Comments on whole hexagrams, individual lines and so on
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… Read more »Going deeper
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… Read more »Hexagram 34: Great Vigour
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… Read more »Knitting?
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… Read more »Gifts, life purpose and Yu the Great
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… Read more »Honouring guests
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… Read more »Thoughts on Hexagram 11
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… Read more »Trigram topography?
