There’s a well-established tradition that these trigrams portray fast-moving fire burning through mountain vegetation.Kong Yingda (574-648AD) wrote, ‘When fire is on top of the mountain, it races through the grass and shrubbery, a condition that does not leave it in one place for long. Thus this provides the image for… Read more »Fire on the mountain: Hexagram 56
Make hay while the sun shines Hexagram 35 is one of the sunniest in the Yijing: ‘Advancing, Prince Kang used a gift of horses to breed a multitude.In the course of a day, he mated them three times.’ Look, it says, you are recognised, you have wonderful gifts, and now… Read more »35 as relating hexagram
A Change Circle member asked for examples and impressions of Hexagram 56, Travelling, as relating hexagram. After I’d trawled through my journal for examples for her, I thought I’d like to keep digging, so here’s the result… I’d expect the relating hexagram to describe subjective more than objective reality, and… Read more »Travelling as relating hexagram
How lucky we are that scholars have dug out some of the ancient stories ‘behind’ the Yijing – stories its authors would have known naturally, but that can require some real ingenuity to ferret out nowadays. Hexagrams 55 and 56, Abundance and the Traveller Hexagram 55 is Abundance, and Abundance,… Read more »Reflecting stories
In my last post, I mentioned all the meaning packed into a tiny space in Hexagram 56, line 6. The nest is burned, line 6 changes, and you can see the bird flying away, into Hexagram 62. Because the Yijing’s lines move, it creates this kind of magic all the… Read more »Hexagrams in conversation
As I was saying in my last post, Hexagram 61, Inner Truth has a hatchling in its name, and a crane with her young in it second line. Its paired hexagram is Hexagram 62, Small Exceeding – is the pair and complement of – and this has its own calling… Read more »More birds
Fire on the mountain The trigrams of Hexagram 56 show inner mountain and outer fire. The picture, for me, suggests the nomads’ campfire. It has limited fuel and a limited duration, and the travellers will need to resolve any disputes before the ashes are cool, so they can move on… Read more »Hexagram 56 in trigrams
