I’ve been learning to drive! Better very-late-indeed than never, perhaps…? And since the Yi – along with a wise driving instructor and generous husband – has been instrumental in making this possible, I thought I’d write about it here. Why so late? Well… I started lessons at 17 like everyone… Read more »Driving, lessons
This episode features a reading for the year ahead. Kalimah’s question: “Please comment on the year ahead. What I can expect? And also, how best to work with the energies within and around me?” Yi answered with Hexagram 23, Stripping Away, changing at lines 1, 4, 5 and 6 to… Read more »A reading for the year
At the very end of Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, in its final line, ‘results bring a change of heart’: ‘Enthusiasm in the dark.Results bring a change of heart,No mistake.’ And then at the very beginning of Hexagram 17, Following, its first line begins with an official’s change of heart: ‘An official… Read more »Changes of heart
I’m repeating myself here, but never mind – it bears repeating. The Yi is wonderfully made, with mind-boggling depth. One of the ways this manifests is in the relationships between changing lines and their zhi gua, the hexagram that follows from the change. For example, 49.3 changes to Hexagram 17,… Read more »Revolution without entanglement
Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of a ‘culture hero’: A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group (cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or discovery. Chinese mythology seems to be especially full of these: people who are recognised as heroic because they invented millet farming,… Read more »Hexagrams as culture heroes
Introducing the Image Sometimes we explain things to ourselves by comparing and contrasting – like the Zagua. Sometimes we tell stories, like the Xugua (Sequence of Hexagrams). And often, we paint mental pictures. The Yi is overflowing with pictures, of course – not least the ones created by its component… Read more »The genius of the Daxiang (part 1)
Introducing the Zagua The Yi became the Yijing, a Classic book, as it grew its Ten Wings: ten bodies of commentary and reflections on the oracle and its hexagrams. The Zagua, ‘Mixed hexagrams’, is the tenth and last of these: a short, simple, rhyming description of the hexagrams in pairs.… Read more »A patchwork of hexagrams
