Hexagram 30, Clarity, has a lot to say about understanding transience. The fourth line is especially emphatic: ‘Sudden, Comes, Burns, Dies, Thrown out.’ Here is something that flares up brightly, but dies away for lack of fuel. Wilhelm sees someone who ‘rises quickly to prominence but produces no lasting effects.’… Read more »A note on hexagram 30, line 4
I’ve been revisiting the idea of the ‘non-people’ in hexagram 12. The most helpful way to understand them, most of the time, is as people we regard, for whatever reason, as not quite ‘like us’ enough to be real. Most of the time, the problem is with the labelling and… Read more »Hexagram 12 – negative souls?
I think I get the most sheer, uncomplicated delight from working with people who have time and space to explore their lives with Yi: mulling over decisions, inviting responses that explode preconceived ideas, asking the huge questions about purpose and meaning that can stay with you for a lifetime. These… Read more »How to work with Yi in times of crisis
I just wandered over to Luis’ Yi blog, where I read that… “Many people, with a only few years of reading and using the Yi, feel otherwise compelled to, and capable of, holding debates about it with those that have spent most of their life dedicated to its study. Even… Read more »How much study does it take?
Following on from a post on hexagram 53, line 1… ‘Wild geese gradually advance to the shore. The small child, danger, There are words, No mistake.’ The obvious question about this line – and I always like to ask the most obvious question – is ‘Why is the small child… Read more »Wild geese and small child
Over on his ‘I Ching insights’ blog, Eric Bryant’s noticed a pattern in his readings. Yi gave him the exact same reading – including the same line changing – for two ‘unrelated’ subjects, business and a relationship. As he points out, you only get to see this kind of thing… Read more »That hexagram again
Brad Hatcher points out that 14 out of 64 hexagrams’ first lines mention feet. I wonder whether there isn’t a fifteenth implied at 49.1: ‘For binding use yellow cowhide’ What might you bind with yellow cowhide? It could be a tethered animal, of course, as Rutt suggests. But looking at… Read more »To change, first tie on your boots
