There are two lines in Hexagram 27, Nourishment, that refer to ‘rejecting the standard’: ‘Unbalanced nourishment.Rejecting the standard, looking to the hill-top for nourishment.Setting out to bring order – pitfall.’ Hexagram 27, line 2 ‘Rejecting the standard,Dwelling here with constancy: good fortune.Cannot cross the great river.’ Hexagram 27, line 5 So what are ‘standards’, and… Continue Reading
In this episode, Katie – a psychotherapist in training – asks, “What do I most need to know right now?” Behind this question lies a worry that she ought to be doing more, or achieving faster or maybe starting a side business: she was wondering, she said, whether she ought to be active or passive.… Continue Reading
In this podcast episode, Elisabeth asks Yi, ‘What approach or attitude should I adopt to have the best chance of serving other people through my writing?’ Yi answers with Hexagram 61, Inner Truth, changing at lines 1, 4 and 6 to Hexagram 47, Confining – very apt hexagrams, as the writing project she’s asking about… Continue Reading
Measuring Hexagram 60 is called Measuring, or Limits – not in the sense of imposing restrictions, but of knowing where the edges are, and discovering or negotiating what’s workable. The original concept is the knots and segments of bamboo, and hence all ways of dividing up something big into smaller segments – the chapters of… Continue Reading
In this episode, I share a couple of readings from my journal: ‘What about leaving this volunteering role?’ 32.3 to 40 ‘What do I do when I’m there?’ 61.4.6 to 58 And I talk about conversation with Yi, the interplay of text and structure, catching up with the reading years later, and the experience of… Continue Reading
Some of the Yi’s most interesting phrases come in threes. The advice not to chase what’s lost, for instance, or ‘not robbers, marital allies’. This is another of those: ‘the moon is almost full’. ‘Already rained, already come to rest.Honour the power it carries.The wife’s constancy brings danger,The moon is almost full.Noble one sets out… Continue Reading
In my last post, I mentioned how ten pairs of tortoises hexagrams lead us from Hexagram 41 to 61, where the crane calls back across the space between hexagrams. This line is a not-so-hidden gem, beautiful in its own right: ‘Calling crane in the shadows,Her young respond in harmony.I have a good wine vessel,I will… Continue Reading
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