The ‘Yi’ character appears twice more in the book, in 55.4 and 59.4. It turns out that these three occurrences are connected both thematically and structurally. In both 55.4 and 59.4, ‘Yi’ refers to specific people – the Yi barbarians: ‘Feng is screened off At midday, seeing the Dipper. Meeting your Yi lord, Good fortune.’… Continue Reading
Its name (and nature) Hexagram 55 is unusual in that its name contains two meanings – The character feng 豐 means abundant, bountiful, plentiful. The ancient character appears to be an elaborated, decorated version of the character for ‘drum’: see Richard Sears’ site – Feng, name of Hexagram 55 Zhu, drum the donations link where you can help keep… Continue Reading
Each year on my birthday, I ask Yi for guidance for the coming year. Then over the course of the year I revisit the reading, finding guidance and gleaning understanding as I go. At least, such is the theory. Last year’s reading, cast on 7th December 2015, was Hexagram 55, Abundance, changing at line 4… Continue Reading
The fourth kind of Yijing story I mentioned when I first called it a ‘Book of Stories’ was the huge narrative arcs of the Sequence – ‘you are here’ on the grand scale. Which is an easy bullet-point to write, but not so easy to expand on. Also, I’m no longer entirely sure that ‘narrative’ is… Continue Reading
I imagine anyone who’s lived with Yi for a while has also got used to the idea that the world around them gives them signs, and often these signs resonate strongly with readings. I had a ‘big’ Hexagram 10 reading a few years ago, and saw tigers everywhere. (Pictures of tigers, I mean. This is… Continue Reading
Why look for the stories behind the hexagrams? To start with something uncontentious: the people who wrote the Yi had wisdom and intelligence (as well as mind-boggling genius), and were well-informed, and had good reasons for their choices. One of the things they appear to have been well-informed about is their culture’s myth, legend and… Continue Reading
If you’ve been working with Yi for a while, you’re probably familiar with the idea of looking at the hexagram each individual moving line would change to on its own, to give you a better context to understand its meaning. You might have heard them referred to as zhi gua, or (by Stephen Karcher) as… Continue Reading
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