How does one query the i Ching when one wishes to choose between two possible courses of action? Specifically, I am trying to decide whether to reconcile with my X, or to pursue this new Woman I have met. I can provide more details if necessary.

You could break it down to two questions, asking for an image of a relationship with each one, what each relationship would look like. That should help your decision which would be better to pursue, if either.

The oracle bone inscriptions often recorded pairs of readings in this way, often repeated multiple times (as in hexagrams 41 and 42, ten pairs of tortoise-shell divinations). Unlike how most people interpret hexagram 4. Perfectly o.k. to ask, “What can I expect from reconciling?” “What can I expect from pursuing the new relationship?” And it may not be a “yes/no”, “either/or” proposition; each may have its good and bad aspects. (Or each may be a disaster!)

—Russell