...life can be translucent
Menu

Tag Archives: 48

The well in the valley

The well in the valley

Hexagram 48 line 6 says, ‘The well gathers, Don’t cover it. There is truth and confidence, Good fortune from the source.’ Bradford Hatcher, who has dug more wells than your average Yijing scholar, suggests that this is an artesian well, one where the water rises spontaneously. That certainly fits with my experience of the line,… Continue Reading

When Yi says ‘me’

When Yi says ‘me’

By and large, we know what sort of thing we expect Yi to say (though not, heaven knows, what it will say): ‘Here’s what you’re doing’ or ‘here’s what would happen’ or ‘here’s how to cope with that’ – something along those lines, describing or advising. Only every now and then – just eleven times, in… Continue Reading

What’s wrong with carting corpses, anyway?

What’s wrong with carting corpses, anyway?
This entry is part 5 of 9 in the series Two-line relationships

Simple Two lines in Hexagram 7, the Army, talk about carting corpses: line 3: ‘Perhaps the army carts corpses.Pitfall.’ and line 5: ‘The fields have gameFruitful to speak of capture:No mistake.When the elder son leads the army,And younger son carts corpses:Constancy, pitfall.’ The core meaning is surely intuitively obvious: an army with cartloads of corpses… Continue Reading

A shared dao of 21 and 48

Complementary hexagrams are paradoxical things. On the one hand, there is no hexagram more different from 21, Biting Through than 48, the Well: Every line is changed, so they have nothing in common. If it’s time to bite through, then it is exactly not time for well-maintenance. And on the other hand, this means that complementary… Continue Reading

Rethinking the Well

Lars Bo Christensen has brought out a very interesting new translation of the Zhouyi: Book of Changes – the original core of  the I Ching. I should post a full review one of these days (short version: yes, definitely buy it), but for now I just wanted to share something that’s made me think again about… Continue Reading

Casting the vessel… of state?

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Casting the Vessel

I’ve written very excited posts before about the pattern of complementary hexagrams in the Sequence of the Yijing. Quick recap: to find a hexagram’s complement, you change all 6 of its lines. Thus the complement of hexagram 1 is hexagram 2 –         and the complement of Hexagram 3, Sprouting is Hexagram 50, the Vessel:… Continue Reading

Casting the Vessel, so… (part 2)

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Casting the Vessel

I’ve been looking at the patterns that take shape within the ‘container’ formed by hexagrams 3 and 50, and wondering what they might mean. Here’s a bit more wondering. It looks as though hexagrams 3 and 50, living energies and vessel, form a mould, within which an individual life (or culture, or way of living)… Continue Reading

Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom

Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).