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 tortoise shells.
Nothing is capable of going against this.
Ever-flowing constancy, good fortune.
The king uses this to make offerings to the supreme being: good fortune.'

Hexagram 42, line 2

That's Yi repeating itself, word for word, in the paired lines 41.2 and 42.5.

They're 'paired lines' because 41 and 42 are a pair of hexagrams: the same pattern of lines, but inverted:

41.2 and 42.5 are the same line in that pattern, just seen from the opposite perspective:

Because they're the same line, they have the same text; because of the contrast between them - between Decrease, offering, giving things up for the sake of something higher, and Increase, blessing, a time of plenty - there are subtle differences. Specifically, they use words from the beginning and end of the yuan heng li zhen formula that opens the whole book: yuan for Hexagram 41, good fortune at its source; zhen for 42, constancy's good fortune. As is often true, the first hexagram of the pair shows potential that is realised in the second, where the king can take advantage of this supremely auspicious moment.

Paired text in paired lines is an obvious sign of how carefully the Yijing is crafted. But it's the exception, not the rule - well, it would be a boring oracle if all its paired lines quoted one another. But why emphasise the pairing for these two lines in particular?

I believe this is a playful invitation for us to remember what else is used in divination and comes in pairs: tortoise shells - carapace goes with plastron, and also, plastromancy typically involved pairs of readings on the same issue. ('If we attack the hostile tribe, we will win.' 'If we attack them, we will maybe not win.')

(Aside - and another gem - Bradford Hatcher pointed out that tortoises are mentioned in three places in the Yi: in these two lines, and in Hexagram 27, line 1. Each of these hexagrams has a hard 'shell' of yang lines and a soft, yin interior.)

There are ten pairs of tortoise shells here. Generally speaking, numbers in the Yijing are more qualitative than quantitative: three days are a short time; ten years are a long time. Ten pairs of tortoise shells are a Very Emphatic Oracle: 'nothing is capable of going against it.'

However, with the Yi, I always wonder if there's more I haven't seen. When I counted ten pairs of tortoises hexagrams forward from Hexagram 41, I found myself at Hexagram 61, Inner Truth. And both 41.5 and 42.2 change to 61.

Hexagram 61 is about fu: trust, truth, the quality of presence and spiritual connection that makes this the perfect moment the king can use for offerings to the supreme being.

And let's look for a moment at the two lines that reach back ten pairs through the Sequence of Hexagrams to Decrease and Increase:

'Calling crane in the shadows,
Her young respond in harmony.
I have a good wine vessel,
I will share with you, pouring it all out.'

Hexagram 61, line 2

and

'There is truth and confidence as a bond.
No mistake.'

Hexagram 61, line 5

There is the bond that reaches across the 20-hexagram gap, and there is the call of the crane, so well-hidden in the shadows, and wine poured out, from one vessel to another...

        

...an invitation extended to us, through the structure of the oracle, to respond and share.

I Ching Community discussion

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 in relationship.

When two trigrams are combined to make a hexagram, the result is more than just the sum of its parts. The trigrams connect with one another, interact, and paint a single picture. So to engage with the reading, you let your imagination play with the picture as a whole.

For instance, fire under the earth will feel quite different from fire under heaven. Perhaps fire under the earth is a charcoal burner's fire, earthed up and contained, in contrast to a campfire under the open sky. Or it might be sunset and darkness, with the sun 'inside' the earth, versus the constellations that appear suspended from the sky at night.

The trigram picture is often quite different from the hexagram's other imagery. Hexagram 28 is like a roof beam starting to bend, and it's also like the waters rising to swamp a tree. Hexagram 53 is like the flight of the geese, and like a river winding slowly towards the sea, and like a tree growing on a mountain. Each picture speaks to you in its own right, adding a new layer to your experience of the reading.

But sometimes, the trigram picture matches the hexagram, and everything fits together beautifully. For instance...

Hexagram 37, People in the Home, fire below wood:

- the hearth-fire under the roof.

Hexagram 50, the Vessel: wood in the fire -

- a picture of the fire to heat the vessel, and of the wood's moment of transmutation into fire. (This one's verging on 'energy diagram' territory, another way trigrams interact in hexagrams.)

Hexagram 48, the Well, wood in the water:

Peering down through the water, you can see the wooden well-frame under the surface.

Hexagram 20, Seeing, wood over earth:

Observation towers, built especially to watch the heavens for signs, were constructed of wood on top of a high mound of tamped earth.

(Just imagine, if you only looked at a list of trigram properties for xun, wind/wood, how much you'd miss!)

I Ching Community discussion

(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 - ways that we can easily miss, unless we look. With these posts, I hope to encourage curiosity about what else we might be missing.)

The oracle of Hexagram 4 reads,

'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.'

And we tend to take a lot of notice of the part about the speaker not seeking the young ignoramus, especially since it usually feels like we're being put very firmly in our place.

But this is about the rest of the oracle - actually just three words, heng li zhen, translated above as 'creating success - bearing fruit - constancy'. These words are part of the mantic formula that opens the whole book, yuan heng li zhen: from the source, creating success, constancy bears fruit. Behind those meanings lie older ones: a successful, well-received offering, and a fruitful divination.

Only a select few hexagrams give all four words, but it's always interesting to see how they vary the formula. Some simply insert the name of the hexagram in place of yuan - Hexagram 31, for instance

'Influence, creating success.
Constancy bears fruit.
Taking a woman, good fortune.'

Hexagrams 58 and 62 do the same - and actually, so does Hexagram 4:

'Not knowing, creating success.
Constancy bears fruit.'

Except that the flow from heng to li zhen, from the offering to the fruitful divination, gets interrupted by the young ignoramus and her repeat questioning.

In other words, this passage doesn't just describe a disruption of the divinatory process through importunate questioning: it enacts it.

This kind of thing, using language to enact what it describes, gets modern literary critics very excited. But never mind them. The point is that this interruption to the familiar yuan heng li zhen formula (given in its entirety in Hexagrams 1, 2 and 3) makes us feel the disruptive effect of constant questioning - and then reassurance that, even when we're young and ignorant, constancy still bears fruit.

I Ching Community discussion

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 of the oracle we're consulting.

What is the Yijing, anyway?

The Yijing is (not) a skip

For some, I think it's basically a skip. You can tell, because their readings are like dumpster diving. Look into the depths of the skip with something in mind - maybe you want to build some raised beds and paths in your garden. And then the magic happens: you see what you need! Some lumber, or some paving slabs, or some crates you could take apart and reuse. Perfect!

Obviously, you will ignore most of the skip's contents, as most of it won't be relevant to you. You won't climb into the skip to meditate on its contents; you won't spend time contemplating the broken TV or that very dodgy-looking sofa, trying to understand why they're there or how they're meant to fit into your gardening plans. That would be ridiculous. It's a skip - full of stuff that got chucked in at random - so the skill is to be able to see what you need. Learn that skill, and the skip-Yi becomes a really useful tool.

Yi for me is... harder to describe. Here are two stories to give you an idea.

It's an ecosystem

As a teenager on my way to visit my great uncle Bill, I saw a field covered in starlings, with house martins darting to and fro above them. I watched this for a while, with no idea what was going on. Happily, I could ask Bill, who explained that the cranefly larvae were emerging. The starlings feasted on them on the ground, and the martins snatched them out of the air.

The birds were gathering for a reason, whether I understood it or not. Everything is connected. Bill was a naturalist who had loved, watched and learned from the countryside around him all his life, and so he could see what was there.

It's a symphony

Elgar was a great symphonist - not just for his melodies, harmonies and musical architecture, but especially for his orchestration: a real musician's musician, who understood orchestras and how they work from the inside. So his music is exquisitely well orchestrated: everything is idiomatic; everything is clear.

And yet a bright young thing was able to point out to Elgar where he'd slipped up: he'd written an entry for a woodwind player that was going to be completely inaudible - utterly drowned out by the rest of the orchestra.

Elgar simply pointed to what came next: a big solo for that same player. He'd written the inaudible entry to give them a chance to warm up.

Every note of the symphony is there for a reason, because the composer knew what he was doing. If each musician pays careful attention, gives all their skill to playing everything he wrote, the audience will hear something beautiful.

For example...?

Of course, it's no use just to make blanket assertions about what the Yijing is. We need some examples - and I'll be posting about some of my favourites over the next few weeks.

I Ching Community discussion

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...

And it turns out that Yi has three 'lost and found' lines: 38.1, 51.2 and 63.2.

‘Regrets vanish.
Lost horse: don't chase it, it returns of itself.
See hateful people, no mistake.’

Hexagram 38, Opposing, line 1

'Shock comes, danger.
A hundred thousand coins lost.
Climb the nine hills, don't give chase.
On the seventh day, gain.'

Hexagram 51, Shock, line 2

'A wife loses her carriage screen.
Don't chase it.
On the seventh day, gain.'

Hexagram 63, Aready Across, line 2

All three lines say that something is lost, but 勿逐 - do not give chase. 51.2 and 63.2 also both say that there will be gain on the seventh day - perhaps that's when we get our coins or carriage-screen back, or some other compensation. In any case, here are three very similar lines, all with a hint of the proverbial about them.

38, line 1

‘Regrets vanish.
Lost horse: don't pursue it, it returns of itself.
See hateful people, no mistake.’

This is our first experience of Opposing because the horse (power, agency, communication...) runs away, from safely inside our home space to outside, where it's lost. I was secure inside my home with my people (Hexagram 37), but now I have to think about what's outside. (And the people there are foreign, too - hateful people, or rather people I see as hateful.)

Only... the line begins with regrets vanish, and the logic is clear: regrets vanish, like a horse coming back, like finding there is no mistake despite seeing 'hatefulness'. A lost horse that's back in the stable is not a lost horse: like regrets, the loss has vanished. (This is different from the next two lines, where you'll have to wait seven days for gain.)

This line points you to Hexagram 64, Not Yet Across - a reminder of the need for thoughtfulness, not leaping blindly into action. And also, just because this change travels all the way to the end of the book, it's a reminder of the need for patience and a longer-term perspective, without premature judgement. What you can see now looks all wrong, but time will tell. (In readings, this is often a good moment to remember the story of the old man who lost his horse.)

51, line 2

'Shock comes, danger.
A hundred thousand coins lost
Climb the nine hills,
Don't give chase.
On the seventh day, gain.'

Another disquieting, disconcerting loss. In times of Shock, we are intent on not losing things - the sacred ladle (in the oracle text) or our intention (line 5). But when we lose coins, perhaps the shock has dislodged our sense of security and resourcefulness.

This line specifically shows the danger of shock. I think that's less the loss of the coins, and more the impulse to chase precipitately after them and get distracted from the important things. (Run back into danger to save your family, yes, but not your wallet.) The reaction would be worse than the problem.

This line joins with Hexagram 54, the Marrying Maiden: literally, a marrying 'not-yet woman', not ready for the situation where she finds herself, and certainly in no position to fix anything.

Instead of chasing after your loss, you need to 'climb the nine hills'. Again, this is pointing to the need for long-term thinking and planning - long enough, maybe, to forge a marital alliance (51.6). But where are those nine hills?

The nine hills

I haven't found any author who identifies those 'nine hills'. Rutt says this is probably a general way of saying 'all the hills', just as Sima Qian said of Yu the Great that he "opened the nine lands, connected the nine roads, embanked the nine lakes, and surveyed the nine mountains."

Wilhelm says of 51.2, 'Flight to the hills is suggested by the lower nuclear trigram Ken, mountain.' Here it is:

That's good, but it's only one hill. Where are the other eight? Well...

As you can see, you must climb exactly nine gen trigrams to travel from 51.2 to the next 'lost and found' line, 63.2, and so to the end of the book.

So... don’t give chase; instead, set out on this long journey and climb all the way to 63.2, to regain a missing... carriage-screen?

63, line 2

'A wife loses her carriage screen.
Don't chase it.
On the seventh day, gain.'

It's not actually completely clear what the wife loses here - some translators think it's some kind of hair ornament. But when this word appears in the Book of Songs, it's mostly a carriage screen, one that might be made of bamboo or feathers. I can imagine something like that floating away downstream as we drive our carriage through a deep ford; it's harder to imagine how that could happen to a hairgrip. (As ever, it helps to look at the context!)

The wife crossing the river might well be on her way to her new home as a bride. Now that part of her carriage has gone downstream, just when everything was supposed to be in perfect order, she might feel quite exposed. She will need to embody the qualities of this line's zhi gua, Hexagram 5, and have faith.

Seven days?

Naturally, when I see a reference to gain 'in seven days', I start looking for things to count. (Especially since a week was ten days long, so there must be some special reason for an interval of seven.)

And... it turns out there are seven hexagram pairs from 51/52 to 63/64. (And while 38 doesn't mention seven of anything, from 37/38 to 49/50 is also seven pairs.)

I haven’t wholly convinced myself that this is a real reference. When Hexagram 24 says the return comes in seven days, I count seven hexagrams to reach 30 (full sun) or 31 (starting over with the Lower Canon), not seven pairs. When I count ten pairs forward from 41.5/42.2 to reach their zhi gua, 61, that's because the text mentions ten pairs of objects used in divination. But I don't have any very good reason to count in pairs here, except that it comes out nicely.

(The mid-point - seven individual hexagrams away from each line - is 57. That's actually more 'found and lost' than 'lost and found': the money and axe gained at 56.4 are lost at 57.6.)

Still... to wander for a moment into the realms of utterly wild speculation, a lost carriage screen on the way to the marital home might prefigure a lost hymen, and according to LiSe the name of Hexagram 51 also means conception and quickening. (A good reason to Wait.) Also, starting at Hexagram 51, people climb up the nine hills towards 63, while anything lost when crossing a river will be swept away downstream.

So it seems to me that there could be a conversation going on between these two lines. I'll be keeping an eye open for it in readings, anyway.

I Ching Community discussion

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 the image and appreciate how it feels. Then you recognise what there is in your current situation that feels like this, and you understand what it means - in that particular reading.

So, to find out what crossing the great river means... visit a river. Peer into the water; listen to it. Step in, if you can, and feel the weight of the current dragging at your legs. Feel how it threatens to tug you off-balance with each step.

Look across the river: you are going that way. The river isn't. Imagine how you could get all the way across.

And then, because drowning isn't conducive to good interpretation, I suggest you retreat back to the bank. Consider how much easier and safer it would be to amble peacefully along the bank, parallel to that powerful current, or even to hop in a boat, ship your oars and drift downstream. What would it take to get you to make the crossing?

And what, in the situation you're asking about, feels like that?

What else do we know?

As I was saying in that earlier post, whatever knowledge we can gather on the topic from back when the book was first written is going to help. It still isn't going to tell us what it means, but it'll help us to imagine how it feels. And in particular, it'll help to liberate us from the little conceptual boxes of modern life, where crossing rivers mostly happens by driving over a bridge, frequently in a traffic jam. (47.4...?)

Knowledge is imagination food. Let's tuck in

Harmen's video

Harmen Mesker has laid out an hour-long banquet of river-crossing, here. Here's a quick summary...

The old form of the character she, 涉, 'crossing', clearly shows two footsteps, one on either side of a river. It's included in a lot of oracle bone inscriptions, asking literally about the king's travels. Would he cross the river and return safely? And also - often - whether he should cross and hunt. In fact, there are phrases such as '涉 buffalo' where 涉 by itself means 'cross the river to catch...' - animals, or human captives.

Harmen emphasises that 'fruitful to cross the great river' means you are expecting reliable results from the crossing. You know you'll be bringing home the buffalo.

Since there will be buffalo to bring home, and this is about crossing a big river, and not least because in 11.2 there's a different verb traditionally read as specifically crossing a river without a boat, Harmen is very emphatic that 'crossing the great river' means crossing with a boat, and definitely not wading.

Crossing the river in the Book of Songs (with or without a boat)

Well, since in the Language of Change glossary I specifically translated this as 'wading the great river', this is quite awkward. Where had I got this idea of 'wading' from?

Partly from the character - those two footsteps on either side of the river. (The word for 'crossing' in 11.2 actually looks more like crossing with a horse.) And also from the Book of Songs, where a lot of river-crossing happens - but not for hunting trips. Instead, we have young men and women crossing the river to reach their beloved. Here's Song 34, using she for wading a ford:

He: 'The gourd has bitter leaves;
The ford is deep to wade.'
She: 'If the ford is deep, there are stepping stones;
If it is shallow, you can tuck up your skirts.'

The Book of Songs, trans. Arthur Waley

There are romantic river-crossings in Songs 54, 58 and 87, too, all using she 涉. In 87, someone is to hold up their lower garments and she. (Legge thinks the woman is wading across herself; Waley thinks she's telling the man to!)
And in Song 232, there are 'swine, with their legs white, all wading through streams' - probably not using a boat.

But then again, when in Song 250 Duke Liu crosses (涉) the river Wei, Waley says he 'made a ford' while Legge says he 'used boats'. And if we carry on reading through Song 34, it ends with the forlorn girl still waiting for the man to get his feet wet, in an early Chinese version of 'He's just not that into you':

'The boatman beckons and beckons,
Others cross, not I;
Others cross, not I.
I am waiting for my friend.'

You can guess which verb is used for crossing with the boatman.

So, Harmen, I think we're both wrong: you can cross the great river by boat or on foot. Yi doesn't name the river or the reason: those depend on the reading. But either way, there's no bridge; it's not a crossing to be undertaken lightly. I imagine these lovers crossing in a spirit of daring determination, taking the risk because of the strength of their desire.

A historical river crossing

The Zhou people - whose oracle this is - conquered the Shang and founded a new ruling dynasty. And the (literally) crucial moment in their march on the Shang was a river-crossing, at the Fords of Meng.

In 1048BC, a vast army of the Zhou and their allies gathered on the bank - only to be halted by appalling omens, so that Wu gave the order to turn back. Two years later, with the stars and oracles supporting them at last, they made the crossing and marched on to gather in the Wilds of Mu, where they faced and defeated the Shang. (SJ Marshall sees a reference to this gathering in the wilds in Hexagram 13 - which also says it's fruitful to cross the great river.)

So now we have a whole three-course meal of imagination food. You cross the river on a royal hunting expedition, or you brave the waters to meet your beloved, or you march your armies across in obedience to Heaven's Mandate.

What about the context?

The Yi is not, pace Redmond, just a 'collection of scraps'; it's an organic structure of breathtaking complexity and wholeness. Which means that if we want to understand a phrase like 'crossing the great river' in a reading, we'd better look at how it's being used in that particular hexagram.

Liz mentioned that she's especially interested in Hexagram 42:

'Increasing, fruitful to have a direction to go.
Fruitful to cross the great river.'

Hexagram 42, the Oracle

Here are two things that will bear fruit: having a direction (or a 'far place' to go to), and crossing a great river. That's an interesting combination, because the 'direction' character breaks down, according to Richard Sears, into 'a man with a pole fording a river'. (LiSe translates as 'probing'.) Fruitful to set off on your travels, take a sounding rod to test the depth of the ford, and cross the great river.

Hexagram 42 would be a good time to undertake such a journey because now you are blessed with a good harvest, a superabundance of resources. The Image authors, thinking along similar lines, saw this as a time to make whatever changes are needed:

'Wind and thunder. Increasing.
A noble one sees improvement, and so she changes.
When there is excess, she corrects it.'

Hexagram 42, Image

So in this spirit - knowing you have the resources, energy and all round good luck you need - it's a good moment to cross the great river. There's probably a whole herd of buffalo just waiting for you on the opposite bank.

But the phrase is going to have a slightly different feel to it every time you see it. For instance...

‘People in harmony in the wilds: creating success.
Fruitful to cross the great river.
A noble one’s constancy bears fruit.’

Hexagram 13, the Oracle

Those people gathering in the wilds, and the martial character of lines 3, 4 and 5 (and this whole section of the Sequence of Hexagrams) might remind you of the Zhou and their river crossing. Here, crossing the river is placed alongside the noble one's constancy, as the two things that bear fruit in such times. Now there are people with whom you can find harmony, and you're in harmony with heaven so that your constancy will pay off (this isn't Hexagram 12 any more!), go ahead and cross the river to join them.

Or Hexagram 5, Waiting:

'Waiting, with truth and confidence.
Shining out, creating success: constancy brings good fortune.
Fruitful to cross the great river.'

Hexagram 5, the Oracle

This is the first mention of crossing the great river in the Yi - our introduction to the idea - and perhaps the most important context is how much it isn't like its paired hexagram, 6, Arguing:

'Arguing.
There is truth and confidence, blocked.
Vigilant and centred, good fortune. Ending, pitfall.
Fruitful to see great people,
Fruitless to cross the great river.'

Hexagram 6, the Oracle

No use crossing rivers in a time of Arguing, as anyone who's taken a big decision in a spirit of 'I'll show them!' might agree. But it's worthwhile to cross when this is a sign of trust: expecting this to work out, and confidently awaiting your reward on the opposite bank.

So what does it mean?

It means what it feels like - what it reminds you of - what you recognise.

I Ching Community discussion