Example quick I Ching readings
Background
The readings I do for customers, and the readings I teach people to do for themselves in the I Ching course, are in-depth ones. We delve into related hexagrams, tour round related lines, and fill in the big picture. But there's also a place for quicker readings, providing an overview and points of comparison. (The eighth assignment of the course is devoted to exactly that.) This reading is one of those: a survey of options, to help someone make a decision. For this kind of quick overview, I concentrate on moving line texts and hexagram names - the pivotal points of the reading, and its foundations.
The querent - who prefers to stay anonymous - is thinking of moving house; the question is where to move to.
- Option 1 would take him close to a friend who is somewhat controlling and really doesn't 'get' his interest in esoteric and spiritual matters. Yi's comment was Hexagram 30, Clarity, changing to Hexagram 62, Small Overstepping.
- Option 2 would take him close to a friend who is very much alive and awake, profoundly spiritual, but with a tendency to neuroticism. Yi said Hexagram 58, Open Communication, changing to Hexagram 24, Returning.
- Option 3 would take him to something of a 'spiritual hub' - but it's very remote and the climate's hostile to computers, so he's concerned he'd be isolated and bored there. For this one, Yi gave 45, Gathering, with no changing lines.
- And the final option is to stay where he is. It's a hostile neighbourhood, and he doesn't like it in the least. Yi said hexagram 35, Progress, changing to Hexagram 23, Stripping Away.
So which of these is the best option? (You might like to look these four answers up now, so that you can compare your impressions with mine.)
The first thing I notice is that Option 3 has no changing lines, hence no relating hexagram. There's a Gathering - a religious one - but he has no 'relation' to it. And in fact it turns out he's already dismissed the idea of going there; single hexagrams, in this kind of question, often do refer to a decision already made.
Option 2 is a more realistic prospect for living close to someone he could truly communicate with. Hexagram 58 is the joyful exchange of ideas, and maybe also refers to the celebratory nature of their shared faith (Krishna devotees). And underlying this, a sense of 'finding himself' and meeting someone on the path.
But looking at the three moving lines, there are potential problems here.
Basically good, in the spirit of 58...
'Sincere and confident communication, good fortune.
Regrets vanish.'
... but his friend's neurotic anxieties making themselves felt...
'Haggling opening, not yet at rest.
Putting limits on the affliction brings rejoicing.'
... and this presenting real personal risks:
'Trusting in stripping away,
There is danger.'
The querent's had his own mental health problems in the past. I can't tell for sure just from this reading whether this is about the corrosive effect of his friend's instability, but it seems likely.
Staying put? Progress, but with Stripping Away.
'Prospering like a bushy-tailed rodent,
Constancy means danger.'
This line describes how he feels about the neighbourhood pretty well. He can prosper and make progress here using rodent tactics, keeping out of the way of the local predators, not insisting on 'sticking to his guns', but he is probably always going to be nervous.
Option 1, moving near the not-so-sympathetic friend...
He 'relates' to this as 62, making a Small Transition, continuing the tricky work of being a spiritual idealist out in the 'real world'. And what he gets here is Clarity on that small transition, and 'holding together' and support through it. This might be the best option to look after himself materially, to 'raise cattle' (30, Judgement) to sustain his higher development.
What about the lines?
‘Treading, hence confused.
Honour it,
Not a mistake.’
... a continuation of the journey - muddled, as the first signs of something new often are, but only because there is something there worth knowing.
‘The king makes good use of marching out,
There is a triumph.
He executes the chief, the prisoners are not so loathsome.
Not a mistake.’
Obviously, there's more story behind these readings than I know. But it sounds to me as though taking himself and his beliefs out into this less-than-sympathetic environment would actually be a way to take charge, focus in clearly on the essential, and hopefully have a positive influence. He's not particularly keen on this option, but the lines repeat it's 'not a mistake'.
So I would say it boils down to a choice between making a life where he is, keeping his head down, or going more adventurously with option 1, gaining and bringing Clarity, always in small steps.