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, or writing, or sericulture, not… Continue Reading
Crossing the line: guo Hexagram 28 shares its core concept with 62: Exceeding, guo, great or small. I wrote about this a while ago: Hexagrams 28 and 62 are both about guo: ‘passing, going by, exceeding’. The central idea is crossing a line – whether that’s a standard of morality or of customs, or a border… Continue Reading
A couple of months ago I wrote about ‘Essentials for Yijing readings‘ and included that old favourite hobby horse of mine: the commentary is not the answer, along with some examples of commentary – Wilhelm’s, Karcher’s and mine – that was decidedly not what the oracle said. All three examples I came up with were from lines where Yi’s original words… Continue Reading
… what does it mean for readings? That’s what an aggravatingly clear-sighted friend asked when I started enthusing at her about the beautiful ‘casting’ structure between hexagrams 3 and 50. And I suppose it’s not an unreasonable question… 😉 Maybe one day it’ll mean I routinely consider the matching hexagram from the other side of… Continue Reading
Warning: this post is pure, unadulterated gleeful Yeekery. I’ve been reading about how the ancient Chinese bronze vessels were made. Here’s a fascinating pdf on the subject (right click and choose ‘save as’ to download), with images of the finished vessels and also the moulds used in the casting, and diagrams showing the whole process.… Continue Reading
Half a thought that came to me when meditating (along with ‘I wonder how long I’ve been sitting for?’ and ‘must buy broccoli’ and all the rest, which are not so much blog post material…) I’ve embarked on Clare Josa’s excellent 28 day meditation challenge. The guided meditation she recorded for the first week began… Continue Reading
OK, here’s the off-the-wall idea for the day. What if you could add two hexagrams together? Not changing lines to move from one hexagram to another, but ‘adding’ them, on the basis that yin + yin = yin, but yang + yin = yang, because you imagine the yang line ‘filling’ the empty yin space.… Continue Reading
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