This is a topic that came up in the I Ching Community with reference to weekly and annual readings – how people can be frightened by them, maybe scared into paralysis by a sinister-looking line – and it got me thinking about the scariness of readings in general. What is… Read more »Scary readings
I call the hexagrams that are naturally related to the cast hexagram, regardless of its changing lines, ‘hexagrams of context’. They make an extended family of contrasts and sources. (Those simple old human ways of understanding something – seeing what it isn’t, and telling its stories – work just as… Read more »Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward (step 3: some hexagrams of context)
The trigrams of Hexagram 46 seem to embody its nature particularly clearly. Earth contains wood – a straightforward picture of a germinating seed. The Image says: ‘Centre of the earth gives birth to wood. Pushing upward. A noble one with patient character, Builds up small things to attain… Read more »Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward (step 2 – trigrams)
Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward, has to do with step-by-step progress onward and upward, and the effort of the climb. It also has to do with offerings: Harmen, in his fascinating article on the hexagram, says, “Sheng was the name of a certain sacrifice, and because of the close resemblance between the… Read more »46: Pushing Upward (step 1)
Or annual readings, or readings for the season or even just for the day… all the readings where the question is just, ‘What do I need to be aware of for this period of time?’or maybe just,‘Advice?’ You might have some ongoing issues in mind – we usually have, after… Read more »What are weekly readings good for?
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… Read more »Casting the Vessel, so… (part 2)
… 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… Read more »Casting the Vessel – so…?
