Comments on whole hexagrams, individual lines and so 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,… Read more »Stirring the lake
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, perhaps… Read more »Pounding the drum
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… Read more »Not Knowing etymology
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… Read more »Lasting
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… Read more »Truth, confidence and captives
(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… Read more »No mistake
(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… Read more »White thatchgrass
