ...
I have a lovely, fat book on my shelves called Sources of Chinese Tradition (volume 1), full of excerpted translations from the Chinese. Chapter 1, fittingly enough, is about oracle bone inscriptions: the earliest Chinese writing, divination records from the Shang dynasty, long before Yi came into being. The bone ...
If you've been working with Yi for a while, you're probably familiar with the idea of looking at the hexagram each individual moving line would change to on its own, to give you a better context to understand its meaning. You might have heard them referred to as zhi gua, ...
Something I'd like to do this year: learn more about how to work with dreams and Yi, together, as a single fabric of meaning. (Something that'll be made much more practical by this journal software.) So I'm casting readings like this one and this one in an attempt to create ...
Just a quick note: I'm excited to say my doors are open for readings this month. I have a limited number of openings - just four this time. I limit myself to these small numbers because I 'carry the reading with me' for a month, reviewing and revisiting, listening for ...
I asked Yi, 'Why do we dream?' I had a few reasons for asking: huge curiosity about the answer, of course, and wondering what Yi might say out of all the possible answers I could think of. ('Processing' stuff from the day? Receiving messages? Random noise? Ongoing inner work?) Also ...
A kind correspondent (I haven't sought his permission to quote, so I'll just call him KC) wrote to ask me my opinion on the 'RTCM' - the 'Retrospective Three Coin Method' developed by Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog, which is meant as a way to confirm or deny your interpretation ...
I hope I win some kind of prize for provocative titles? Good... but there is a point to this. I always have my ears open to pick up insights and ideas from outside 'Yijingland' that will make for better Yijing divination. (I have something coming up called Into the Flow ...
...at my expense, of course. Shenpen Chokyi has just launched her new site, about her upcoming Yijing book and cards. (At least, it will be upcoming if we let her know we're interested!) So... I looked through her site, and let her know about a couple of errors I found ...
Here's a post I should have made yesterday morning, when I cast my usual playing-in-the-sandbox readings for the Wimbledon finalists. Then I could have made a prediction and invited you to do the same, and... let's face it, if I tried to cast readings with public predictions in mind, Yi ...
I recently had an email from 'M', who's baffled by a recent reading. M's particular question was a little unusual, asking what he himself is really looking for in a given situation, but the basic problem he's having is familiar: "Essentially, I am confused as how to interpret the original ...
(This post is about the basics. If you know them already, you can skip this and seek out something more sophisticated.) 'How important are the changing lines?' Someone emailed me to ask that: his 'I Ching' book had taught him to read one hexagram with one changing line for every ...
I like reading tarot blogs - there's a whole supportive culture out there of readers, and the challenges they face are not so different from those encountered by Yi people. For instance, here's Brigit writing warmly and with a good dose of common sense about dealing with difficult clients ...
I've been very quiet lately - busy preparing to upgrade all the software that runs Clarity. Now it's time to take the plunge and run the upgrades. While the upgrades are running, some things - the forum, shop and anything you log in to - won't work. They'll close on ...
When people ask me how they can become more fluent and confident with their readings, I always, predictably, say something about experience. Consulting with Yi is a relationship and a practice - not something you can learn how to do first, and then start doing it. You get to know ...
Here are some thoughts on the moving line texts of Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward. I'd like to have a good dive in here - drawing on the meaning of the line position, the relationship to the zhi gua (the hexagram each line changes to) and the line pathway, along with ...
As promised... one more step along the path through Hexagram 46. In this post, I'll have a go at a couple more 'hexagrams of context': two more ways of saying 'this is not that'. In the last post I looked at 46 with 45, Gathering: the contrasting, paired hexagram. Pushing ...
This is a topic that came up in the I Ching Community with reference to weekly and annual readings - how people can be frightened by them, maybe scared into paralysis by a sinister-looking line - and it got me thinking about the scariness of readings in general. What is ...
I call the hexagrams that are naturally related to the cast hexagram, regardless of its changing lines, 'hexagrams of context'. They make an extended family of contrasts and sources. (Those simple old human ways of understanding something - seeing what it isn't, and telling its stories - work just as ...
The trigrams of Hexagram 46 seem to embody its nature particularly clearly. Earth contains wood - a straightforward picture of a germinating seed. The Image says: 'Centre of the earth gives birth to wood. Pushing upward. A noble one with patient character, Builds up small things to attain the high ...
Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward, has to do with step-by-step progress onward and upward, and the effort of the climb. It also has to do with offerings: Harmen, in his fascinating article on the hexagram, says, "Sheng was the name of a certain sacrifice, and because of the close resemblance between ...
If you click through to http://www.ichinglivingchange.org/, you'll find a series of four posts on the US election. I wanted just to mention them here, as I think they're intriguing readings and worth a closer look. Here are Stephen's questions and Yi's answers: What is America hiding? 56.3.5.6 changing to 45 ...
Or annual readings, or readings for the season or even just for the day... all the readings where the question is just, 'What do I need to be aware of for this period of time?'
or maybe just,
'Advice?' You might have some ongoing issues in mind - we usually have, after ...
or maybe just,
'Advice?' You might have some ongoing issues in mind - we usually have, after ...
I've been looking at the patterns that take shape within the 'container' formed by hexagrams 3 and 50, and wondering what they might mean. Here's a bit more wondering. It looks as though hexagrams 3 and 50, living energies and vessel, form a mould, within which an individual life (or ...
... what does it mean for readings? That's what an aggravatingly clear-sighted friend asked when I started enthusing at her about the beautiful 'casting' structure between hexagrams 3 and 50. And I suppose it's not an unreasonable question... 😉 Maybe one day it'll mean I routinely consider the matching hexagram ...
Warning: this post is pure, unadulterated gleeful Yeekery. I've been reading about how the ancient Chinese bronze vessels were made. Here's a fascinating pdf on the subject (right click and choose 'save as' to download), with images of the finished vessels and also the moulds used in the casting, and ...
That need Yi answers is for... 'The Well. Moving the city, not moving the well. Without loss, without gain, They come and go, the well wells. Almost drawn the water, but the rope does not quite reach the water, Or breaking one's clay jug, Pitfall.' in the background as underlying ...
(This post is part of an absurdly long series:
- The basic human need that Yi answers
- The basic human need Yi answers, part 2: the Well
- The basic human need Yi answers, part 3: the change
- The basic human need Yi answers, part 4: changing line 1 )
As I've mentioned a few times before, I asked Yi what the basic human need is that it answers, and it responded with Hexagram 49, Radical Change, moving at lines 1, 2 and 4 to Hexagram 48, the Well. Here (at last!) are that reading's moving line texts: 'Bound with ...
This is a follow-up post from these two, about a reading. (And there will be more to come: a single post covering three lines, change patterns and speculations about trigram changes would have been ridiculously long.) Thought in passing... Talking to people in the comments on those posts about personal ...
More on that 'Radical Change at the Well' reading soon, I promise. But first... Please will you do me a big favour and take this survey? ======================== Update! Two years on, the Resonance Journal software is ready for you to download. Give it a try! ======================== Some background... I store ...
I'm not quite sure how long ago I cast this reading. A search at archive.org reveals that I'd already uploaded it to IChingResources by April 2001. So some time before then, I had at least noticed that there were, as I put it, 'books to be written about this answer' ...
The lines of the first two hexagrams can be regarded as keys to understanding all the lines - all yang lines at the beginning being a little like the submerged dragon, all yin lines at the beginning being somehow akin to treading on hoarfrost. These lines are formative, models for ...
Every pair of hexagrams, ie every odd-numbered hexagram with the even-numbered one that follows it, carries some un-pin-downable feeling of 'inspiration and manifestation' or 'question and response' or 'yang and yin'. Only I just wonder whether there might be a more specific patterns in the 7s and 8s... Hexagram 7, the ...
Apologies if you had higher expectations from that portentous title, but this is just a quick note - the kind of meeting of patterns of ideas that I enjoy. Here's an article from Bri Saussy about sin. Now I've learned that the original Greek, hamartia, means missing the mark, I ...
I see I have made no posts here for over a month. Eep. Why? Erm, let me give you the short version. My Mum-in-law was admitted to hospital as an emergency (this is not the same admission I wrote about before). That was all very intense and dramatic... and it ...
También disponible en español I've just had some experiences with hexagram 19 I'd like to share. To give you a bit of context, the long version of the story is in a thread in Reading Circle, but the short version is that we've just been through a few wholly nightmarish ...
Clarity's free online I Ching is new and improved; the oracle's sense of humour is much the same as ever. First, the new reading features:
- instead of showing all the text of both hexagrams, leaving you to pick out the relevant parts, this displays only the hexagrams and lines ...
Half a thought that came to me when meditating (along with 'I wonder how long I've been sitting for?' and 'must buy broccoli' and all the rest, which are not so much blog post material...) I've embarked on Clare Josa's excellent 28 day meditation challenge. The guided meditation she recorded ...
...or am I imagining things? A brief note about this post: after someone let me know he was unsubscribing because he hadn't been able to understand any of my posts, I've aimed for a mix of generally-intelligible things and pure Yeekery. Yeekery is that which is only intelligible to Yeeks; ...
Oh dear, oh dear. Another one - someone explaining how the Yijing is not just an oracle, but 'so much more than that'. I do wish people would not say this without pausing for a moment to contemplate what an oracle is. A variation on this 'just an oracle' idea ...
As I've mentioned before, I first got to know Hexagram 14, Great Possession, through volunteering. When I was just getting started with Yi, I asked about volunteering in general and about various individual opportunities, and received 14 again and again in the answers. What I came to love about volunteering ...
I don't do tarot readings, or know anything worth mentioning about tarot, but I still like reading what wise tarot people write. They seem to have a creative, flexible, improvisatory approach to divination that I think Yi people could learn something from. And a lot of the problems/ questions/ possibilities ...
... starting at 9pm UK time? (That's 4pm Eastern.) As that's when Kim Gould of Love Your Design has kindly asked me to join her for her web-radio show. Kim's speciality is Human Design, a modern system that brings together astrology, the chakra system, Kaballah and the I Ching. Fortunately ...
“What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It ...
I've been listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estés talking about creativity and telling stories (always a good idea). She talked about that time when an artist becomes utterly obsessed by his (or her) art: the work is so perfect, so beautiful, so right, that nothing else matters. The artist forgets all ...
I'm sure I must have mentioned these before, so let me start with a quick recap before I get to something I just noticed about 57.5... A 'line pathway' is my name for what LiSe calls 'line squares' and Stephen Karcher calls 'crossline omens'. (LiSe and Stephen are the ones ...
This post is such an agglomeration of things it's not really title-able. How about 'Complementary hexagrams, 26 and 45 in particular, and intention, and the usual brilliance of Jen Louden or What happens if you read everything with hexagram eyes'? No? Anyway... it starts - before that 61-to-29 reading persuaded ...
Jack Balkin (The Laws of Change) and Richard Rutt (Zhouyi) both explain the distinction between two kinds of oracle: impetrative and oblative. Since they give subtly different definitions, I'll content myself with sharing what I've understood from them both. An oblative oracle is one that's given to you: an omen ...
If you're a Change Circle member, or if you've clicked the 'Readings' tab of this site lately, you'll already know this: I've stopped giving I Ching readings. The I Ching Community remains - definitely no plans to close that - as do the various downloads and the full I Ching ...
I've been reading Multiplicity: the new science of personality by Rita Carter. I'm only part way through, so this isn't a good representation of the book, just half an idea that struck as I was reading. The basic thesis of the book is this: your character as an individual is ...
Here - http://i-ching-news.blogspot.com/2011/06/two-different-approaches.html - is a lovely post from Cesca, talking about hexagrams 5 and 6, Waiting and Arguing, as a pair. She describes them succinctly as 'two very different ways of dealing with a situation that isn't going in the way you would prefer.' This - at least for ...
Why would someone ignore the relating hexagram? A few people have told me lately that they don't tend to look at the relating hexagram - the second one, the one found by changing any changing lines in your cast hexagram - as they don't really find anything in it. They're ...
In the past I've done a lot of readings, for myself and other people, seeking advice about what to do and how to do things. I expect I'll do a lot more of them, too, because they are direct, clear, straightforward and massively useful. 'How can I do this?' 'What's ...
Most people seem to get started with the Yijing by asking about a relationship. It's a good way to start: it's present, immediate and something you care about - when you ask these questions, you're really asking them. It's also potentially tricky, that mix of getting started with overwhelming emotion ...
I've written before about not being in too much of a hurry to get past your reading's imagery to 'what it means', because the image is what talks to you, and where you live, and somehow is the hinge and pivot of change in a way that a concept isn't ...
No, this is not going to be the post where I explain how Yi answers questions - ask me again after a few more lifetimes - but one where I ponder in a meandering way about how these conversations we have with the Change Book actually result in personal change. ...
This is from Havi at Fluent Self, who once again is writing about Yi without knowing it. This time she's unwittingly explaining Hexagram 11, line 1, as a matter of fractal flowers. Hexagram 11 is about Flow, working with it or creating it or stepping into it. There is no ...
Just one more of those moving-line-related connections that makes it look for all the world as if the people who wrote this oracle knew what they were doing - Start with Hexagram 14, Great Possession - 'Activate' its third and fourth lines - change them by opening them out from ...
OK, here's the off-the-wall idea for the day. What if you could add two hexagrams together? Not changing lines to move from one hexagram to another, but 'adding' them, on the basis that yin + yin = yin, but yang + yin = yang, because you imagine the yang line ...
On the one hand, 'Already Across' is certainly a good, literal translation of the name of Hexagram 63. The old character for 'already' shows someone turned away from a food pot, implying a completed action. The historical resonances of the book as a whole imply that this is the moment ...
I wanted to see what you thought of this blog post from James Warlock, who was part of last year's Festival of Change: The Magickian's Cycle. It begins: The magickian's cycle is, in essence, as follow:
- Become very enthusiastic about magick
- Practice magick in a regular and dedicated fashion ...
This morning I picked up a book at random, opened it at random, and found myself reading what Thomas Moore has to say about jealousy in Care of the Soul. He relates it to the myth of Hippolytus, a young man who was a devotee of the goddess Artemis, something ...
Someone, some day, really is going to have to write a huge Yi book that not only describes individual moving lines with their zhi gua in mind - for example, writing about 27.6 with 24 in mind - but also describes groups of moving lines with their zhi gua in ...
On the one hand... ...divination with Yi is not particularly about getting what you want. As a wise person pointed out recently in Reading Circle, it's not life-as-catalogue: 'I want that person/ this experience/ that possession, so how do I get it?' We need to be at least somewhat aware ...
Well... Bradford came over to the UK from the States to see Cesca, and while he was here we got together and went over to Holland to see LiSe (and connect up with Harmen, too). And this was brilliant in many, many ways. I want to share the reading I ...
======================== Update! There's now software available here at Clarity to keep a complete journal - not only of Yijing readings, but also of dreams, synchronicities and more. Created by Justin Farrell, it's the successor to his I Ching Journal reviewed below. It's called the Resonance Journal. ======================== Why would you use ...
...or 'Where did Hilary go?' Well... I sit myself down in front of a task and my brain goes on strike. It's got quite radical about it: 'Sit and stare at the screen all you like,' it says, 'but if you think anything useful is getting done here, you've got ...
‘Gradual advance. The woman marries. Good fortune. Constancy bears fruit.’ Hexagrams 53 and 54, Gradual Advance and the Marrying Maiden, are what Stephen Karcher calls 'The Great Marriages'. So what does 'marriage' mean? To a large extent, that depends on your perspective: in old China, marriage for the man means ...
I enjoy the basement of Oxford's remaindered/discount book shop - all kinds of entertaining things end up there. My latest trip yielded The Psychic Tourist by William Little, a journalistic book in which he investigates one claim after another (psychics, mediumship, remote viewing...), typically finding good stories that turn out to ...
Step 1 - have an I Ching website. Step 2 - have a nice publisher contact you via said website and ask you to write a book. Then... Think of all the reasons why you absolutely should not do anything of the kind for another 10, 20 or 30 years ...
Technology has apparently come full circle: first we made every word count as we laboriously inked, scratched or engraved them by hand; then the printing press brought doorstop-sized novels (and Yijing commentaries likewise); now a phone with a 100 character limit prompts these brief responses to hexagrams, lines and commentaries: ...
...at the last possible moment! I was very, very lucky that Ravi Walsh agreed to step in at the last minute after one of the Festival of Change speakers had to drop out. He's a spiritual life coach who works with a method of his own creation - or maybe ...
In the Festival of Change, Claire Hayes will be helping with the integrating phase of a reading. You know... the moment when you understand what it's saying to you, and the only minor detail left to deal with is actually changing in response. Occasionally this is easy - as simple ...
Every time I mentioned some new aspect of the Festival of Change to a certain friend and mentoring client, she'd tell me I really needed to talk to James about that. Looking at his various websites, I could see what she meant - lots of breadth there, signs of a ...
Another example reading for you, this one for Jennifer Louden, whom I just introduced. I'm reading for as many of the Festival of Change speakers before the event as would like to be read for - obviously, not everyone has something share-able going on that calls for a reading. But ...
Jennifer Louden's an opening speaker - and a speaker about 'opening' - for the Festival of Change. I asked her to participate after I discovered her 'listening to the question’ audio. As you might imagine, the title caught my attention - I spend a whole lot of time listening to ...
I've been talking with each speaker for the Festival of Change, bouncing ideas around, discussing what we'll cover in their call, and getting to the point where - never mind the whole running-an-event, selling-tickets thing - I'm really looking forward to this just for what I can learn from these ...
Some background to this... Pamela Moss is one of the speakers for Festival of Change; I asked her to talk about integration, carrying change through in practice, as I happen to know she's Very Good At This, and she said 'yes', and I danced round the room a bit, in ...
Some wise person (who may or may not have been Einstein) once said that everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Seems like good advice for divination. Thing is, we do seem to make it complicated. There's the way we somehow manage to get from spending ...
The more closely I look at the Image - the Daxiang wing, I mean - the more I think whoever wrote it was a sage. One tiny example... you know how most of the hexagrams' Images tell you what the 'noble one' would do? And then there are three that ...
I've been working hard on this behind the scenes for a while now, and it's high time I let you know about it... When - 4th to 12th September Where - wherever you happen to be, within reach of a phone line - we'll connect via teleseminars and a private ...
I've stumbled across a question to ask Yi that's rapidly becoming one of my favourites: 'What's the gift?' It can be asked about almost anything, of course. A situation, an approach, a book... I just asked about what my new way of eating gives me, and had a very clear, ...
These are something I can't write - I can't help seeing the world through 'hexagram glasses' - but I love coming across them: articles about other things that just happen to be really excellent hexagram commentaries. Havi Brooks has been writing some very nice inadvertent Yijing things lately, even to ...
I'm sorry to go so quiet lately. I've been having wonderful experiences with Yi, and readings, and connections and shifts happening... and all to do with clients' readings, so I can never share them here in public. (I'm very happy that I'm blessed with clients who share my joy in ...
Each hexagram of the Yijing contains a nuclear hexagram at its core. And since the nuclear hexagram unfolds from lines 2-5, it's the first and last lines, the 'entrance and exit' or 'roots and shoots' of the hexagram, that vary - so that four hexagrams can be formed around each ...
I always enjoy finding someone writing about hexagrams without knowing it. Here is Zoë of 'Essential Prose' writing about Hexagram 38, Opposing. The way she is, in fact, talking about Hexagram 38 really leaps from the page: "...the things we dismiss or reject because they don’t fit inside our perception of ...
On my 'day off' a couple of weeks ago, I went and wandered round the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, going whereever I felt drawn. Presently I found myself up on the second floor, in front of a huge wooden carving of a seated Guan Yin. There she is in her ...
I don't normally find it easy to read tarot blogs - I just don't know enough about tarot to 'get' it most of the time - but I'm delighting in Ginny Hunt's post about Intuition and Making Shit Up. She's definitely talking about people's experience with the I Ching, too: ...
The name of Hexagram 36, ming yi, is translated as ‘brightness hidden’ or ‘brightness wounded’. The two ideas blend together in readings: the light is hidden away to escape the danger of injury. The wealth of layers of association in this hexagram hint at a complex relationship of light and ...
I sometimes think of Stephen Karcher as the alchemist of Yijing interpretation, working away in his divination-laboratory and emerging from time to time with new techniques and tools of interpretation for diviners to test out. I'll always try what he offers, and often find it immensely useful - though by ...
... all still from Harmen. Laws 5 and 6 - If you cling to the answer you will lose the solution. The symbolic replies from the Yijing can invite you to endless lingering in the field of metaphors, chewing on every possible piece of information that might or might not ...
Continuing with Harmen's Ten Laws of Proper Yijing Practice... Law 3 - Too much is less than enough. "Can I expect any positive movement from P's corner in the next couple of months?" I got Hex 10 unchanging. I get a sense that 10 means moving with caution. So I ...
Here's a challenging post from Harmen Mesker: Ten Laws of Proper Yijing Practice Explained. While I'm unlikely ever to call anything to do with the Yi a 'law' (there's a distinct shortage of rules graven on stone tablets for divination), this is a really thoughtful and thought-provoking article. Law 1: ...
Since I had to remove the Wilhelm/Baynes translation from the free online I Ching here, I've had several people ask after it. I can't restore it, but I can at least offer an alternative to good old Victorian James Legge. So I've just added excerpts from my own upcoming I ...
(Note: this is a quick post, throwing an idea out into the ether as soon as it hatches, with just a few feathers sticking to its scrawny neck, and a great big gaping beak squawking 'Feed me!' It is distinctly lacking in flight-feathers of its own as yet.) People instinctively ...
Stephen Karcher’s latest book, I Ching – the Symbolic Life - is a self-published work. The advantage of this: he’s been able to create and illustrate the book he wanted, in colour, with no corners cut. The disadvantage: the price is a little scary. I ordered my copy from ...
There's a much-quoted passage from Wang Bi's General Remarks on the Zhouyi about concepts and images: "Images are the means to express ideas. ...The images are generated by ideas, thus one can ponder the images and so observe what the ideas are. The ideas are yielded up completely by the ...
También disponible en español Hexagram 10 tells you that you are 'treading the tail of the tiger.' The first question to ask yourself about it is always - naturally enough - 'What tiger? Where?' There is something here that could devour you; you need to know what it is. In ...
I've been taking a good, long look at the Way of Harmony I Ching software. It's designed to encourage that kind of steady, take-your-time approach: it offers you gentle colours, the option of soft background music or sounds, and a simple, uncluttered interface. Some real thought has gone into creating ...
I've been reading Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, and just reached the chapter on the power of expectations to change perception. The introductory example comes from sport: the supporters of two rival teams watch the same key, game-deciding moment, and for one of them the ball (or player, or something ...
This is just a speculative post, or a starting point for speculation... I've started thinking of the trigram li - fire and light - as being like eyes, particularly when it's the inner trigram. Then sometimes it seems to look out at the outer trigram, and sometimes it seems to ...
There's a deep humour to the last two hexagrams of the Yijing. 63: Already Across. Already Completed. Every line is in what was traditionally said to be its 'right place' - that is, the yang lines are in the odd-numbered positions, 1, 3 and 5, and yin lines sit quietly ...
A thought about Hexagram 58, line 5... not yet completely confirmed by experience, just a thought... Hexagram 58 is Opening, Joy and Communicating: the human figure with the great mouth who seems to dance and sing. This post is about its fifth line - the peak and culmination of the ...
Do you cast a reading for the year? For many years now, I've cast mine on my birthday - I'm lucky to have a birthday in early December, so there's plenty of time for the reading to start to sink in during the depths of winter. Winter is an utterly ...
One of the fascinating things about the structure of the Yijing is the way one hexagram in a pair (an odd-numbered hexagram with the even-numbered one that follows it, that is) can point to the other. It might contain it, or imply it, or give you a different perspective on ...
Every now and then, I open a book and the words leap out at me as hexagram commentary - and then ramblings like these result... Here's Thomas Moore, in Care of the Soul, talking about faith. 'Imagine,' he says, 'a trust in yourself, or another person, or in life itself, ...
Ah - experience. People phone me up to say they'd like an interpretation from someone who has more of the stuff. We gather it in journals (and Change Circle's WikiWing); it crystallises into a clear inner sense of what lines and hexagrams mean; it's worth more than any 20 commentaries ...
There's something about writing on the Yijing - it's not like other books, that just sit there mutely and allow themselves to be translated. I think people who've worked through the hexagram-by-hexagram threads over the years have had similar experiences, as the line of the day just happens to show ...
Hexagram 14, Great Possession, says at line 4, 匪其彭。无咎。 - Not your (or its) peng, no mistake. Peng means power and dominance - Wu Jing Nuan translates with his usual succinctness, 'Not his to be strong' - and the old character shows a drum with three strokes next to it, ...
All meanings of the name of this post are intentional, as I really don't know the first thing about Chinese etymology. But in my ignorance, I just stumbled over something wonderful in the first line of Hexagram 4, Not Knowing. Hexagram 4, line 1 speeds the young ignoramus on her ...
One of the meanings of Hexagram 4, Not Knowing, is being 'covered over', like a young animal whose mother hides it in the undergrowth. This means you can't see as far as you'd like to, something which people tend to find frustrating - and yet the image of the young ...
A while ago, I received an email politely suggesting I stop referring to the Yi simply as 'Yi' without an article. The writer maintained that since the oracle is 'not a person', it would be better not to give it a 'pet name'; this was not good English usage when ...
For some reason, working through the lines of hexagram 32 recently took much longer than any other hexagram had done... 😉 I did find, looking through threads about it at the forum, that other people find it hard, too. Especially, it's puzzling how a hexagram that describes something essentially positive ...
The I Ching Community is closing today, and will re-open soon. This is a new start. Vision The I Ching Community is a warm and open place for free, wide-ranging exploration of the I Ching. It’s a place to learn about and from this oracle, through experience, one ...
Harmen has just published a new article, which is always a wonderful thing (even if I wish he'd translate his Chinese sources for me!). This one is about fu - that word from the name of Hexagram 61 that means truth or trust or sincerity or confidence, or 'conforming' in ...
(Where have I been since my last post? Following Yi's guidance through the emotional minefield that is house-hunting. Still in one piece, though, and starting to see a way through.) Sometimes people will ask you to consult the Yijing on their behalf, or to help interpret their readings. It's a ...
Yi's been reminding me of hexagram 2 lately. It's my 'hexagram for the year', unchanging, so I have the opportunity to see it from the inside - after seeing it through my mother's example a few years ago. One of the biggest changes in my life this year is going ...
(Eep... this is the longest gap between blog posts in ages. Where have I been? I'm not completely sure... but it's involved getting started writing a book (more about this in Change Circle shortly), getting to know the excellent people who are participating in this year's Yijing Class, and starting ...
(Sometimes I'm working through my notes and some small thing comes into focus. Here's one of them.) Hexagram 28 is 'Great Overstepping': the time of 'overstepping the mark' or 'stepping over the line', when the weight of things goes beyond what the structure can support, and the ridgepole begins to ...
I wrote before about how Yi can be a vehicle for instantaneous change, through an image that immediately transforms your experience. Immediate change... The effect of a 'vehicle for change' tends to be an immediate change of perception and experience. One moment your inner space is just hollowed out and ...
I just finished the handout for today's free call on the I Ching as 'Book of Transformations': you're welcome to download this in pdf format (to print out and write on) or as an editable rtf file. Do get yourself a copy even if you can't make it to the ...
I'm running a free call this Sunday (10th) about the I Ching as 'book of transformations'. This is all part of the preparations for this year's I Ching Class: I'm trying to use the free calls to give a flavour of what it's about, as well as some practical suggestions ...
Sometimes, after you've looked at an I Ching reading for a while, the natural next step is to ask another question to help you understand aspects of that first reading. And sometimes the further answers you're looking for are already present in your original reading, if you just have the ...
This is a 7 minute excerpt from the beginning of last weekend's 'Introducing Divination' call, in which I introduce the call and people introduce divination to one another. Participants include Lynne Tolk of lifedirectionscoach.com, Jane English of eheart.com, and Josephine. (Click the blue 'play' button to play, or right-click here ...
I'm hosting a free call today - at 7pm UK time, 11am Pacific (more timezones here) - introducing and exploring divination and the I Ching. The call will include...
- "What's divination for?" - how you can use it to make a difference in your own experience
- three tips for ...
Just to make sure you don't miss this... On Sunday 26th at 7pm here in the UK (which is 11am Pacific time - and you can translate this to your own timezone here) there's a free call to discuss synchronicity, divination and the I Ching. Someone just emailed to ask ...
Hexagram 34 is Great Vigour - or Power, or Strength. The old character shows a scholar, or an impressive man, and half the character for 'tree'. It means robust, powerful, in the prime of life. Combined with the character for 'great' - a man standing straight - this gives a ...
The other day, I responded to a client's I Ching Course assignment about a reading with five moving lines. Since I'm not a fan of systems that reduce the number of moving lines (I reckon that if your answer were contained in a single moving line, you'd have received just ...
I was writing on Saturday about a reading kindly shared by Eric Bryant of I Ching Insights ('petrosianii' here at Clarity). He asked about the effect of purchasing some nicotine-free cigarettes as an aid to giving up smoking; he received first Hexagram 25 moving to 41, and then Hexagram 37 ...
Over at his 'I Ching Insights' blog, Eric Bryant's doing sterling work writing up the whole process of a reading: formulating the question, and interpreting the answer. And in the process, he's run into an experience that's pretty familiar to anyone who's ever talked with the oracle: he's got stuck ...
I was just listening to a recording of a call from a couple of years ago, where I suggested that divination was like becoming a 'cello. Then I stopped and asked if anyone had questions, and a nice participant told me that I'd just lost him with that last bit ...
You can learn a lot about moving lines in the Yijing by looking at where they're headed - that is, the hexagram that would be generated if this line alone were changing. Arguing doesn't lead to good fortune - unless it's done in an awareness of being 'Not Yet Across' ...
Paul Guérin, also known as 'confucius' in the I Ching Community, is offering these drawings of the old forms of the sixty-four hexagram names: The images are drawn in Chinese ink on rice paper, and they're available for all of $20, including postage anywhere in the world, only to Clarity ...
I came across this animation at Patricia Bralley's excellent blog, where she has it under the title 'Addiction, Ego, Pain'. Of course, we don't know what the scarf is made of... but it seems to me that another good title might be, "How to tell when you really need Hexagram ...
There's an interview with Carol Anthony (author of Guide to the I Ching, Oracle of the Cosmic Way and so on) on BlogTalkRadio. It's good to hear the voice after experiencing the books, and get some insight into the process that gave rise to them. There's a long introduction before ...
A couple of days ago, I recommended the Divine Purpose Unveiled course, and all kinds of debate ensued. Some of that was about the very idea of having a 'divine purpose' at all, and whether it's remotely helpful. Is it good to believe that we have a specific personal contribution ...
Update: at least some of the bonus sessions mentioned below are gone now (including the ones with me - see CK's comment). Check on the sales page to see which are left. ~~~~~~~~~ As you know, I don't exactly litter this blog with recommendations for other people's products ...
One more episode - this one about staying connected to a flow of energy. Any comments? Any suggestions for future questions? ...
Hexagram 35: Advancing, Prospering, Flourishing - I love getting this one in readings and introducing people to it. 'Prospering, Prince Kang used a gift of horses to breed a multitude. He mated them three times in one day.' (There are other possible translations - it could be that Kang was ...
I quite often have people ask me whether I don't agree that the I Ching is essentially philosophy, and wisdom, and 'more than just divination.' And I find it hard to know how to respond. Yes, there is wisdom there, though the only consistent 'philosophy' I find is a very ...
Hexagram 5, Waiting or Attending, ends at the 6th line with 'Entering into the cave There are uninvited guests, Three people come. Honouring them, in the end good fortune.' So on the one hand the waiting is almost finished - instead of going out and crossing the river to show ...
Years ago, I wrote that Hexagram 11 seems like the hexagram of love - "not so much love in its various expressions in human relationships, but as a pure, overwhelming cosmic force for creation." I think it's also love as power. Certainly I've rarely seen it mean a peaceful experience ...
One of the highlights of Opening Space for Change, for me, was when one of the participants said she'd found her readings had become clearer. This is someone who already has plenty of experience with the Yijing, and she's a very good interpreter who's always willing to give plenty of ...
I've been asking people, for the past couple of weeks, why it's important to them to open space for change. The answers have been eye-opening - and with the first space-opening call today, it seemed a good moment to try to respond myself. Why's it important to me to open ...
...to Opening Space for Change. You can win a free ticket to the whole event. That includes the two calls - clearing and opening a space to listen in, and attuning to the response - ...and their recordings ...and a copy of the music Eliana just recorded at an ancient ...
I'm not a great Christmas-enthusiast, but there's something about New Year that always delights me. I imagine it's simply the promise of newness: things may have been a certain way last year, but that needn't prove anything about this year. It's a grand, sparkling invitation to remake habits and patterns, ...
I was pretty much bowled over a couple of days ago when a publishing company - a real one that does real, paper books and pays authors - contacted me to ask if I'd be interested in doing an I Ching book. Would I?! Of course I would. At least ...
I'm enjoying reading Stephen Field's Ancient Chinese Divination, especially the insight into the early understanding of qi and how it flows. I'm just reading his description of Form School fengshui. While its earliest written description is (in Yijing terms) relatively young (the Tang dynasty Book of Burial), the fundamental idea ...
Back when Eliana and I first started juggling ideas for Opening Space for Change, of course one of the first things I did was to ask Yi for a comment on the idea. Not for the business partnership side of things, but first of all for the whole idea of ...
I love those synchronicities that come as pure encouragement, like welcoming signposts saying, 'Yes, this way.' I was talking to Eliana, who's joining with me to create the Opening Space for Change event in a few weeks' time. I'd just been working on a reading for the podcast about how ...
Well, I'm still getting the hang of my new microphone (I hope), and recovering some voice after the seasonal cold, and experimenting with recording without a script... not sure about the merits of that one... but anyway, here's podcast 4. The question this time was about opening the channel for ...
Browsing Allan Lian's blog, with a New Year post offering a Confucian perspective on self-cultivation, got me thinking. What is self-cultivation - where and how does this idea show up in the Yijing? Luckily, I don't have far to look: my guiding principle for the year for Clarity, as given ...
or - why is Clarity here? I've been running Clarity now for some eight years, so this post's probably about eight years overdue. What can I say? I'm a bit slow at times. Also, hopefully some things have got clearer for me since 2000. Why is Clarity here? Because I ...
...because if enough people are interested, we could get together online to chat and explore a shared reading. These live events are normally only for Change Circle people, but this one's open to all Clarity members. Please come and read the thread about this and...
- vote in the poll ...
Hexagram 39 is called 'Difficulties' or 'Limping'. It describes the experience of a perpetual uphill struggle: just one thing after another, grinding on and on, battling with handicaps or with the elements or with an unforgivingly inhospitable world... ...and it also describes the moment when you turn this around. I've ...
This is a subject that deserves much more than these few lines, but I'm so interested to hear what you think about it that I don't want to wait until I have something more eloquent to say. The 'default' idea of divination is that we cast hexagrams, and they describe ...
This topic's been discussed more than once at the I Ching Community, where I Ching beginners very often show up asking questions like, 'What does he feel about me?' Goodness knows this is an absolutely normal, human thing to want to ask - but anyone who's watched a few of ...
Here's the latest Living Change for you to download, with a reading on how to nurture creativity. Please comment! (I'm especially interested in thoughts on practical ways to respond to the reading.) Change Circle members will find the promised interview in the members area. I'm aware that this business of ...
A couple of my most startling, transformative readings lately have come when I asked questions I could and should have asked a year or more ago. The issues were on my mind - in some cases driving all I did - yet it never dawned on me to talk with ...
A round-up of readings from the run-up to the election, with thanks to Google. The earliest pertinent reading I found was from 24th May: "What will an Obama presidency bring to the nation?" Now, there's some ambiguity around this reading: for one thing, by July the original poster was saying ...
It's one of those FAYQ*: "Does the Yijing always answer the question you ask?" My standard answer is yes, almost always. And yes, it is always good to assume in the first place that this is what's happened, and you're looking at an answer to your question. The alternative - ...
There's an I Ching online chat tomorrow - simple text chat as far as I know - run by our own Petrosianii (aka Eric Bryant). It's at 2pm Eastern time (you can check other timezones here): full details here ...
Here's the second episode - shorter than I'd intended, but it's here. Today's reading is about money, and came out rather more topical than I'd planned. I hope you enjoy; please comment to your heart's content. Links mentioned in the audio: The music is from here; Change Circle is here ...
I wrote a few days back about how the I Ching unavoidably, undeniably, takes time. I also touched on how it gives time back, re-tuned and humming. Setting aside enough time for a reading means greater clarity, better decisions, and just a more grounded, fluent experience. Also, it makes for ...
I just heard this in an audio sample from Marianne Williamson's Sacred Dialogue programme: "We say, OK this is not joyous, and so I want another life, and so we pray for another life. ...We tend to think of it like, 'This life isn't good enough, and I want another ...
Message from Mick Frankel: "The first of my three Theosophical Society workshops on the I Ching is on Saturday 25th October at the Friends' Meeting House, Mount Street in Manchester City Centre near the Library. The workshop runs from 2 - 4 and costs £4 which includes a cup of ...
Ever heard this? "I know the I Ching works, but I don't have time for it." Ever said it? I have... which is more embarrassing than I care to think about. Naturally I have endless time to work on readings for clients, and work out the best possible ways to ...
It was some time after I thought I'd 'completed' my hexagram commentary to contribute to Change Circle's WikiWing when I realised there was a line I'd completely forgotten. Hexagram 2, 'using sixes': the text that's read when every line is moving, and Hexagram 2 changes towards Hexagram 1. 'Harvest from ...
Here it is... I Ching podcast, episode 1. In future I'd like to add more sections to this - some interviews, feedback, shared experiences, maybe even some music like a real, grown-up podcast. Some of the more in-depth stuff will be for Change Circle members only, but there'll always be ...
Here's a whole field of study where (as far as I know) we've barely scratched the surface. Each hexagram line 'points towards' the hexagram created when it changes, its zhi gua. It's natural enough to go through the I Ching line by line and see how each one reflects the ...
I just added my Twitter updates to the blog's sidebar. You can see them over on the right, just below the subscription buttons and above the 'Recent Comments'. Then it dawned on me I should maybe explain what on earth this is. Twitter is a kind of cross between a ...
There seem to be two distinct streams of ideas flowing in Hexagram 49, Radical Change. First, it's arguably the apex, along with Hexagram 50, of the great historical narrative of the Zhou conquest. 'Radical Change puts away the old; the Vessel grasps renewal.' The old regime is overthrown here; the ...
Hexagram 18, line 5: 'Ancestral father's corruption. Use praise.' So how is praise in any way helpful in dealing with corruption? Hexagram 18 is one of those whose lines seem to have a reasonably clear progression, starting with taking on responsibility for and 'ownership of' the inherited corruption, and moving ...
After the slight embarrassment of having to turn down people who asked to pay for several months' membership of Change Circle at once (and doesn't that sound as if I made it up? I didn't, though), I've created the option to pay for a year's membership in advance. You might ...
When I cast a reading for the week, sometimes I find the reading tells me about the week; sometimes I find the week tells me about the reading. And usually it's some mix of the two. This last week Yi suggested I look out simply for Hexagram 10 - no ...
The Judgement of Hexagram 62 reads: 'Small overstepping, creating success. Harvest in constancy. Allows small works, does not allow great works. Flying bird calls as it leaves: The above is not right, below is right. Great good fortune.' The flying bird brings a message; this is something that birds do, ...
Yesterday some Change Circle members went on a remarkable inner journey, visiting a Lake and a Mountain, receiving some unexpected gifts. (Thank you, Kevin, who guided the guided imagery.) Change Circle members can access the recording from our home page; if you'd like to join us for future explorations, you ...
================================= Update! 'Total Yijing' is no longer available - but if you're looking for I Ching journal software try the Resonance Journal ================================= Good news! The Total Yijing software is (finally) available in a Vista-compatible form. I've downloaded, installed and upgraded and it's running smoothly. I wouldn't necessarily suggest buying ...
I didn't learn to swim until I was ten. I'm told that when I was first put into a pool, at age 4 or so, I screamed at the top of my lungs until I could get out again. The teacher would grab other children by the hands and whirl ...
One of the things we Westerners need to learn when divining with the Yijing is a certain flexibility about gender. Women need to be able to identify with a series of male kings and heroes (Kings Wen and Wu, Yu the Great, King Hai...), to say nothing of finding a ...
Cutting through hexagram 23 - Harmen's Dagboek. One of those splendidly detailed articles from Harmen I need to read over and over again. One thing that leaps to the eye: he mentions that one component of the hexagram name (as it appears in the received text) is itself used as ...
Friends of Clarity - that's everyone who's joined the free membership - can now access the sign-up page for Change Circle. The doors are creaking open gradually like this to ensure that customers and then members have first dibs on the Founder Member places in Change Circle - which means ...
Here's a lovely suggestion from Hollis Polk: divination with Flickr, the photo-sharing site. The images that come up when you search for an abstract quality (like 'freedom' or 'discipline') - searching the full text, and sorting on 'most interesting' like Hollis suggests - come out teeming with meaning like a ...
Quote from Using the I Ching: Exposing the Image | dailyrevolution.net : "One of the best examples of the clarity that the Anthony and Moog text has added to our understanding of the I Ching can be found in how the authors treat the traditional Image portion of the text: ...
If you're an existing customer of Clarity - ie if you've ever bought anything here - then Change Circle just opened for you: private Reading Circle forum, WikiWing hexagram-by-hexagram commentary, blogs, and more to come. There are a limited number of Founder Member places available, and I'm offering them to ...
Here's an email I can't resist quoting: "I logged in finally the other day and peeked at the emerging WikiWing. WOW! This is just brilliant and I agree with everyone that it is something I would happily pay for in book form! I just browsed a bit on hexagram 5 ...
I'm chortling in a wry sort of way over my reading for this week. I've spent the past umpteen weeks labouring faithfully over Change Circle. Planning, choosing technology and dreaming about what wonderful things it makes possible, fighting said technology, winning battles but losing the war. Starting over with different ...
You could say that the first objective of divination is to be more aware - have more insight, connect intuitively with the way, be more completely present. That would be true for any reading, even if it's not the first goal that comes to mind. It's especially, true, though, of ...
There are two lines in Hexagram 20 that differ by just one word: Line 5 - 'Seeing my own life. The noble one is without mistake.' Line 6 - 'Seeing their lives. The noble one is without mistake.' Seeing 'my own' life, or seeing 'his, her or their' life. How ...
Since I'm up to my neck in the technical stuff for Change Circle - irritating but necessary, as the last thing I want is technology getting in the way for people - I need to bow to the inevitable for a week, fill my head with templates and cascading style ...
Each Sunday, I cast a reading for the week ahead - sometimes just asking for something to be aware of, sometimes asking for advice. This week I asked for advice, and received Hexagram 4, Not Knowing, with no changing lines. This was pretty baffling. Lately I've been working very intensely ...
You'll want to subscribe to the Quoteable I Ching blog, if you haven't already. Despite the title, it doesn't just contain quotations from the I Ching, but lovely lucid thoughts on how other things - poems, images, quotations - reflect the hexagrams. Or how the hexagrams reflect in other things ...
So that Change Circle's 'WikiWing' doesn't start life as 64 empty pages, I'm writing my own contribution for each hexagram before we open - an edited and distilled version of my own working notes. That way there'll be something there to refer to for every hexagram and line right from ...
Some 50 truly brilliant people have taken the trouble to fill out the Change Circle Features Survey. Thank you. 🙂 I know this one is a bit on the long side, and I really appreciate your time and thoughtfulness. I always prefer taking those surveys where I can satisfy my ...
A search for I Ching things brought me to this blog post. Profound questions, beautiful readings; I can't describe the blog as a whole ...
I've been thinking and divining about confidence in readings, and acting on readings, and being coached along the way by Yi into asking more lucid questions. Having the confidence to act on a reading, by itself, was no guide to anything. Reaching the right moment to act on a reading ...
When I asked about getting the confidence to act on one's understanding of a reading, Yi pointed out to me in its own inimitable way that this wasn't a very valuable question to ask. One can get into trouble by having confidence as easily as by lacking it. So why ...
When I asked people their biggest challenge in working with the I Ching, so many said, in one form of words or another, that it had to do with confidence. Forming a question, casting a hexagram, even coming up with intelligent interpretations of the answer - these things might take ...
The Vessel, ding, is the name of hexagram 50. It refers to a particularly beautiful and sacred bronze vessel, fit for food to be shared with the ancestors, strong enough to inaugurate a dynasty. You move your ding by inserting a carrying handle through its 'ears', loops on its rim ...
In my latest members' survey, I asked: "There are times for everyone when talking with the I Ching doesn't feel as spontaneous and easy as it could be. The natural flow through asking, receiving an answer and integrating it into life gets blocked somehow. I'm interested in how you experience ...
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.' ...
Update! What follows is an ancient post, from the days when I still had an unmet wishlist for my I Ching journal software. Then Justin Farrell made us the amazing Resonance Journal, and the rest is history. Do download a trial and give it a go! If you're interested in ...
I've been revisiting the idea of the 'non-people' in hexagram 12. The most helpful way to understand them, most of the time, is as people we regard, for whatever reason, as not quite 'like us' enough to be real. Most of the time, the problem is with the labelling and ...
In case you missed the notices in the forum... the Words of Change Yijing glossary is available now from your membership information page. It doesn't yet have a formal sales page, but you can read a little more about it here. Just for this week (until Saturday 10th May) it's ...
I think I get the most sheer, uncomplicated delight from working with people who have time and space to explore their lives with Yi: mulling over decisions, inviting responses that explode preconceived ideas, asking the huge questions about purpose and meaning that can stay with you for a lifetime. These ...
A last-minute notice from Mick Frankel: he's giving a talk on the I Ching at the Friends' Meeting House in Manchester at 7 this evening. Details here ...
I just wandered over to Luis' Yi blog, where I read that... "Many people, with a only few years of reading and using the Yi, feel otherwise compelled to, and capable of, holding debates about it with those that have spent most of their life dedicated to its study. Even ...
Over at the I Ching Community, Rosada has just very generously offered to make an 'I Ching string' for the next ten people to donate more than $20. An 'I Ching string' is a bead set to consult with, which gives you a perfect blend of natural flow and meditative ...
Yi on Twitter - or, "three thousand year old oracle meets microblogging app" - or something. Hm. What's Twitter? As far as I can make out, it's a strange little hybrid of a blog and an instant messaging client: people post personal updates, thoughts of the moment and links to ...
I only just stumbled across this excellent article from Harmen about the origin of the character Yi. Read and enjoy! I relish Harmen's own willingness to change his own mind, too; it's easy to get married to one's own theories and settle down into undisturbed domestic bliss - I ...
Following on from a post on hexagram 53, line 1... 'Wild geese gradually advance to the shore. The small child, danger, There are words, No mistake.' The obvious question about this line - and I always like to ask the most obvious question - is 'Why is the small child ...
Over on his 'I Ching insights’ blog, Eric Bryant's noticed a pattern in his readings. Yi gave him the exact same reading - including the same line changing - for two 'unrelated' subjects, business and a relationship. As he points out, you only get to see this kind of thing ...
Brad Hatcher points out that 14 out of 64 hexagrams' first lines mention feet. I wonder whether there isn't a fifteenth implied at 49.1: 'For binding use yellow cowhide' What might you bind with yellow cowhide? It could be a tethered animal, of course, as Rutt suggests. But looking at ...
In the Words of Change glossary (coming up within the next week or two) I've written this about constancy, zhen: "...We have a vision of the future - not what's inevitably going to happen, but what it is right for us to bring into being. You can conceive of this ...
There's a lot going on in the first line of Hexagram 53: 'Wild geese gradually advance to the shore. The small child, danger, There are words, No mistake.' This is the first stage in the journey of the wild geese as they gradually draw close to their natural home. Now ...
And I thought I wrote about trigrams in the Sequence. Heh. Here's Frank Kegan doing a very complete and insightful job of it. He sees the Sequence in groups of ten (which I've found works startlingly well - you might think that more patterns would emerge if you took it ...
In my inbox today: a very short response to the last edition of 'Friends' Notes': "dear Hilary! not interested. S...." OK, OK. This is positively the last time I'll mention, and link to, and generally encourage you seriously to consider attending, the I Ching Class. Tomorrow is the final day ...
Which I Ching translation are you most likely to pick up for a reading? I ask because I'm putting together a list of translations to include in the 'multi-translation index' of a small I Ching glossary I'm putting together. (And also just because it'd be very interesting to learn what ...
Do you know the feeling of being actually thirsty for readings? It's a little like the need to talk with someone you love, a little like the need for soul-nourishment that you might satisfy by walking in woods, or making music, or creating something. There's an inner pull towards the ...
Watching TV gives you square eyes, so I've been told. Living with Yi gives you that much stranger phenomenon, hexagram eyes. You see little subtle reflections of ideas from the Yijing everywhere. My reading for this year begins with Hexagram 5, so I'm especially attuned to anything that talks about ...
The title says it all, really. I'll be running an I Ching Class by phone and online, from April 2nd to June 15th. If you reserve your spot before the 19th (that's two weeks from today), you can catch the 'early bird' discount. Â All the details are here - and ...
... when it says 'mature people, good fortune,' substituting 'hyper-caffeinated headless chicken' actually doesn't work. As you probably know, I'm running an I Ching Class from April through June. Getting everything ready for this - the technical stuff, the class notes and reference materials, the private forum, the ways for ...
Over in the quaintly-named 'Basics' section of GreatVessel.com, there's an enticing article on The Voices of the Lines. [Update: now moved here.] As with most of Stephen Karcher's ideas nowadays, I find I need to take small portions and chew them over well, not try to swallow it all at ...
The fifth line of Hexagram 45, Gathering, reads: 'Gathering, has a position. No mistake. No truth at all. From the source, ever-flowing constancy. Regrets vanish.' How can your position in the gathering be 'no mistake' if it's altogether without truth or trust? I picked up Anyway by Kent Keith, author ...
... as a source of political insight. Suzi Gablik thought it a good source. (She asked about the meaning of the 9/11 attacks and received 15.6.) Her correspondent reacted as if she'd committed blasphemy against the jealous divinity of social science, or something. And Virgil the alligator commented on all ...
Someone emailed me recently to say that the written instructions for the yarrow method were too complex, and was there a video she could watch? I said no, sorry, and suggested that if she took it step by step a few times she'd soon get into the rhythm of the ...
Some hexagrams - like 29 - seem to derive much of their meaning from their component trigrams. Some - like 27 - seem to derive it in the first place from the picture made by the lines themselves. Hexagram 27 looks like jaws; Hexagram 21 looks as though an obstacle's ...
The Wing of the I Ching describing the Sequence of Hexagrams, the Xugua, generally has a laconic style, sometimes saying scarcely more than, 'this hexagram is bound to follow from that one.' But there's an exception to this when you arrive at Hexagram 31, Influence. This is the first hexagram ...
... in your I Ching reading journal. Recently I've been thinking (with help from some wise and generous mentoring clients!) about what can show up when you review a series of readings. The way they start to fit together, unfolding a single story or interweaving many themes, always gives me ...
This just in: the Princeton Multimedia I Ching CD-ROM is for sale on Ebay. As well as a choice of yarrow or coin computerised readings, it also includes a 'library' with the full Wilhelm/Baynes text and Helmut Wilhelm's Eight Lectures on the I Ching. It's thoroughly 'vintage' software (1996)... hm, ...
The other day, after a series of readings circulating between hexagrams 58, 47, 48, 57, I noticed another little nugget of patterns within the Sequence of hexagrams. Hexagram 37 describes life inside the home, defined by its boundaries (37.1). Hexagram 38 is outside the walls: opposed, seeing differently, alien. Hexagram ...
There's a brand new Spanish-speaking I Ching forum available. Like any brand new forum, 'no hay mensajes' for the most part so far, but it'll pick up momentum soon. And Olivia Cattedra has just brought out a new book, Oraculo Y Sabuduria Guia Para El Estudio del I Ching. For ...
I've written about Lorena Moore's site before - her blog is a refuge for anyone interested in the stuff our world's made of. Now she's completed her lichen oracle, and you can browse or consult with it online. I've a feeling that oracles, made last month or a few millennia ...
In The Geography of Thought - a fascinating book about the differences between modern Eastern and Western ways of thought - I learned that, "The combative, rhetorical form is ... absent from Asian law. In Asia the law does not consist, as it does in the West for the most ...
Plenty of online I Ching readings simulate the yarrow stalk probabilities, including those at this site. But here's a nice, quick-loading I Ching reading that simulates the process itself of dividing the stalks. Perhaps it'll encourage people to pick up the real thing ...
I asked Yi what a New Year is, and learned that it's 'Sprouting's Brightness Hidden' - fertile creative potential, shrouded or maybe cocooned in darkness. And specifically, a New Year is like, 'Pursuing a stag with no forester, Simply entering into the centre of the forest. A noble one reads ...
It's the New Year. There are resolutions, fresh intentions, and a sense of finishing off one 'segment' of life and starting a new one. And my Inbox is filled fit to burst with offers, every one of which is the only thing I must have to ensure that 2008 is ...
Well, I'm nicely immersed in all things Christmassy, from tree lights and outings and wrapping paper to the strange dearth of Brussels sprouts in the supermarkets. (Is there a national shortage? Why did nobody tell us?) I fetched my brother over on the 21st, and I'll take him back on ...
Here you go - another complete line-by-line I Ching commentary, originally written as scripts for a phone service. With thanks to Topal at the ICC for the link ...
Here's an album of images for hexagrams 1 through 22. Each also comes with brief notes, which have been lifted from Chris Lofting's work ...
...is one more translation. I've just added my own working translation to Clarity's plain-text online I Ching reading. You'll see it in the drop-down menu of translations provided you're logged in - like this: (It looks indescribably pretentious, but I couldn't think what else to put in the space available.) ...
Yesterday was my birthday, and - as I always do - I cast a reading asking for guidance for the coming year. I'd just spent a couple of days reviewing the previous year: the plans I'd had, goals I'd set... and forgotten all about, or missed utterly... . It wasn't ...
I've just posted a new article in response to a request for help with Hexagram 47. Although its basic qualities are very clear and distinctive, it can be a tricky one to apply in practice. How to respond to those images of encircling walls, mistrust, and the lake that drains ...
I had an email asking if I knew of a complete I Ching online, so you could cast your coins while away from home and look up the hexagrams without carrying a book. I suggested LiSe's site, and Wilhelm (available from this site in both English and French), and Brad's, ...
Every hexagram of the I Ching has its complement: the hexagram created by changing every line to its opposite. The complement of hexagram 1 is hexagram 2 - and the complement of hexagram 63 is hexagram 64 - Other complementary pairs appear through the Sequence, particularly to mark the end ...
J.M. Berger has been working on the King Wen Sequence of the hexagrams (that's the traditional sequence), approaching it from an angle I hadn't thought of or seen elsewhere. He looks at the line changes necessary to change each hexagram into the next: changing all the lines of hexagram 1 ...
As someone working with an oracle that's been creating itself for a few thousand years, I'm fascinated when I get a chance to see the beginnings of the process. Here are two posts from an artist, Lorena Moore, to whom it comes very naturally to create her own, with quartz ...
Two things came together to make this post: first, what I've been learning from people telling me how they work with an oracle; secondly, a nice, sensible article from Charles Burke about decision making (sadly no longer available online). The article gave intelligent advice, some of which you may have ...
Adele Aldridge has begun a new blog for her I Ching Meditations artwork, where she's posting both the images and some background. So far there are images for the eight trigrams - all completely unlike the usual fare of 'I Ching cards'. I like K'an especially ...
For some years, I've been 'drumming' the I Ching from time to time. Not properly or skillfully, generally just on the nearest tabletop. I take a yang line as a single beat, and a yin line as two half beats, and set out through the Sequence in compound duple (six ...
Here's a story I've heard, with variations, several times; "The I Ching? Yes, I did try that when I was in college... yes, it was fascinating, I'd almost forgotten... These days? I draw a card, maybe tarot, maybe another oracle deck, and look up the meaning in the book. I ...
I've just added a full-length article on hexagram 62 to the 'hexagrams' page. I've tried to take guo in its simplest sense, of 'stepping across a line', and explore what it means to do this in a small way. It seems to me to be very difficult: it's one thing ...
How to be really awake, casting hexagrams? How to stay aware of what we're doing, not slip into auto-pilot from the force of long habit? I'm thinking only of ways to be aware through the process of casting the hexagram - between the time spent meditating on the question and ...
Wandering the internet, you never know when you might come across work on I Ching prediction, or 'life reading', or a book excerpt on line theory - or, of course, more I Ching blogging... Â Update next day: and more I Ching blogging ...
I asked, "What is it about Yi that makes it precious as a spiritual 'tool'?" And received Hexagram 15, Integrity, with no changing lines:
This is one of those answers that gives me an immediate glow of recognition - and then unwraps like a gift, with more and more ...
This is one of those answers that gives me an immediate glow of recognition - and then unwraps like a gift, with more and more ...
I came across this at Eric Bryant's I Ching blog: Atomic I Ching hexagrams and atomic Jungian archetypes. By 'atomic' hexagrams he means the four 'seed within the seed' nuclear hexagrams that all the hexagrams ultimately 'resolve to': 1, 2, 63 and 64. These he attempts to map onto archetypal ...
The dictionary on my bookshelf calls intuition, "the power of the mind by which it immediately perceives the truth of things without reasoning or analysis." The key here is that intuition is an immediate perception. Analysis brings you to a conclusion step by step; intuition happens straight away. I Ching ...
Especially when you're getting started with the I Ching, it can be hard to know what to ask - or what you can ask - or hard to put your question into words. Hence the ‘Suggested questions’ page here, which offers ideas for questions on anything from relationships with your ...
My I Ching reading for last week was Hexagram 36, Brightness Hiding, with no changing lines. And following the plans I'd already made for that week, which involved reaching out and making connections to others in various ways, I hit one technical road-hump after another. (Moral of this story: consider ...
I just came across this I Ching commentary from the perspective of Buddhist spiritual journey, and drawing on Osho's ideas. The first seven hexagrams are covered so far, and they offer some interesting reading. I like this, for Hexagram 5: "All we can do is become deserving and the moment ...
What's on offer: One copy of the I Ching course, correspondence version, complete with ebooks and audio and full personal support on all nine assignments, as sold for £137 And ten prizes of a £20 coupon, which could get you a copy of the course with audio, or a downloadable ...
It's a cliché of every I Ching introduction: the oracle is an aid to decision-making. Of course, it's also perfectly true. Historically, the ancient Chinese divined on decisions about marriage, warfare, whether to open the fields, what to offer to the ancestors. Nowadays people consult the I Ching on which ...
I've been enjoying this I Ching introduction from CJ Stone. He goes straight to the heart of the thing: "The I-Ching also has a central character, and a definite place and time period, but its central character is not divine or even remotely inspired, and its time period is not ...
Today's Changeover Day - the day I transfer the whole site, bit by bit, to its new look and feel. I'll be doing this in installments, which means that for a while you may find weird incongruities when clicking links. It should all be completed today, though, so if you ...
My husband and I go out on the back lawn when the weather's good enough, and play badminton. Let's see... David's six feet tall, lean and wiry and a natural athlete; I'm five foot two, about two stone overweight, and hopelessly uncoordinated - you know the one who can't even ...
When the new site design goes live, you'll see a prominent link at the top of each page for 'Members'. This is where, if you've joined as a Friend, you'll find your free downloads. It's also the place where, as a customer, you'll find all your download pages. Let me ...
The ways you can sign up for things here at the moment are in something of a muddle. You might have signed up for the 'Answers' newsletter, where I talk about the latest blog posts in a twice-monthly email. Maybe you got the free I Ching course at the same ...
Hexagram 18, Corruption, demands that we actively engage with how things are. And things are a mess: there are 'negative patterns' playing themselves out, or in other words the same old bad things keep on happening. As a rule, these are inherited patterns. In modern readings, Hexagram 18 is often ...
That's how the third line of Hexagram 6, Arguing, begins: 'Eating ancient de. Constancy: danger. In the end, good fortune. Maybe following king's business, No accomplishment.' It's unusual for Yi to talk in abstract imagery in this way - eating not food, but de. De, as in Daodejing, is virtue, ...
I've been hearing from quite a few people lately who are wondering what to do when they're consulting the I Ching, and their coins behave oddly. What if one rolls away? What if it ends up under the furniture? Or propped up against something so it doesn't land flat? Of ...
After my last post with its cautionary tale, it's good to be able to tell you that the new site design will go live this month. So this would be a space to watch. 😉 Meanwhile, here's a preview of the new navigation: The real thing is altogether bigger, brighter ...
One of the trickier aspects of interpreting an I Ching reading has to be working out what scale the oracle's using. By which I mean, if it says 'good fortune', is that a lottery win or a pot of jam in the raffle (for instance)? Does 'misfortune' mean mild inconvenience, ...
Crispy hexagrams - of course. Superb idea. "In 3,000 years, divination never tasted so good!" ...
If you've ever wondered about purchasing Alfred Huang's Complete I Ching - I've just come across a site where you can browse through his full translation (though not his commentary) in a beautifully clear presentation. Huang's name is somewhat hard to find, tucked away as it is on the 'references' ...
Here's an excerpt from Osho, talking about divination to a student of astrology. He says that it's possible to make predictions about people only because 'people live like mechanical things'. (Strong words, but you know what he means.) "If you know the past of the person, unless the person is ...
My personal 'hexagram for the week': 23, unchanging. Eek. Not so long ago, this wouldn't have bothered me in the least. I know many people are nervous of the 'bad' hexagrams and anticipate disasters whenever they receive hexagrams 23, 44 or 12 (the three most often labelled as 'bad'). I've ...
In my internet wanderings, I came across this post on the Original Faith blog that seems to capture the spirit of being Without Entanglement. "None of this is on my time. I resent nothing and no one. I share in the whole world by laying claim to none of it, ...
A sidenote to yesterday's post about past, present and future... Often what we most want to know is how to do something. How to be in a relationship, how to get through a difficult time, how to make the most of an opportunity, and so on. Then we start spinning ...
I have an email asking me for "some instruction on how to identify the past, the present and the future through I Ching reading. I would like to receive any useful comment relating to this topic. My intent is to have more confidence when doing a reading for myself." Well, ...
Hexagram 20, line 5, has a cryptic brevity - 'Seeing my own life. The noble one is without mistake.' - and even more so when you consider that the sixth line differs from it by just one word: 'Seeing their lives. The noble one is without mistake.' As you move ...
I've become aware recently of an emotional pattern that makes people reluctant to try a reading with the I Ching. These are open-minded people, interested in spiritual growth and self-knowledge. So they don't dismiss the idea of divination unthinkingly, as something that obviously couldn't work. Nor do they avoid it ...
Jessica Morrell is the author of several books on writing, and here she's branched out to create an I Ching for writers, specifically applying its imagery to their concerns. The book's first few short chapters are introductory material. In a nutshell, this contains much insight into divination, interspersed with the ...
Here it is: T-shirt I Ching. Choose your hexagram, moving line and quotation, and wear it. I can see the attraction. The examples they offer include 24, 42 and 46, all very quotable. It's easy to think of other lines that have that 'wearable' quality: how about 18.6, for a ...
One of the meanings of the "I" in "I Ching" is "easy" or "simple". Given the smallest opening, it will speak to your heart, reconnect you with the deeper patterns and meanings of your life, and let you move with the flow instead of swimming doggedly upstream. But it doesn't ...
There are times - plenty of them - when not being able to think of a question for the I Ching seems an impossible luxury, and the difficult thing is to stop asking. There's a constant whirling of questions in your mind: 'What if I tried...?' 'How can I...?' 'What ...
I was just looking through the latest from the Readings Panel at GreatVessel.com . The questioner asked how to deal with a difficult manager, and received Hexagram 10, Treading, moving to Hexagram 61, Inner Truth, through a changing line at the fourth place: 'Treading the tiger's tail. Careful pleading, Good ...
There have been several new pages added to the online version of Yijing Wondering and Wandering. Here are stories, images and ideas for (so far) hexagrams 1 to 14. If one of these happens to be your weekly or daily hexagram, here's good food for meditation ...
I store my I Ching readings on my computer; I have done for many years. It makes them easier to review, both because my handwriting's in the 'inebriated spider meanderings' class, and because of the wonders of search. "Didn't I receive this hexagram before when I was trying to work ...
Hexagram 22 is Beauty and Making Beautiful. We use it to make images of ourselves, so that we can form connections with other people. When the young man sets out to see his prospective bride (as he does in the line texts of 22), he makes himself a suitor for ...
... is so much more interesting than just watching the tennis. Today was the men's final at the Wimbledon championships. Roger Federer had won for the past four years on the trot and was huge favourite to make it five in a row. And so he did, beating Rafael Nadal ...
Consistently the most popular topic for questions to the I Ching is romantic relationships. Blend equal quantities of passionate desire, wild hope and utter bafflement, and you get questions for an oracle - lots of questions. But it's especially valuable to divine about all those other relationships: friendships, working relationships ...
I was just reading this post by Hollis Polk, 'Does synchronicity have a structure?' She's just experienced a truly uncanny sequence of synchronicities, all in support of her new teleclass. They leave her wondering, "I'd like to believe that it was my clear intention to do this class for free, and ...
I've just been reading a post on Erin Pavlina's blog about the metaphors that appear in her readings. Erin's a talented natural psychic. She doesn't use an oracle - she doesn't even much approve of those of us who do. To read for someone, she tunes into her guides, and ...
Recent readings have given me a new application for Hexagram 54: the experience of relying on other people to work for me. The Marrying Maiden, poor little thing, moves into a world that's several sizes too big for her, and has to feel her way into its relationships and possibilities ...
Have a look at Cesca Diebschlag's I Ching News blog. I've only just found my way there, and I'm delighted to discover excellent articles on Hexagrams 20, 22, 29, 5 and 16. I especially like what she has to say about 22, in the post entitled 'Beautifying' ...
Claire writes: "If a question is asked and there are no changing lines but the overall translation of the main Hexagram is favourable does this mean that the situation will never change? There are a couple websites which host free computer readings and although the answer to my questions may ...
I recently accepted Denise Martine's kind offer of a free tarot reading . I asked for advice on the development of Clarity's paid membership service (it doesn't have a name yet!), which you'll hear much more about after the redesigned site is finished. (Oh, by the way, it is just ...
También disponible en español In the context of readings, this sometimes turns out to be one of Yi's more humorous responses. Just a few days ago I asked what changing to a well-known autoresponder service would bring my business, and received 5.5 to 11. So I went ahead and signed ...
... that doesn't exactly mean there's a sudden lack of I Ching things to read. For instance... The 'Memorizing the I Ching' threads continue apace, moving through hexagram 26 and on to hexagram 27. I don't know how much is being memorised along the way, but they're full of good ...
My reading for this week is Hexagram 4, line 1: 'Sending out the ignoramus, Fruitful to make use of punishing people, Fruitful to loosen fetters and shackles. Going on in this way is shameful.' I think the way my brain is(n't) working just now is a nice illustration of the ...
Ewald Berkers' YiJing translation is available for download in pdf format. It's worth having. I'd recommend you buy your own copy. ~~~ Now that's a review in Ewald-style: succinct, straightforward, conveying the main point with enviable clarity. But since I'm naturally a wordier animal than he is, I'll write a ...
Here's a wonderful reading I heard about and wanted to share. A client who's working on my I Ching course had received Hexagram 35, line 1. In Stephen Karcher's comments on the line, she found reference to 'using a net' and wondered what this meant. So - not unreasonably - ...
There are several new I Ching books available that I don't have time to review just now. But still, the least I can do is pass on the news. So... The first is from Ewald Berkers of EclecticEnergies. You can download a copy of his translation and commentary, as used ...
You know, for a venerable Chinese institution, Yi gets about a bit. I've personally read for people from the US, Canada, South America, UK, Austria, Portugal, India, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, just to name the ones I can remember for now. And now look: Yi has its ...
My posts here have been a tad sparse of late, and are about to get sparser. How come? Well, in theory the deadline to complete that new site design, with all its assorted rewritten content and behind-the-scenes programming, is 25th May. In practice... (*pause for strange gibbering noises from the ...
When did you last encounter a Yijing translation where the introduction engendered such curiosity that you were itching to read it through? Quite. I'm sure this isn't supposed to happen, but with the Chameleon Book, Freeman Crouch's translation, I find it does. He reads the Yijing as a historical document, ...
'Treading the tiger's tail. Careful pleading, Good fortune in the end.' Possibly Luis may get his I Ching book back ...
Every hexagram can be said to have a 'nuclear hexagram', formed by taking its inner lines and 'unfolding' them. From the original hexagram's lines 123,456, you build a new hexagram with 234,345. The effect is like a seed germinating, and the nuclear hexagram's often interpreted as a latent potential within ...
Here is a proposed new design for onlineClarity (blog and forum included). *update!* Here is an alternative version of the design for comparison. We're still at the stage of deciding on the look and feel. Colours, layout, graphics, spacing... all that. (Working links and text will come later.) You'd be ...
Jane Schorre and Carrin Dunne, authors of the excellent Yijing Wondering and Wandering, have launched a new site where they're starting to put the book online. Thus far there's only the preface and a few pages of introduction, but they plan to scan in the whole work. Visit their site, ...
After a week of 'Nearing Earth' (19.1.2 to 2, my personal reading for the week), I'm very happy to find this Samhain full moon reading from Peter at Fireraven tarot. He asked, 'At this time, what is the most appropriate action that we as individuals - but within the context ...
Not too familiar with the Chinese names of the hexagrams? Try iPlayGua. Move falling trigram blocks from side to side with the arrow keys before they land; position them to create the hexagrams listed - only by Chinese character, no pinyin, no numbers, no English! - underneath. It's tetris with ...
In a comment to my report on her work, Judy posted the reading from her first I Ching class for prisoners. I'm pasting her message and my response in here, so it's on the front page for a while. Comments and insights very welcome. From Judy: "I would like to ...
Hexagram 25, line 3: 'The calamity of Without Entanglement. Someone tethered a cow. Nomads' gain, City people's calamity.' You can get some insight into the background to this laconic little story from here - a very readable account of pastoral nomads in East Asia, part of Edward Kaplan's Introduction to ...
For obvious reasons, like a complete ignorance of the language, I can't tell you a great deal about this one. (Perhaps a Spanish speaker would like to comment?) But anyway, here is a brand new Spanish I Ching site. It offers courses, consultations, articles on the basics (coins, yarrow) and ...
Last Monday, at about noon UK time, I cast my reading for the week ahead. I received Hexagram 25, Not Entangled, changing in the first two lines to give Hexagram 6, Arguing. I've found that hexagram 25 is one of those that forms good, strong 'sentences' with its second hexagram ...
I was recently contacted by Judy, who for many years has taught Qigong in high-security prisons. Now she's starting to do the same with the I Ching, and she got in touch with me for help. I've been able to provide her with some materials and suggestions, and if you ...
There's just a day or so to go before the special Clarity-only two-thirds discount expires on Jennifer Shepherd's Why Most Affirmations Fail, and The Four Building Blocks of Successful Affirmations. Just to remind you - this page will disappear on or after the 17th. [Edit: it's disappeared now the sale's ...
An I Ching course customer who's travelling abroad just emailed me this experience of his, and was kind enough to give me permission to share. It's a very good example of how having Yi's words in mind at the crucial moment can make a huge difference. And I also think ...
I'm writing this perched awkwardly on the end of my bed, with the computer balanced on a lap tray. How come? Let me explain. My younger brother David has Down's Syndrome, and since Mum died last summer I'm his surviving family. Most of the time he lives in a small ...
Greg Whincup, author of Rediscovering the I Ching, is giving a talk on the I Ching at Vancouver Art Gallery, on April 16th. Details here. ...
I'm making this post because there's an ebook I want to recommend to you. It's not an I Ching book as such - in fact, it doesn't mention divination from one end to the other, so what's got into me? Give me a minute or two, and I'll explain. (And ...
I owe you a blog post, so I asked Yi what to write about. And the oracle suggests 39.3 changing to Hexagram 8: difficulty and turnaround through seeking union. This, I realised, was all about The Redesign. I'm getting my site redesigned. This - I know from the last time ...
Here's another neat class idea from Misha Goussev: 'The Tao of Dow, East Asian wisdom in business', aka 'Taoism, Change and Decision Making'. There are ten Monday classes, taught via Yahoo group and email, three on Taoism in general and the remainder on the I Ching and decision-making. They run ...
Last weekend, I spent another few days clearing and sorting at Mum's house, and once again found myself reminded of her huge productivity. I wrote about this once before: I'd asked Yi what Mum's power was, and it answered with Hexagram 2, unchanging. So I thought about Mum, and since ...
Misha Goussev is running a weekend workshop at the California Institute for Human Science next weekend (March 30th - April 1st). The title is 'Wisdom and Intuition in Decision Making: navigating the modern business environment with the ancient Book of Change’, and the cost is $256 for members of the ...
Unless you've lived under a rock for the past few months, you've probably heard of the Secret, and maybe gathered that it's a creatively-marketed way of presenting the 'Law of Attraction'. The basic idea is that whereas 'common sense' says that stuff happens to us, and that makes us feel ...
Over the weekend, I found myself with a bit of a communication problem. The details aren't important: I wanted to help and encourage someone to do something he was finding hard. I tried a few different approaches, succeeded only in being annoying, and finally asked Yi for advice on how ...
The Shuogua, 'explanation of the gua', is the Yijing's 8th Wing. It's in three parts: the first is an origin story of how the sages made the Yi from first principles; the remaining two describe the characteristics of the individual trigrams. You'll occasionally find references to these characteristics in Wilhelm's ...
At http://www.hermetica.info, you'll find a new edition of possibly the best Yijing resource on the web. Bradford Hatcher's Book of Changes includes a 'Matrix' translation (a parallel text of Chinese and English), books on history and structure, and a complete translation with in-depth, thought-provoking commentary - and for some unfathomable ...
There's a very popular free online I Ching at Ewald Berkers' 'Eclectic Energies' site. He's just updated his site to replace the omnipresent Wilhelm/Baynes translation in this reading with his own work. He's produced a clear translation and succinct commentary on the Zhouyi texts (the 'Judgement' and lines). The commentary ...
Mick Frankel, a man of much I Ching wisdom and good sense, will be giving an introductory workshop on the I Ching at 8pm this Wednesday (7th March). He says: My workshop, "An Introduction to the I Ching" will be at 20:00 next Wednesday, 7th March at the Phoenix Rising ...
I've started re-reading Bede Griffiths, Return to the Centre, a wonderful book I first attempted to understand when I was 16. This time through, I have help. I think of hexagram 29, the Repeating Chasm, as a dark place of bottomless depths. Yi talks of 'holding fast your heart' here, ...
Believe me - Harmen's Dagboek A good, thought-provoking post from Harmen. Basically he's pointing out that Yijing readings work within a framework of personal beliefs. This is true of what methods you know and find significant (nuclear hexagrams or not, for instance). I think it can also be true of ...
Nelson emailed me after the last newsletter to say he'd been getting a lot of readings around Hexagram 50. So here are some thoughts on what's going on in the Vessel, which I hope might help with a variety of readings. The name of Hexagram 50 is ding: the sacred ...
Just another little personal reading story. Back on 2nd Feb, I ordered the latest Glyphius software from James Brausch. I wasn't sure whether or not to go ahead and buy, but when I asked Yi about the effect of using it I received Hexagram 2, line 2. 'Straight, square, great ...
The more I look into the King Wen sequence, the more depths I discover. Take the two hexagrams that describe grand, historic events of legendary proportions: 49, Radical Change, and 55, Abundance. Hexagram 49 describes the time of revolution, when the Zhou people overthrew the Shang. And hexagram 55 has ...
I've just been reading a tale of woe about self-help that didn't help. A weight-loss group where people didn't lose weight; a self-development seminar where people didn't emerge particularly developed. It's not that there was anything wrong with the message or the method used in either of these places. It obviously ...
Someone should make a collection of Yi's many and various ways of saying, 'Get a grip.' My site needs redesigning - so you can find what you're looking for more easily, so I can add more things for sale and you can find those, too, and so on. I've decided ...
I love reading new commentaries on hexagrams - even when the author is unaware even of the existence of the hexagram his work illuminates. This time the hexagram is 46: Pushing Upward, a figure of aspiration and steady, step-by-step progress towards a goal. The article is by Norman Barlow, and ...
There's a splendid series of threads at the I Ching Community entitled 'Memorising the I Ching'. Rosada and everyone who pitches in are travelling through hexagram by hexagram, describing what's memorable about each line. Here's a list of the threads so far; they've got as far as Hexagram 19. Why ...
From Margie:"Maybe this question is quite banal - but what I want to know is how to actually deepen my practice and my understanding of the I Ching. Is there a special procedure that I should follow to do this, or should it be accompanied by a special meditation......?"No, this ...
I love those times when wise people unwittingly echo the Yijing. Here's one such moment: How to make commitments you will actually keep. Scott Young talks about how, in order to keep our commitments, it helps to understand that we're a community of selves. The motivated one, the apathetic one, ...
I had this conversation again with a client the other day. Which was better, for me to cast the hexagram on her behalf, or for her to do it herself? Some people are concerned that if they cast for themselves, their own desires might somehow make the oracle 'go wrong'; ...
Oh look... a new post at the Great Vessel blog. They have new forums (including an 'ask Stephen Karcher' area), a new example reading, a revised links page, and a promise of more good things to come. Watch that space ...
También disponible en español (A good friend who received Hexagram 9 in response to a profound personal reading, as part of the image of her self, asked me how I saw it. So here are some pictures of Small Taming.) The key concept for hexagram 9 and hexagram 26 is ...
A single I Ching reading brings insight, answers questions, and reconnects you with your inner sense of direction. A series of readings does all this, and it can also multiply the effects exponentially. The connections between readings show you how the different aspects of your life relate together, and give ...
When I removed the £7 reading option, I also offered to do a few free readings each month for people who couldn't otherwise afford one. Well - this is going well and proving popular, to the point where I've already hit my 'quota' for January. There'll be more slots in ...
And here is a counterbalance to my own new year's intention to consult more regularly. Oddly enough, it seems we're both aiming in the same direction - to trust more, and hold onto control less ...
If I weren't busy Christmassing, I'd be reading all the excellent Yi-related links Luis keeps finding and posting at the I Ching Community. If you have a moment, take a look at all these ...
...or, more on how relating hexagrams work. This post will have to be somewhat vague in places to avoid going into details about the other people involved in the reading. But the gist is that I had a to-do list as long as my arm of Christmas preparations, and was ...
I'm making some changes to my I Ching reading services, so here's a quick update. Out with the old... I'm no longer offering short readings for £7. I found that I could either gallop through the reading (not good) or go way over the advertised time, and all told I ...
Here's a lovely article by Michelle Wood on Hexagram 24 and Winter Solstice - capturing the quality of the time ...
Dan Stackhouse's 'Original I Ching' is back! Here you can browse early forms of the hexagram names, learn to build an 'I Ching mandala', and read some very interesting characterisations of the trigrams - xun as 'memory', for instance. Dan's comments on each hexagram are worth reading. They're short, semi-poetic, ...
About a month ago, I turned to Yi in complete frustration. I'd been listening to podcasts from Steve and Erin Pavlina, both talking about how enthusiastically they leapt out of bed in the early morning, eager to get to their work, because they knew their purpose in life. And I ...
It's amazing what a search or two can turn up. The 'China Adoption Blog' turns out to have an I Ching section, where Grant is working his way through steadily with commentary on each hexagram. He's just reached Hexagram 22, but you can click through to the I Ching category ...
Here's a thought-provoking thread: How to read for other people? Do you start out with a plan in mind? What order do you present things in? How much do you explain the technical stuff? And other questions, and discussion of wuwei, and more ...
Often, a weekly reading will give me a general idea of something to pay attention to, and then something will come up during the week that gives me a much clearer and more specific idea of what to do. And of course, that ‘something' that comes up stands out as ...
Happy Thanksgiving! - and thank you for being here. What could be a hexagram for the day? How about 42 - Blessing, Increase? Here's the vessel overflowing with good things (or maybe with good things pouring in) - "My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all ...
My reading for last week was Hexagram 31, Influence. And yesterday afternoon, at the final rehearsal before that evening's concert, the conductor asked the orchestra to 'make space' for the solo violinist. 'Above the mountain is a lake. Influence. Noble one accepts people with emptiness.' Being part of an orchestra ...
Here is a wholly new approach to multiple changing lines, from an equally new I Ching blog. It's another method for isolating a single line among the many to focus on. This isn't something I'm generally very interested in, myself. I take the view that you're given more than one ...
Here's an example from personal experience of how the message of a reading can attune you to the larger flow of what you need. My advice for last week from Yi was Hexagram 59, Dispersing, moving at lines 2 and 3 to 53, Gradual Development. I'm happy to see 53 ...
Somewhat to my surprise, I found one of my favourite 'personal growth' writers, Charles Burke, blogging about a day he spent doing palm reading, of all things. Here's his article, with pictures. I get the impression that he doesn't take the 'fortune telling' aspect especially seriously, but is moved by ...
Have you noticed how the same ideas cluster together in different cultures? Here's the name of Hexagram 52, Keeping Still (mountain): - a human figure, standing. And here is the mountain pose ...
Another question from Nancy: "What have you discovered about the validity of the I Ching's 'future' hexagram anwers? I have read that it gives you a potential answers to the future and is not meant to predict the future. In most cases, I have not found the 'future' hexagrams to ...
Nancy wrote back to me after the last newsletter (thanks, Nancy!) and asked: "I have a question for you--where do the answers to the questions come from: Is it G-D, something in the spiritual realm, etc. and how does this work? Is it the energy that is transmitted from the ...
I listened to Steve Pavlina's podcast about finding one's specific purpose, and it got me thinking (as his work often does). He distinguishes 'specific' from 'universal purpose': universal purpose may be true throughout your life, and is quite open and general; specific purpose is the way you are realising the ...
A reader emailed me to ask for some comments on 'perseverance furthers' and what it meant in the context of the Yijing. So I thought the best response might be to provide an excerpt from the Yijing course, where I talk about yuan heng li zhen. Li is 'furthers', in ...
What comes to mind when you read this story from Erin Pavlina? To me, it reads like a recipe for creating hexagram 38 - opposition, polarity, alienation. Start with two mutually incomprehensible 'cultures'; include different languages, different expectations, different values and desires. Leave each culture to brew for 30 minutes ...
Calling all mathematically-minded Yeeks (that's Yi Geeks) - there is a new monograph available from Berkeley: STEDT Monograph 5: Classical Chinese Combinatorics: Derivation of the Book of Changes Hexagram Sequence Richard S. Cook The first and most enigmatic of the Chinese classics is the Book of Changes, and the reasoning ...
Gods of Chinatown An exploration of Chinese temples and gods. An interesting insight into beliefs alive and well behind closed doors - and not so far below the surface in the young artist ...
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 ...
Here is a somewhat daunting article rejoicing in the title of Studies Of The I Ching: I. A Replication - Statistical Data. You'd need knowledge of statistics to digest the whole thing, I think (not something I have). But the initial review of I Ching experiments over the years is ...
I Ching Sonnets by Cliff Bennet - all 64 are here to read online. From Hexagram 30: "Let it be that I, while blinded in this temple, Hold to thy radiance through my own and private night And like sandalwood consumed at a shining high altar Brighten thee more." ...
This week I received Hexagram 52: 'Keeping your back still, Not grasping your self. Moving in your rooms, Not seeing your people. Not a mistake.' And I read in John O'Donohue's Anam Cara: "There is no direct, permanent or public access to the divine. Each destiny has a unique curvature ...
How Ancient China came to America: the I Ching as Bible An article by Dana Baker Wilde discussing attitudes to the I Ching in America. It includes a potted history of Western religious/moral thought, and sets people's enduring respect for the I Ching in this context. There are some sample ...
Yi has been giving me hexagram 2 as relating hexagram for three weeks in succession now - ever since I asked what Mum's 'power' was, and received 2 with no changing lines. (Prior to that, I'd asked why she kept showing up in my dreams with work for me to ...
Many, many people start consulting the oracle when they have one overwhelming question in their lives - usually a relationship issue. The questions nag at their waking awareness, linger in their dreams, and result in truly obsessive questioning of the oracle. The same questions are asked again and again in ...
At the heart of every hexagram is its 'nuclear hexagram'. It's made up of its inner lines: 234 for its lower trigram, 345 for the upper. So for instance if your original hexagram is 18, Corruption - - then by taking its lines 234,345 you uncover the nuclear hexagram 54, ...
'Squidoo' is a community site; its members maintain 'lenses' - pages that focus in on the best resources for a specific topic. Until a few days ago, people searching there for 'I Ching' would've found nothing at all. I've just created an 'I Ching lens'. Please visit! And if you ...
If you consult the Yijing with yarrow stalks, or with another method (like beads) that has the same odds, then you'll find that 2, the Receptive, often turns up as relating hexagram. This is because with yarrow odds, yang lines in the primary hexagram are more likely to change than ...
Excerpts from the I Ching Community: Autumn: 'I asked the I-ching, "Who do we speak to when we divine?" 34 unchanging.' (Hexagram 34 is Great Vigour, very much an image of personal power.) And on a separate thread... Bruce:'Can the Yijing cause you to lose your personal power? Can the ...
Here are some images from an exhibition of abstract I-Ching-inspired art by Gineen Cooper ...
Beth Richmond has posted to the I Ching Community about Nigel Richmond's poetry: she has a limited number of copies of his poetry pamphlets - Glimpses of the Obvious , Pigs and Fishes, and The Love of Fu Hsi . She is very generously making these available to anyone who'd ...
There was one question I asked Cesca Diebschlag (yes, the identity of the 'mystery interviewee' is revealed!) during our interview that she particularly liked - 'Why should anyone take the trouble to learn to consult the I Ching, or to get involved with it at all?' She answered with an ...
4 steps to £10 off the I Ching Course
- Sign up for free as a Friend
- Log in with your new username and password
- Pick up your discount coupon from the members' area...
- ... and apply it before 30th September to claim your discount
When I interviewed _____ (that 'mystery interviewee'!) for the upcoming audio sale, she said something about the sacred space of a reading that got me thinking. I've just added some excerpts from our conversation, including the part where we talk about the 'space' of a reading, to the audio sale ...
'At the centre of the earth is a mountain. Integrity. The noble one thus reduces the many to increase the few, He weighs things up to balance out their distribution.' According to Wilhelm, the noble one is involved in the redistribution of wealth, but it's always seemed to me that ...
Update, 20th September: sale now on You can log in to your members' area to claim a discount coupon for £10 off the audio edition of the I Ching Course (or the correspondence version). The coupon is valid until 30th September. Two news items for you: First, the I Ching ...
I consulted with Yi about my ideas for an upcoming sale, and took my answer to the I Ching Community for comments and insights. People gave me a whole lot. Have a look at the thread; you'll see what I mean ...
As you may know, I consult Yi once a week without a specific question - just to touch base and remagnetise the inner compass. The way these readings help changes from week to week: sometimes I'll find I've been given very specific advice for a situation that arises days later; ...
Reading Steve Pavlina's blog (always a good idea), I came across a post entitled 'There is no out there'. It's about a healer who works by healing the reflection of the other person within himself. Mind-boggling. And that reminded me of a story I heard Stephen Karcher tell - click ...
Here's a very, very useful online tool you may not have known about: an I Ching search from eclecticenergies.com . You can search for any word in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation, and get a neat list back of all the hexagrams and lines in which it appears. If you are trying ...
Just a quick update about the members' area. As you will know if you've joined as a Friend, you can already login and download:
- The Beginners' I Ching Course as a single pdf to download
- 'Seven ways to live a reading'
- 'Crossing the Great River' - an excerpt from ...
The desire for connection comes in lots of disguises, and various more-or-less-useful sublimations, but I think a whole lot of us are looking for ways to feel connected - coherent - at one with our lives. We need the way we spend our days to connect with who we are ...
If you're in the Missouri area, you may be able to catch a screening of Bob Dyer's Oracle of the Turtle. It's a short animated film based on his 64 I-Ching-inspired poems first published in 1978. If you see it - or know the poems - or know if the ...
Just listen to this... "Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in ...
'The wild geese gradually advance to the high plateau. The husband marches out and does not return; The wife is pregnant, but does not nurture the child; Pitfall. Harvest in resisting outlaws.' Some thoughts based on a single experience of this line. (In other words, not 'What It Means', but ...
Rosada at the I Ching Community casually dropped in a mention of this rendering of the Yi, which I'd never encountered before. It's image-based and allusive, and for some reason has been made even more reduced and succinct than the original ...
You never know where Yi may show up. Here's an instructive tale from a Friday afternoon business meeting. I wonder what the reading was? ...
A note to explain my long silence here: my Mum died a couple of weeks ago, after a long and increasingly debilitating illness. I asked Yi, before we came over to visit her in hospital this time, what I could do for her, and it answered with 23, unchanging. So ...
'Heaven above, lake below. Treading. The noble one differentiates above and below, And sets right the purpose of the ordinary people.' The Image of Hexagram 10 is really not the easiest one to relate to. It's more abstract than most, maybe seeming rather 'dry'. The lake sparkles below heaven... does ...
Here's another 'non-Yi' post I came across that strikes me as helpful in understanding a hexagram. This one from Scott Young, about lateral growth. He differentiates between this and vertical, directed growth: 'Opportunity is critical for lateral growth. With vertical growth, you are already aware of what you aim and ...
Here's the article by David Cornfield with this intriguing title. It raises a lot of questions I don't have the answers to.
The practice of divination, in any of its myriad forms, assumes there is a particular way the world is meant to unfold, that there are forces that promote the ...
The practice of divination, in any of its myriad forms, assumes there is a particular way the world is meant to unfold, that there are forces that promote the ...
'Dream tending' has some excellent free articles on dream work - which is never far removed from oracle work. Doesn't this sound familiar?
It is my belief that in the correspondence between dimensions a person
experiences the sensation of “healing.†For example, when a person “understands†a
dream, regardless of the system of ...
It is my belief that in the correspondence between dimensions a person
experiences the sensation of “healing.†For example, when a person “understands†a
dream, regardless of the system of ...
Here is a good, blunt article that explains why You Cannot Have It All: because choice you make for something is by implication a choice against something else. I linked to this article because it's a clear statement of something we need to be aware of whenever Hexagram 43 shows ...
Naturally, lately, I've wanted to ask the oracle about my Mum's prognosis. I've done so a couple of times, and on each occasion I've received an unchanging hexagram that gave me a very straight, short-term answer. But although there are times when uncertainty and the need to know just overwhelms ...
Ian wrote to ask me: "How can an English-speaking science graduate link to I Ching?" Nice question, thanks! The 'English-speaking' part is relatively easy: use a couple of distinctively different, good translations. Don't be misled by the preoccupations of mad natural linguists (like this one) into believing you have to ...
Someone wrote to ask what I think of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. I have mixed feelings about it. For a lot of people, I know, asking 'what do you think of Wilhelm/Baynes?' is much the same as asking, 'What do you think of the Bible?' This is the edition the great ...
There are some beautiful new papers at Denis Mair's Yijing Poetics site. I'm currently engrossed in 'Maybe a daisy chain', a new story woven from the Sequence of hexagrams. What I find most remarkable - and liberating - about this is how utterly different it is from the story I ...
For some weeks now, there's been a notice up on my readings order page saying 'I'm away from work because of family health problems.' I'm sorry to say that I still am. It's my Mum who's unwell: she was in hospital when I first put the notice up; then she ...
Imagine for a moment that you are a sage, and I have a question for you: "Will I ever be at the summit of Everest?" I'd guess that the first words out of your mouth are a question - or several: "Well, do you want to climb Everest?" "Have you ...
Jesed, aka Rodrigo - source of many fascinating posts at the I Ching Community - has his own blog, 'Changes on political affairs'. In it he presents readings about modern national and international politics, using methods that are not widely known. He doesn't hedge his answers or beat about any ...
At about.com I just came across a collection of articles offering O'Shea's reading of the I Ching. The overall orientation is strangely gloomy - since when is Hexagram 59 all about dissipation and aimlessness, and 37 about 'bottled and stifled ambition and development'? Hm. And some of his assertions are ...
Dodging Invisible Rays » 59 - Dispersing Here's a post about a remarkable reading. Pauline Kilar resolved to learn a divination system, took up the I Ching, and found it inaccessible. (Not helped by starting at the very, very deep end, with yarrow stalks and Total I Ching.) So she ...
I reviewed Ron Masa's I Ching introduction at length here (part 1) and here (part 2). It's a warm, genuine, clear and straightforward introduction; if you don't need it yourself, you might consider buying it for a friend. At the time of the review, this was only available as an ...
Hexagram 14, line 6 was part of my reading for the week. It hasn't been a great week, and I've been using my reading not only for its advice, but also as a reminder, a kind of talisman. Waiting for the pharmacist to make up my Mum's prescription, I went ...
There's a new I Ching diviner on the block - actually, a very experienced one who's just made a home on the web, at Ichingconsultation.com. I browsed to the 'articles' page and especially enjoyed the one on Hexagrams 37 and 38. Very good thoughts on pairs, trigrams, ruling lines and ...
It occurs to me that back in an agrarian society, every ordinary activity would have its ritual place in the bigger scheme of things. Ploughing, sowing, harvesting, storing and ripening - these things have so much latent meaning that we still use them as part of our daily language even ...
Steve Marshall has written an article on Nigel Richmond and the I Ching, and includes with it pdf copies of Richmond's two I Ching books. One of them is very hard to find, the other is near-enough impossible, and here they both are for us to download, for free. Lucky ...
The I Ching Community has been a bit quiet of late, since I had to turn off email notification to stop it frying the server (see this page). But here is some good advice from Yi about a difficult, 'entangling' experience:
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: A difficult situation ...
The week before last, I was itching to get started on something, and Yi told me to ‘strip away' and to have no direction to go. And I realised that I could go anywhere. Then last week, with far more ideas and possibilities in mind than I'd dreamt possible, Yi ...
"The Vessel contains something real. My companion is afflicted, Cannot approach me. Good fortune." I've experienced this line several times, but always found it hard to grasp why it could mean good fortune. It describes those times when you have something good within you, some realisation, joy or purpose - ...
I found this by chance (yes, I know) in a charity shop yesterday, and just finished it. So now I need to read it again! It is an extraordinary book, full of rich imagery and wisdom, and I can't imagine why I hadn't come across it before. The 'Temple of ...
I've been reading in Kindred Spirit magazine about the evidence (not sure if I need inverted commas there) for an inter-life experience. Lots of people under regression hypnosis (with different therapists) report very similar experiences of a place they go between lives. While there, they review their past life, rejoin ...
The Human Design system seems to make a similar promise to astrology - that through your date and time of birth, it can reveal you to yourself. But it does so through an amalgamation of systems: astrology, kabbalah and, centrally, the I Ching. It looks like it'd take years to ...
My personal reading for the week ahead is Hexagram 23, Stripping Away, changing at lines 4 (eek) and 6 to 16, Enthusiasm. I only cast the reading on Saturday morning, and by Sunday I was altogether stumped by the demands of ‘stripping away'. Unsubscribe from about 30 email publications, clear ...
Here is a remarkable report from the HearthMath Institute about research on intuition and foreknowledge. People were wired up to all kinds of scanning equipment, and shown a series of images - mostly peaceful, with a few violent, disturbing images scattered through at random. Their heart rate would change five ...
Rosada asks at the I Ching Community about the difference between the Judgement of 24 - that talks about going out and returning, moving freely - and the Image, that says the ancient kings closed the frontiers so people couldn't travel. Good things have been said in response. Rosalie wrote: ...
A few weeks ago, I went to stay with Mum for a while, helping her out after a stay in hospital. First thing after we arrived, I asked Yi for advice for the next week or so, and received Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, changing at the fourth line to Hexagram 2 ...
Does this happen to you? As it seems to happen to me more and more often. When I am reading for myself, asking a question from my core, then I will often know after the first few lines which hexagram I'll receive. In mid-casting, the idea pops into my head ...
Tarot & Synchronicity - Pop Occulture "So what does synchronicity *mean*? What is it trying to tell you? Here’s how I look at it. The message is simple: Everything is connected. You might not understand how or why right now. And that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that things ...
The fourth 'Readings Panel' reading at GreatVessel.com is one Stephen Karcher cast on behalf of a group in June 2002: "What about President Bush and his plans for a war on Iraq? What attitude or stance can we take towards this?" Yi said "Keep Still". (Gen, hexagram 52) It's a ...
Hexagram 40 is Release: untying knots, removing artificial restraints and compulsions, and restoring complete, natural freedom of movement. Its moving lines talk about different kinds of captivity and release: simple 'mistake' at the first line, the release of a firm grip at the fourth, release from a looming, ominous presence ...
Learnoutloud.com have a free audio download of the month, and currently this is Legge's 1891 (or was it 1887?) translation of the Tao Te Ching. You have to sign up for a free membership to download it, but that's all - no obligation to receive emails ...
Browsing blogs, it's remarkable how many people mention the I Ching as a regular part of their lives. For instance, have a look at the technorati search results for 'I Ching'. You'll need to skip over a few that just have the words 'I' and 'Ching' in the post, but ...
Not for the first time, someone's written to ask me what it means that there's 'advantage in the southwest' for her. So here's a summary of one thing it means, at least - 'The southwest' in Yijing-language doesn't usually mean literally the southwest. There can be the occasional exception, of ...
It's a pervasive character, this I Ching - its way of thinking gets everywhere. Nowadays I find that given a book and a pencil, I'll be jotting hexagrams in the margins to remind myself of the main ideas. Here's one that brings out the pencil - the Fourth Insight from ...
One of the most popular links I ever posted was Eric Sewert's 'Way of Heaven' site for calculating birth hexagrams. If you're one of the people who emailed me to ask where it had gone - it's moved to www.Hall-Of-Man.com ...
I posted about hexagram 15, especially line 3. I hadn't even noticed that Stephen Karcher had posted a reading of his own with the exact same hexagram and line. These grey hamsters get everywhere. There's also a discussion about Stephen's reading at the Great Vessel forum ...
The Judgement of Hexagram 15 says that, 'Integrity creates success, The noble one completes things.' What's the significance of 'completing things' (literally, 'having completion'), as against just ‘succeeding'? Wilhelm translates this as 'carries things through' and describes it as completing one's work; he mentions how much simpler and more effective ...
Here's Donna Woodka's lovely blog, Changing Places, quoting Deng Ming Tao as he speaks out against divination. Specifically, he's opposed to the use of divination in big, life-changing decisions - because, according to him -
- divination amounts to looking for reassurance from forces "out there" - which doesn't work ...
If you follow the 'Blog of the Wandering Sages' you'll have heard of Caroline Casey's Visionary Activism radio show. Stephen Karcher has just been a guest on her show for a second time - this time together with a Voodoo expert. You can stream the audio from here, or download ...
Questioning the question - Harmen's Dagboek Harmen challenges the conventional wisdom that it's necessary to create a focussed, specific question. He is concerned that you can limit your perception as you limit the scope of your question, and hence miss what is truly important. Instead, he suggests 'addressing a situation' ...
The I Ching is the Book of Change. So when there is a change I very much want to make, but somehow haven't managed yet, why not call on the oracle's help? The most obvious way to do this is to ask directly 'How to...?' - and I've discovered many ...
Unusual techniques for applying I Ching hexagrams describes a kinaesthetic approach to understanding both trigrams and hexagrams: "You can hold any hexagram as a 'shape' in your body by holding or releasing tension in various parts of your torso" Interesting! ...
This is the line Wilhelm translates as, "If one is not extremely careful, Somebody may come up from behind and strike him. Misfortune." So reading it this way, the line would mean that you should 'overstep the mark' in taking care - that you should be extraordinarily defensive, constantly on ...
In the introduction to The Original I Ching Oracle by Ritsema and Sabbadini, I found an image for an I Ching reading that I wish I'd thought of for myself: an hourglass. 'In the top half of the hourglass all the complexity and confusion of our existential situation gets narrowed ...
"When you get a figure, a hexagram, what it really is is like a mask. And you put it on and move and dance in that spirit and something happens: you experience significance." This is from Stephen Karcher's radio interview with Caroline Casey on her Visionary Activist Show. (Visit that ...
The Funeral of the Real » I Ching and the Logos Here's an unusual I Ching reading, interpreted with great creative insight from an unfamiliar perspective. The question is "What is the I Ching?", the answer Hexagram 44 moving at lines 3 and 4 to Hexagram 20. So Joe Chip ...
Here's a nice coincidence. Elvira emails me and asks, "What is the meaning of Hexagram 38 in daily life?" And over at GreatVessel there is a new article on Hexagram 38 (Opposition/ Diverging) entitled The Shaman of the Shadows - remarkable work that needs reading and re-reading slowly, and with ...
Relationship questions are certainly the most common reason for people to consult the I Ching. They're also the most common reason for people to get tied in knots of indecision and confusion when consulting. And this is a real shame, as the oracle is a compassionate relationship counsellor, that can ...
Yijing pictorials from Coyote. A phrase or two to take with you for each hexagram (some 'morals', some mini-poems, some like Yi-koans), and images for some of them, too. Go see ...
There is a new, original article at the Great Vessel: The Voices of the Lines: multiple transforming lines. It describes each line of the hexagram as a 'voice', 'like sounding boxes or wind harps or metaphors.' Line 1, for example, is described as"The Voice of Beginnings, the first entrance of ...
With the turning of the Chinese Year, more people are contemplating their annual I Ching reading. Over at 'A touch of Ancients', Allan Lian has written about the synchronicities that accompanied his reading for last year. He's pausing at the change of year to look back as well as forward ...
One of those frequently asked Yijing questions - what does 'seeing the great person' mean? Often it means finding someone who's already achieved the goal or the standard you're aiming for, and seeking their advice. You might be able to do that directly by talking with them; you might find ...
The First Insight from James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy says that people are increasingly feeling that there must be more to life, and that the signs that there is more come as synchronicities. A sense of meaning, direction and growth in life begins with the recognition of synchronicities as personal signposts ...
There have been some very interesting comments to my 'Christmas I Ching' post, and I just added some more that arrived by email. Connecting the Maslow hierarchy of needs to the line positions is an interesting idea - I had a faint inkling of it years ago, in connection with ...
Go see! Stephen Karcher has just launched a new I Ching site at greatvessel.com . Although it's just a few days old, it's already a banquet of Yi-related reading: the vessel contains a lot of good, rich food. You will find...
- Stephen's articles and full-length papers on the Yijing ...
Back before my computer tried to turn into a doorstop, I wrote: "I’ve just recently learned of another provider of really good beginner-level I Ching information online. I’ll be writing a review of his current offering soon and posting it here." So let me end the suspense: I'm talking about ...
A book review by Harmen Mesker with explanatory notes from Steve Marshall: 'The Essentials of the Yi Jing' by Chung Wu. Worth reading not just for the (uncomplimentary) book review, but for the knowledge to be gleaned of Yi and its tradition. Another excellent resource I don't remember noticing before ...
I found this quotation from Thomas Merton in a beautiful book by Lenedra J Carroll, The Architecture of All Abundance, which I bought from Cygnus Books: "There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence... activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most ...
Hexagram 24, Returning, is made up of the trigrams for thunder within the earth: Hexagram 25, Without Entanglement, has thunder below earth's complement, heaven: Thunder is the vital spark, often human will and initiative. In a time of Returning, the wise old kings would 'close the gates. Itinerant merchants did ...
Weekly readings are a blessing and a joy. I'm finding that the richest rewards come from asking an open-ended question every weekend, and keeping this separate from my readings about whatever pressing issues have come up. Stephen Karcher wrote that the basic question we ask oracles - the question behind ...
... in I Ching-land, that is... I will be releasing a very small, very low-priced, and I hope very useful beginners' product at the end of this month. I'll let you know what it is later, when I've fixed on a title 🙂 . If you're not a beginner, you ...
I' ve been wondering and delighting in this reading for a year now - it seems a good time to share it. I had a Christian upbringing, and as I started reflecting for myself, I never quite saw the point of the Incarnation. God is here, of course - where ...
Round about this time of year, I've usually given subscribers a pdf anthology of newsletter articles from the last year's issues. Which makes some kind of sense when those articles are scattered through an archive of newsletters, but a bit less sense (I think) when you can go straight to ...
Looking up the 'Pace of Yu' on Google, I found a link to a fascinating-looking paper on 'The transformations of Yu the Great in Daoist myth and ritual'. But the paper itself wasn't available - only the html version Google had generated of it. So I suggest saving a copy ...
More power to Mark McElroy's elbow! He visited skepdic.com, and found a bunch of utterly loopy speculation about divination. (How those who divine are 'insecure and dependent', thanks to our unfulfilled childhoods!) He did not get flustered; he sent a calm, rational and intelligent email about this to the site ...
Asoka Selvarajah has good and intelligent things to say about the benefits of speaking with oracles often, as "where our individual soul touches the Soul of the Universe." I'm always going to enjoy articles that conclude like this: "Hence, you should choose an oracle and use it regularly. The Tarot ...
Here's a small idea for keeping readings in mind. Choose a friend (carefully!), share your reading with them - or share its core message with them, if they don't know the I Ching - and ask them to remind you of it whenever they think you need it. I've just ...
Lately, I've been exploring ways to immerse myself in readings more completely - and I Ching poetry seems to be a way to do that. Of course the book is poetry itself, but the attempts I know of to translate it directly into rhyme basically reduce it to jingles. I ...
The Modern Poet's I Ching, by Thom Williams Short poems and commentaries for the hexagrams and lines. One for the collection? (For breathtaking poetry for each hexagram, I recommend Karen Holden's Book of Changes. Amazing.) ...
Hexagram 21 is Biting Through; Hexagram 22 is Beauty - only I tend to think of it these days more as Making Beautiful. (In much the same way, Hexagram 13 seems to be more to do with 'creating harmony between people' than just finding it already there, a fait accompli.) ...
I Ching Community: The I Ching on The I Ching A great and quite mad story-telling thread - first hexagram by hexagram, now line by line. You really need to read through from the first page (the 'archive through November 19th' link at the top of the page) to get ...
This entry is a follow-up to my post on 'Life lessons from Yi' a few weeks ago. Like that one, it's more personal-journal-ish than I usually write, but I hope it'll provide a couple of ideas you can use yourself. (Please let me know what you think of this style ...
Heaven to Earth I Ching A link to a home-published I Ching book I hadn't seen before. As far as I can make out from a quick look through the website (in other words - I may have this completely wrong) the book offers a new way of choosing which ...
Very interesting email from Donato: "Dear Hilary, I have been consulting I-Ching for many years, during crisis mainly and therefore for really important matters, as well for less decisive problems. In many cases the answers seemed coherent with the question, in some quite 'to the point', in many others they ...
*** Warning - highly speculative post coming up *** In a previous post, 'Looking at hexagram pairs’, I mentioned Carrin Dunne's names for two distinctive kinds of Pair. The four pairs that are complementary and not inverse she calls Dragon Gates. And the four pairs that are both inverted and ...
Three minutes' audio: one anecdote, one thought, and a question for you. Click 'play' to listen, or if that doesn't work in your browser you can right-click here and choose ‘save target as' to save the file to your own computer ...
My first response when Mark kindly sent me a review copy of I Ching for Beginners was, sadly, a rant. In turning the oracle into a version for beginners, he's denuded it of imagery, and I really don't think that's the best idea. In fact, reading in more detail, I ...
John Burke wrote in a blog comment: Recently I made this inquiry: 'How should one balance divining reality with creating reality?' I received 22 changing to 24. Any thoughts? I thought the I Ching Community was the best place to look for good thoughts, and started a thread. And sure ...
Just found another online I Ching translation. I haven't looked at it in any detail, but it seems quite plain and straightforward. The unusual part is that the junzi has become the exceptional human, and personal pronouns have all turned into 'hu'. I Ching The Book of Changes - 2 ...
An audio entry, for a change. You can listen by clicking the 'play' button below - - or right-click here and choose 'save target as' to download the recording. It's about 8 minutes long. I Ching reading ...
This is one of those embarrassing experiences with Yi, but I wanted to share it all the same. It's a very clear example of the difference a question - and the thought behind the question - can make. There's this course I'm thinking of taking. I like the look of ...
The Useless Tree: Friday I Ching: Bush Will Rebound Sam Crane asked Yi how Bush should handle whatever the fallout may be from the latest political scandals, and received 16 changing to 24. He's interpreting this less as what Bush needs to do, more as how things will work out ...
Yijing Dao - Ruling lines Steve Marshall has updated his 'ruling lines' page with many more examples than before. It's worth taking the time really to look at them all. A question he doesn't answer (Steve?) is what difference it makes when one of the changing lines you receive is ...
Some clarity from the Azande Not long ago, I read an excerpt from a 1937 study of the Azande people of sub-Saharan Africa and their use of divination. It explained that these people built substantial granaries of wood and clay, held safely clear of the ground by wooden supports. And ...
Pointing To The Moon: Let the Truth Inform Action Browsing to this page on one of the blogs I regularly visit, it just strikes me that - as well as being powerful advice - this reads as something of a commentary on hexagrams 55 to 56. The truth informing action ...
As you can tell from the title of Freeman's latest blog post - Chameleon Book Chronicles: A Truly Awful Book? - he's feeling glum about low sales of his I Ching translation. Actually, we should all feel glum about low sales of his book, as it's remarkably good one. I ...
If you've studied Stephen Karcher's Total I Ching or listened to How to make Change a working part of your life, you'll be familiar with the idea that the I Ching's hexagrams come in Pairs, and that these Pairs are units of meaning in themselves. If you receive Hexagram 6, ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: High Carb Diet Explains Mystery of Zhouyi! Read and learn! (If you have the energy.) ...
Tim Boucher's 'Pop Occulture' blog is a real find. Here - Pop Occulture » Chaotic Patterns in Divination - he writes about the workings of divination. The gist is that divination works through exposing us to chaotic patterns - like staring into the fire does. These sideline our conscious minds, ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Who is "the Devil" in this cast? Ole's story of a series of readings, giving a very good, practical demonstration of how to use line pathways (along with gut feeling) to go beyond surface appearances, and also how to use supplemental questions ...
StevePavlina.com Podcast #003 - Consulting Your Intuition Steve Pavlina's 'Personal development for smart people' blog is always a worthwhile read: lucid, intelligent and honest. Recently he's started doing podcasts - and these, too, are several cuts above the average. (And helped along by the fact that he's a professional speaker, ...
Someone asked: "How do I go about developing the talent to access this wisdom faculty without using coins, yarrow stalks, computers and so on?" It's an extremely good question, and not one I truly know the answer to, as it's not a talent I've developed. However, I do think that ...
The 'sheng' sacrifice at Qi Shan Harmen's back! And as always, his research provides information you really have to consider in readings. This time he's exploring sheng, Hexagram 46. The core divinatory meaning of sheng is (I think) to put in the effort to climb step by step towards a ...
I'll be away from the computer until 5th October or so. If I have time, I'll set up some small entries to post here automatically over the coming days. But meanwhile, here is some interesting reading: I CHING PHILOSOPHY: Chinese Laws of Creativity and Wisdom The section on the meanings ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Rude awakenings Very interesting thoughts from Auriel on the lines that lead towards Hexagram 23, Stripping Away ...
Sixty-Four Human Situations: Artist Interpretations of I Ching Gineen Cooper ~ Peter Stankiewicz October 1st-30th, 2005 Opening Reception: October 1st 6-9 p.m. with musical performances by 'The Chemical Wedding' and food by Osaka A.P.E. Gallery, Thornes Marketplace, 150 Main St., Norhampton MA 01060 U.S.A ...
The Useless Tree: Friday I Ching: Hurricanes and the Mandate of Heaven Sam Crane has found quite a question to ask this time: "What does this second hurricane suggest for President Bush's hold on the Mandate of Heaven?" Sam's understanding of the Mandate is that it "is rooted in how ...
Images in the Heavens, Patterns on the Earth: The I Ching Photographs by Janet Russek and David Sheinbaum On exhibit in the West Wing of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY from September 30th to November 20th The exhibition is of 64 photos: you can read more ...
Email from John: "I was wondering why someone such as the host of 'Useless Tree' would ask such large questions as he does. Isn't it better to ask such questions so as to influence events to promote the general benevolence?" It's a reasonable question, and I'll send Sam Crane a ...
Donna kindly sent me a reminder of Frank Steiner's I Ching Symphony. There are excerpts from all eight movements (one per trigram) online to listen to. Definitely 'New Age music' - one of the reviewers at Amazon recommends it for use at the dentist's, or for putting children to sleep! ...
I Ching - InterTao Ely Britto has created an English version of her I Ching website. It's an excellent, very clear account of how to approach the I Ching through the traditional Chinese system of trigrams and line relationships ...
A novel online reading - an I Ching clock that tells the Time. When I tried it, it gave me the hexagram I should be interpreting for a client right now. Good point ...
GreenOwl wrote: “Ideally you need to allow a good half hour to talk with (or rather listen to) your querent and arrive at the right question for them.†Any chance you could do a post (y’know, sometime) that walks through an example of that process? Or, if you’ve already written ...
On the 'abundance' theme still - I promise to get back to Yi in the next post - The Architecture of All Abundance by Lenedra J Carroll £2.60 from Cygnus Books, who send me a beautiful free magazine every month. Hopefully I can send them some website visitors in return ...
The name of Hexagram 14 is Great Possession, and the character for 'possessing' also means 'offering' - suggesting that the two ideas are not so far apart as they might seem. Interpreting this one, I'm often reminded of Molière's play, The Miser. (Or was this in Plautus's original, The Pot ...
I came across this lovely article - The Abundance Site: Spending as a prayer? - and thought at once of Hexagram 14, Great Possession. The character 'possess', which also just means 'there is', shows an outstretched hand, holding meat. Owning? Offering? Is there a difference? I think the small ritual ...
I write a lot about trying to recover the original meanings of some of the I Ching's key phrases. Which may be of academic interest, but why bother with China circa 1000BC when asking about Western life in 2005 AD? Well, not to get to the One True Authentic Original ...
The Useless Tree: Friday I Ching Blogging: Reversal of Verdict on June 4th Massacre? Not only is Sam Crane talking with Yi about Chinese politics, but Allan Lian and Steve Marshall are joining in the discussion. Looking at both the reading and the Washington Post article linked to from there, ...
Which is a better format for I Ching gatherings - online, or over the phone? I've just set up a quick poll - please give me your advice on this! ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: 2.6 dueling dragons A great thread on hexagram 2, line 6: 'Dragons battling in the fields, Their blood indigo and gold.' ...
Brad Hatcher writes: 'Hi everybody- I'm announcing some more updates at www.hermetica.info Section C, the Translation /Commentary has been completely updated, thanks to one of our list members, who donated his sharp eye and lots of time to produce a 12 page list of typos and recommendations. Sorry to anyone ...
You'd think I'd do this automatically by now, and go unerringly to the best possible question to get the clearest and most direct answer. It ain't necessarily so... 😕 Someone ordered a reading with the question, 'What would be the difference between taking option a or option b?' (I can't ...
Dobro asked, "How can it be advantageous to carry out what one thinks right, and at the same time to abstain from moving things in a conscious direction?" Helpful and thought-provoking answers here. ...
Following on from this article about the sequence of trigrams through 10 and 11, here's another place where looking at the trigrams casts light on the story behind the sequence: from Hexagram 12 to 13. Hexagram 12 is Obstruction and negation: communication is completely blocked; everything has ground to a ...
Just a small example of the kind of day-to-day help Yi provides for the asking. Not earth-shattering, just solid common sense (which, as my Mum's Mum used to say, isn't common) and good advice. You can use the controls below to play the audio, or right-click here to download if ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Hexagrams of sleeping and dreaming? Peter asked, "what hexagrams reflect processes of sleeping and dreaming?" Some good - and interestingly different - suggestions are coming up. Do you dream in water, light or thunder? ...
...finally! After more hours than I care to count spent fighting the editing program, you can get the recording and transcript of 'Journey Imagery in the Yijing' here. £7 for the download, plus £5 p&p&p&p (production, printing, postage and packing 😉 ) if you'd like it on CD-ROM as well ...
Mark McElroy, of tarottools.com, has kindly sent me the proofs of his upcoming book, I Ching for Beginners. And as beginners' books go, it's pretty good, with some useful, thought-provoking ways of approaching the hexagrams. I'll review it later on its own merits - but first, I need to get ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: 14.1...negative or not? 'No intercourse with what is harmful, In no way at fault, Hardship is thus not a mistake.' or 'Having no commerce with trouble. To never be wrong Is a hardship, but otherwise not a mistake.' (Brad) Or even 'Not associating with violent ...
The short version, in case you don't have eight minutes to listen to the audio: we had an informal webinar sharing readings; it was a success; people enjoyed it. I'll be running more of these, and they'll still be free. And if you want to be sure of hearing about ...
Hexagram 44 seems to be the most-debated hexagram of the lot. Should we be afraid of what the yin line in the first place represents? Of encroaching evil, temptation, the thin end of the wedge? (To say nothing of that fearful thing, 'a bold girl who lightly surrenders herself'?) Or ...
Sam Crane has a great Taoist blog, the Useless Tree, where he's branching out into I Ching divination - it looks as though he's making 'Friday I Ching blogging' a regular thing. At the beginning of August, he asked: Will the six party talks on North Korea succeed? Yi says: ...
We're having an informal session sharing I Ching readings today at 6pm UK time (that's US Pacific 10am, Mountain 11am, Central 12 noon, Eastern 1pm, 7pm or later across Europe). This one is free (I hope to recoup costs later by selling the recording). To attend, just log in here ...
'Above the mountain is thunder. Small overstepping. Noble one in actions exceeds in courtesy, In loss exceeds in mourning, In using resources exceeds in economy.' This is the Image of Small Overstepping (the Daxiang of Hexagram 62). It's advice for crossing boundaries with a 'small' mindset - that is, adapting ...
Harmen has put together a stunning 'reading list' of online articles on Yi and early China. Here it is - impressive stuff ...
I've just been looking at an article by Edward Shaughnessy about the Fuyang Zhouyi: a fragmentary copy of the earliest part of the Yi, dating from 165BC. And what struck me most forcibly was how little has changed. The fragments show hexagram and line texts more or less identical to ...
While researching for the 'journeys' session I came across this page of research results of Anthony Barbieri-Low. Scroll down to the last one on the page, and you'll find a beautifully clear reconstruction of a Shang chariot. A little below this there is a link to an animation of the ...
Hexagram 37, People in the Home, defines a safe space. Within it we can find our place with one another, and become confident enough in our own identities that we can eventually reach out beyond its walls. The first line of the hexagram sets up those all-important walls: 'With barriers, ...
I find it makes a difference if instead of drawing each line of my hexagram as I go, I draw it first in my mind's eye. Closing my eyes and visualising clear, creamy paper, and drawing on each line with a broad-nibbed pen. Or keeping my eyes open and seeing ...
OK, so that one lasted 3 hours. (And I thought I'd chosen something nice and small and manageable - ha!) I think I've lost my voice. Huge thanks to everyone who came and listened and contributed ideas. Hopefully I'll get the recording and transcript ready to put on sale within ...
Free webinar today: Journey images in the I Ching Only the first 20 people (well, the first 19, I have to get in too...) to log in here at 6pm UK time will get in - sorry, that's just the size of the room I've hired. I think it'll be ...
Something I just tried, that seems to work quite well: putting a question to Yi, reflecting on the answer - and drawing a single tarot card as a cue - or a clue - to ways to think about it. Asking what I needed to reflect on about helping more ...
The name of Hexagram 57 - Subtle Penetration, the Wind - shows imperial seals on a stand: LiSe describes them as a personal inner blueprint, something that penetrates everything you do. Some influences flow in steadily and shape you, as wind following wind sculpts trees, or rock.However, this isn't only ...
I just heard from Margaret Pearson this morning, and she won't be available on August 6th for the 'meanings of marriage' webinar. Rats. Hopefully she'll be free some time in September/October instead... (If you bought a ticket, you should have had an email from me about this already, and I've ...
What: Journey imagery in the I Ching When: Saturday 30th July, 6pm UK time - that's 10am Pacific time, 11am Mountain, 12 noon Central, 1pm Eastern, and 7pm or later across Europe. Where: at an internet connection near you. Anywhere. Log in here and try it. How much: £0.00 This ...
On his TarotTools site, Mark McElroy keeps coming up with creative suggestions for tarot 'exercises' - which, with the minimum of adaptation, could just as well become questions for mind-stretching I Ching readings. A recent article of his, Make Better Choices, suggests questions such as, 'What core value might I ...
One other reading I did about the latest HP book (and I do promise that the next blog entry will be about something different)... ~~more spoilers coming up, look away now!~~ ...was about where Snape stands at the end. I admit, I don't have any very lofty motives for this ...
OK... Spoiler warnings here!! I've been talking with Yi about the situation at the very end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so if you don't want to know what that situation is before you finish reading the book, please go and read something else now. Where Harry stands ...
Many, many versions of the Tao Te Ching - in many different languages - with the option of comparing them alongside one another on the same screen. Nice ...
Found at Luminous Heart: "Being without doubt has nothing to do with accepting the validity of a philosophy or concept. Absence of doubt comes from trusting in the heart, trusting yourself. Being without doubt means that you connect with yourself, that you experience mind and body being synchronized together. When ...
Tickets are available now for Margaret Pearson's return visit on August 6th. Same time as previous webinars - 6pm UK, which is during the morning/ early afternoon across the US. The subject this time, like I said a few posts ago, is marriage and its meanings. Corny alliteration apart (sorry), ...
Here's the hardback for £10 (opening bid) plus p+p. At £8.75 cheaper than Amazon UK at this opening price, and the author will even sign it for you. (Another hardback and two paperback copies to come later: he's selling them one at a time.) ...
Someone asked me in an email about what special qualities you need to read the Yijing, and about how intuitive I am. Eeek. 😯 When I first started out with Yi, I would have had a short and simple answer to that second question: not in the least intuitive. The ...
Two quick news bulletins: First, I've finally got the recording and transcript online. It's only £4 for the downloadable version or £9 to get the CD posted to you - that's in the region of $16 US. You can get your copy here. I've also put some free excerpts online ...
The biggest story arc of the Yijing is the Conquest story: how the Zhou people inherited the mandate of heaven and overthrew the Shang dynasty. It's a great narrative of Change: the decay of the Shang; the preparations of the good Zhou ruler Wen, making his people worthy of the ...
Look at this! http://www.appositive.net/oysterbay/ichingtitle.html I've barely started reading, but I feel like a child in a sweetshop already. Very, very good work on the Sequence, on trigrams, and individual hexagrams. Saving the whole lot to my computer now ...
Horses in ancient China http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~baojie/history/chinese/2002-12-02_horse.en.htm A nice, long article on the role of horses, basically in the military, from pre-Shang to post-Zhou times. Why would we be interested? It casts new light on why horses are so important in the Yi: why Prince Kang would be especially honoured by a ...
I dropped into Oxford today on the way home from a friend's, and found my way into Blackwell's - the university bookshop. And down to the Chinese history section, where I came across an intimidating-looking tome called To become a god: cosmology, sacrifice and self-divinisation in Early China. With about ...
I had hoped to be posting now with news that I'd got the transcript and recording ready for you. But I'm sorry to say I'm not quite there yet: I was out on Saturday playing in a rehearsal and concert, and I still have a bunch of editing work to ...
I used to play around trying to predict the outcome of tennis games with Yi. I still find it fascinating as a way of learning more about hexagrams. Big singles tennis matches are huge contests between two people - everything each individual has goes into it. And then they're much ...
I imagine anyone who's consulted with Yi must have had the experience. Ask question; receive answer; say 'Huh??' And this is where it's easy to go wrong - where the desire that caused us to ask in the first place won't accept this lack of clarity, and we find a ...
I started a thread about this at the I Ching Community, and people have contributed some excellent information and ideas. Follow the link at the top of the page to get to the beginning of the discussion ...
For anyone who uses them, 'Tarot Doug' has written a detailed review of 10 sites with free online tarot readings ...
I first met Margaret Pearson at a talk she was giving in Clare Hall, Cambridge, about the Yijing and her upcoming translation. She handed out excerpts from her first drafts, including Hexagram 11, and I started reading with great interest. Simple, fluent translation... a couple of 'why did I never ...
Here's a very-frequently asked question. This relationship may have been going ecstatically well or this project may have been an intolerable risk yesterday/ last week/ last month, but is that still the case? How long does a reading apply for? Two possible answers, I think:
- For as long as ...
E-Jing-A-Ling Thing Hexagrams - or 'The hexagrams as you have (without doubt) never seen them before.' In amongst the barking lunacy are insights. Ever conceived of hexagram 12 as 'the Cabbage'? Also this page finally tells you what the answer is when a coin lands on its side: the Pi ...
There's a phrase in the Judgements of hexagrams 31 and 44, along with 4, line 2: 'taking a woman'. Its usual interpretation is 'taking to wife', though it's the same word used to mean 'take by force' or 'capture an animal'. What are we to make of the phrase? And ...
The salient - Harmen's Dagboek More from Harmen! This time Hexagram 58 gets the treatment, line by line, and once again we're invited to rethink what we thought we knew ...
I just got an email asking this. Oops - very good question. A webinar is like a seminar, but online - so with just a computer and an internet connection, you can easily talk to people from all over the globe. On the day, I will be sending out a ...
News! 😀 Tickets are on sale now for the webinar. When: Saturday 25th June, 6pm UK time. (That's mid-morning to early afternoon across the US.) Who: Dr Margaret Pearson What: Women in the I Ching Where: at any internet-connected computer near you: Windows or Mac How much: £5 (about $9 ...
I often get emails asking what the I Ching is and how to get started. And while there is enough to reflect on in the I Ching and its traditions to keep anyone engrossed for several lifetimes, getting started with it is absurdly simple. I was reminded just how simple ...
Last time I splashed out on books I bought not just the shiny new Ritsema/Sabbadini, but also Sarah Allan's The Shape of the Turtle. And I am enjoying it no end. She writes about Shang myth, but there are many, many resonances in the Zhouyi. But finding one with the ...
JerryD thought to ask the I Ching, 'What is a Universal Truth?' (capital U, capital T) Yi answered with Hexagram 13, unchanging: People in Harmony. Well, different people have different takes on this, but it sounds to me as though Yi's saying that a 'Universal Truth' is just whatever people ...
The Original I Ching Oracle is Ritsema's revised version of the Eranos Yijing, first published in 1994 with Stephen Karcher, as 'I Ching, the Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, the First Complete Translation with Concordance.' I owe a huge amount to that book: it first gave me license to absorb ...
James Lewis describes what I know as the yang, 'inspiring' pattern of change as the Key Hexagram: If you consider that lines that do not change are yin, and that lines that do change are yang, then you can write down a third hexagram. This is what I call the ...
The more I look at the Sequence of hexagrams, the more it seems obvious that the trigrams are an intrinsic part of its logic. The patterns are there to be found. (Here's a handy colour-coded trigram chart that makes it easier.) For an outstanding analysis of the large-scale patterns, the ...
I first learned from Nina Correa of Your Dao De Jing that in the first lines of the Daodejing - 'The dao that can be told of is not the constant dao, The name that can be named is not the constant name' - the word 'constant' in the Mawangdui ...
I've been lucky enough to meet up with Dr Margaret Pearson, and she has very kindly promised to be the 'guest speaker' at our next webinar. As you'll know if you came to the last one with Stephen Karcher, this means we get to ask her questions! The subject is ...
In the first place, seeing an great person means finding a role model or guide. Find someone who can advise, ideally someone who's been there and done that. Or go to the person who has more influence, make an important connection with someone who can make a difference. Richard Rutt ...
Sketchy, impressionistic ideas, these, butI think there's something behind them... Looking at the mythical and legendary figures that walk the pages of the Yijing, I can't help noticing how many pairs of fathers and sons there are. And the overarching theme seems to be the responsibility of the sons to ...
A very interesting question, this: can Yi answer 'yes' or 'no'? Is it a good idea to ask 'yes'/'no' questions? If not, why not? I Ching Community: Yes - No answers ...
I've finally bought myself a copy of Richard Kunst's 1985 dissertation, The Original Yijing: a text, phonetic transcription, and indexes, with sample glosses, and I've been seizing every spare moment to read it. I wish I'd got it years ago! Anyone with a strong interest in the early Yi will ...
Joseph Adler's fascinating article, Chu Hsi and Divination, is available free online. This small excerpt will show why I'm recommending it: After one had ascertained the intended meaning, according to Chu, a certain subjective involvement with the text is necessary for full understanding. One must extend one's mind into the ...
Trying to print out a great big German treatise on the Yijing - first all odd-numbered pages, then all-even numbered ones on the back. Except of course the printer picks up several pages at once on the second time through, prints on the back of the wrong sheet, and generally ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Hex 57 ~ What's it all about? A good variety of insights into a very elusive hexagram ...
John Pemberton: Divination in sub-Saharan Africa Fascinating reading on a range of ancient, living forms of divination - and clear insights, too, into what divination is all about. This is from the first page: Whatever the form, all divinatory practices reveal the human quest for a larger context of meaning, ...
También disponible en español 'Obstructing it, non-people. No harvest in noble one's constancy. Great goes, small comes.' The 'usual' interpretation of the Judgement of Hexagram 12 is that there are bad people at work, dominating the environment, sabotaging the noble one's good efforts. And sometimes, indeed, it can mean exactly ...
So your readings represent a priceless resource, and reviewing them is an extremely good idea. Of course, you're more likely to get the opportunity to do so if your reading is recorded somewhere you can find it. Not brain surgery, I know. But it's remarkable how often readings do get ...
It's not just me: lots of people let me know that they get further with their readings, understand them better, see more clearly, when they look at them for a second time. So how does this work? Let the water clear I think maybe Togan put it best, in a ...
Use of the I Ching in the Analytic Setting An intelligent, in-depth article about the uses of the I Ching in Jungian analysis. There are good sections here on areas where the I Ching can help (relationships, depression, major decisions, and psychoanalytic training programmes!), and some clear examples of what ...
Harmen's gone back to the first character of the Zhouyi and offers the theory that it originally depicted a banner. As always with Harmen, very interesting reading! The banner of 'qian' - Harmen's Dagboek ...
Thanks to two correspondence course customers who have shared their experience with templates. You know who you are! I find I get a lot further with my readings, learn more and change more as a result, when I use a template to record and study them. Here are a few ...
Over at the I Ching Community, Demitra has shared some readings about vegetarianism and meat-eating: not just which is right for her, but what each means for humanity as a whole. Have a look at those readings here (they're very interesting, and not what anyone from either side of the ...
I was working on a reading for a client. And the gist of the answer was unmissable: what she's asking about is a very good idea. I didn't understand why it is, though - it's hard to connect these particular positive images with her question or her situation - and ...
Hexagram 36, Brightness Hiding or Brightness Injured, can certainly be a danger-signal in a reading: hide your light, risk of injury ahead. But it is also a postive strategy, as this Deng Ming-Dao quotation from Donna Woodka's Changing Places blog shows. (One to subscribe to, I think.) It also shows ...
Spoiled by the mother An interesting account from Allan Lian of an investment reading. He was considering investing more in a company when he asked Yi about this, and received 18, line 2: 'Ancestral mother's corruption Does not allow persistence.' (Or words to that effect: Allan uses the W/B version.) ...
Here is another audio entry (about 15 minutes, this one) - click the 'play' button, or right click here to download the file if that doesn't work. I'm trying something new here: previously I've always written myself a script so I wouldn't embarrass myself too much with endless 'um's and ...
Click the blue 'play' button to hear it. Sorry this is so brief... I have a bunch of work waiting for me. More information soon, I hope! Or right-click here and choose 'save target as' to download the sound file to your computer ...
I think that finding your question for the Yijing is the most important part of any reading. It sets the conditions for the whole conversation with the oracle: while it may or may not constrain what Yi can say, it certainly constrains what we can hear. The question is where ...
Good news! When I reviewed Jane Schorre and Carrin Dunne's Yijing Wondering and Wandering in issues and of the newsletter, it was only available from Amazon in the USA and Canada. Now you can get it direct from Amazon UK without the extra postage costs and delivery time. If ...
It's something of a truism that the cosmos works in this sequence: be - do - have. Who you are leads to what you do which leads (by a more or less direct path! 😉 ) to what you get. Also well-known is that universal human tendency to get this ...
Warning: my physics education ended when I was about 13: given the chance, I couldn't drop the subject fast enough. So what follows is going to be wrong-headed in all kinds of ways. But at least I can copy what it says in a good book with the best of ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Spiritual hierarchy Quotation of the month, from Dharma: "Methinks it redundant for Yi to talk "about" love since the whole book itself is a major portal that leads us directly to it." (Also go to the top of the page and search on 'Dharma' to ...
If you haven't already visited this page and launched into a feeding frenzy of downloading, go now. Brad has converted everything to pdf format, so it's viewable on any computer. If you don't have the means to unzip the files already, try Izarc for Windows or Stuffit expander for Macs ...
It may have taken me a month, but I've got the CD of the webinar with Stephen Karcher ready for you, finally. It includes the screen recordings, transcript, and extra explanatory articles with slides from the webinar, and costs £12 including postage. Full details here I've also made a few ...
Hexagram 23 is the Pair of 24, Returning, which Nelson asked about. Unlike Stripping Away, the Judgement of Returning concludes that there is harvest in having a direction to go. This could get particularly confusing, as the Daxiang (the Image) says that this is time to stay home and most ...
From Nelson: "Under #24 it says, favorable to have somewhere to go. What does this mean?" LiSe, bless her, has explored the etymology of this 'somewhere' or 'direction' to go. The Chinese word is made of a hand and water, or hand, staff and water, and it means (according to ...
Yijing Dao - 'The Original I Ching Oracle' by Rudolf Ritsema and Shantena Augusto Sabbadini Steve Marshall has reviewed the 'new' Yijing from Rudolf Ritsema, which is a revised version of the original Eranos I Ching, the Ritsema/Karcher with concordance. (To be published on April 30th, I think, so I ...
Harmen Mesker has added some entries in English to his blog. One is a critique of Robert Benson's 'I Ching for a New Age', which I didn't buy when I picked it up in a local bookstore. Benson's general 'everyone sucks but me' attitude is feeble, I think, and the ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Cradles Now at last I understand what Hexagram 19, Nearing, can have to do with mourning. This is from LiSe's post to this thread: The ‘picture’ of 19 is someone looking down on ‘mouths’. In old texts it is often used for coming down the ...
Two pieces of excellent news for 'Yi people': Steve Marshall is updating his blog again at http://www.biroco.com/journal.htm. On April 2nd (scroll down!) he wrote about hexagram 25, line 2 - something I've been wondering and speculating on for years. It makes good, natural sense when you read as he does: ...
Hello - just to say I am back at work. Backlogged... even dozier than normal... but doing readings and giving feedback on ecourse assignments in the usual way. My writing here seems to be lurching in the direction of more rants than actual usable stuff about hexagrams. I will try ...
'A cup, a drink, and a plate, Using earthenware, Letting them in on ropes from the window. In the end, no mistake.' Someone is confined in the Pit - someone reaches them in simple ways. I've seen this often enough as advice on how to keep a relationship alive through ...
Nelson commented on the 'Kinder I Ching' page: "Aren’t you all confusing various ‘interpretations’ with a ‘translation’?" Well - yes, we are. But then they are already inextricably confused. Choosing a phrase in one language to represent a phrase in another is already half way to interpretation. You only have ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Depends on the version that you use A superb thread, with wonderful insights on translations and versions in general, and what Yi might have to say about love or lust through these many voices ...
Embodying the Sphere of Change I don't have the time now to take this in and write about it intelligently - packing calls 🙂 - but it does provide some intriguing new ways to think about the Yijing. Random excerpt: Each hexagram might be considered as resembling any of the ...
Since I first started working with Yi, I've enjoyed asking about the outcome of tennis matches. The dual between individuals, as much psychological as technical - it's something very natural to divine about, and the outcomes teach me a lot about the hexagrams involved. You may know my husband doesn't ...
Just to say that, while there may still be the occasional sign of life from me here, I won't be doing readings, answering emails etc for a week or so. For some of that time I'll be carrying boxes etc for Mum as she moves house, and for some of ...
All done! You can now order the complete webinar recording - spoken conversation, text chat and slides - and transcript from this handy order form for I Ching webinar recording. The cost is the same as for the original tickets: £7, currently about $13. I admit I had planned to ...
BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - China: The Warring States Period 'In Our Time' is a BBC radio discussion programme on a very wide range of subjects (from Angels, history of, to quantum mechanics). There is a vast archive of programmes online, including this one on the Warring ...
Yes, occasionally there are good reasons for asking Yi the same question again. But here is what usually happens with repeated questions:
- Querent asks question.
- Yi gives direct, truthful answer to said question.
- Querent feels this answer is 'unclear' or 'can't be right'.
- Querent asks again.
- Yi tries putting ...
Jonathan Zap tells you some things to know before getting an I Ching reading. Not that you really need to know this much before getting a reading, but there is much good sense here, obviously born of a living relationship with the oracle. I especially like the part about what ...
PCNL - The Library I found the site Stephen mentioned in the webinar in association with David Peat, co-author of The Turbulent Mirror. This link is to its library - a massive resource of text and multimedia on modern science, chaos theory, consciousness... It must be fantastically expensive to run, ...
The webinar with Stephen Karcher took place on the 26th, and was a huge success. (Granted my computer was not by any stretch of the imagination a huge success, but things carried on extremely well without me for the first five or ten minutes.) There was an endless stream of ...
This is a quite new (and hard to find) addition to LiSe's wonderful site, I Ching, book of the moon Kan and Coyote are both much loved and admired members of the I Ching Community, and their conversations are gems. The best place to start is probably with the talk ...
Selected Yijing papers - with very interesting titles. "I Ching, psychology of heart, and Jungian analysis" looks good ...
mashica I Ching This may win prizes for 'most indecipherable I Ching site design', but if you once find your way in (try the little numbers and arrow over on the right) there is a nice online oracle here, using the translation by Rosemary and Kerson Huang. I asked for ...
Can't for the life of me think of anything to say about this one: Of robot art and drawn meditations Quote: "Eva Sutton and Sarah Hart constructed an installation called "Chance Transmission: An I Ching Reading with Two Small Robots." This performative piece generates and reads a visitor's I Ching ...
Where had I got to? Ah yes... started recording, and discovered exactly what could go wrong when Program X disabled my soundcard. Logged out. Restarted computer. Restarted browser. Logged in. Not going to try Program X again. Turn on the internal meeting room recorder instead... Flashback to a reading a ...
Wow! The webinar with Stephen Karcher finished a few hours ago, and I'm altogether overwhelmed by the sheer intensity and information-density of it all. There will be a recording available, presently - free for ticket holders and on sale to everyone else. Watch, as always, this space. For now I ...
Search results for China from the BM's online gallery of their collections. Stunning images of neolithic jade - and look down the bottom of the page for links to short articles and collections of images ...
Chameleon Book - a new translation of the Zhouyi by Freeman Crouch. From the downloadable pdf sample (introduction, appendices, five hexagrams), this looks fresh, bright and intelligent. There are very useful suggestions for divination and imagining yourself into the imagery. (Eg 'you are soil to be worked, you are a ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Spiritual hierarchy Last November, Val asked Yi if there was such a thing as spiritual hierarchy. The answer was Hexagram 23 changing to 24. This reading surely emphasises that there are differences, like those between the junzi and the 'small people' of the top line, ...
Ancient China - The British Museum I've spent far, far too long browsing this. (Yes, I know it's meant for 9 to 11 year olds.) The maps of ancient China are great (select your dynasty); you can explore the interior of a Zhou tomb (with abundant photos of vessels, weapons ...
ICC: Light on the Dark Bird Freeman Crouch, he of the remarkable Chameleon Book, has revived this topic. Light is being cast on the character and the trials of Jizi ...
An email from Quinn in New Zealand, about I Ching translations: "I have been throwing the I-ching for years, My father taught me how, and I have to say I nearly drove myself crazy. It's almost unintelligible, sometimes I get the sense that by the time you understood it in ...
Here are the questions for next Saturday's webinar - or at least some of them. (We'll get through as many of the listed questions as we possibly can, while still allowing time for questions from the people there on the day. Stephen wants to talk about all of them - ...
Here's an audio message for you, about the webinar on the 26th. Just click the blue 'play' button! (Yes, I'm still experimenting with what works in a blog post.) (Or if that doesn't work for you, click here to play the message in your usual audio player.) When I say ...
There is an old Chinese story - I haven't been able to find out for sure where it comes from or how old it really is (anyone?) - known as Sai Weng shi ma: the old man of the border loses his horse. You probably know it... The old man ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: How do I apply the principles of the Yijing to this one??? A really concerted effort to do so by the excellent readers at the ICC ...
I Ching Community Discussion Forum: One Minute Millionaire 24.2.5 to 60. Some good interpretations here into an interesting project. Could be a thread to watch ...
Has Josh Hinds, motivational writer, ever heard of the Yijing? Maybe, who knows. But this article of his on integrity sounds eerily reminiscent of Hexagram 15. What caught my eye is the title: 'Hold Tight to your Integrity'. The name of Hexagram 15 is based on a character for 'uniting' ...
An email that arrived the other day... "Hi I was recently introduced to the IChing by some good friends and I am very pleased with its content and outlook on life. Bearing in mind that the IChing constantly mentions the 'collective ego' as the main obstacle to the true self ...
You know our next webinar is with Stephen Karcher? Recap of the details: It's on 26th March, 6pm UK time (morning or early afternoon across the USA - see timezone converter). Online, as usual, in our own private 'virtual meeting room'. (So long as you have a Windows computer with ...
And look - here's a new, dedicated I Ching political blog, no less: Mme. Zaratamara consults the I Ching (I really must stop browsing and playing with my new toy, and get some proper work done!) Mme Zaratamara - who is left-leaning - asked the oracle how the US could ...
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 ( 🙂 ) ...
As you see - the new blog version of 'Answers' is underway! and for once, I've actually got something done sooner than I expected. Well, I'm impressed with myself, anyway 😉 I've put up a smattering of posts already. Please do add comments wherever you have any: your message should ...
I Ching Articles by Danny Van den Berghe. In the latest pdf file downloadable from here, I Ching Landscape, Danny not only describes the contours of the King Wen sequence in terms of the trigrams, but also maps this onto a Chinese landscape: specific rivers, lakes, and the Taishan mountain ...
You may know Joan Bunning as the author of a very generous free tarot course. This page is her appeal for sponsorship: she's running her first marathon to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, as her husband has just recently been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma ...
Link to thread: The exact same response twice in a row The response was Hexagram 14, line 6. Excellent interpretations, extraordinary readings, high-class insanity ...
Every once in a while there's a Yijing line that brings a quotation to mind, or a quotation that brings a line to mind, and suddenly comprehension bursts in. It just found its way in for me, to a quartet of lines. Hexagram 56, line 1: 'The wanderer: fragments and ...