Hexagram 30, Clarity, has a lot to say about understanding transience. The fourth line is especially emphatic: ‘Sudden, Comes, Burns, Dies, Thrown out.’ Here is something that flares up brightly, but dies away for lack of fuel. Wilhelm sees someone who ‘rises quickly to prominence but produces no lasting effects.’… Read more »A note on hexagram 30, line 4
I’ve been revisiting the idea of the ‘non-people’ in hexagram 12. The most helpful way to understand them, most of the time, is as people we regard, for whatever reason, as not quite ‘like us’ enough to be real. Most of the time, the problem is with the labelling and… Read more »Hexagram 12 – negative souls?
Following on from a post on hexagram 53, line 1… ‘Wild geese gradually advance to the shore. The small child, danger, There are words, No mistake.’ The obvious question about this line – and I always like to ask the most obvious question – is ‘Why is the small child… Read more »Wild geese and small child
Brad Hatcher points out that 14 out of 64 hexagrams’ first lines mention feet. I wonder whether there isn’t a fifteenth implied at 49.1: ‘For binding use yellow cowhide’ What might you bind with yellow cowhide? It could be a tethered animal, of course, as Rutt suggests. But looking at… Read more »To change, first tie on your boots
In the Words of Change glossary (coming up within the next week or two) I’ve written this about constancy, zhen: “…We have a vision of the future – not what’s inevitably going to happen, but what it is right for us to bring into being. You can conceive of this… Read more »When is constancy a good idea?
There’s a lot going on in the first line of Hexagram 53: ‘Wild geese gradually advance to the shore. The small child, danger, There are words, No mistake.’ This is the first stage in the journey of the wild geese as they gradually draw close to their natural home. Now… Read more »The wild geese at the shore
Watching TV gives you square eyes, so I’ve been told. Living with Yi gives you that much stranger phenomenon, hexagram eyes. You see little subtle reflections of ideas from the Yijing everywhere. My reading for this year begins with Hexagram 5, so I’m especially attuned to anything that talks about… Read more »Still reading with hexagram eyes
