Following on from a previous post… Hexagram 20, Seeing Hexagram 20 has xun, wind and wood, over earth; its Oracle text suggests earth’s open, available quality: ‘Seeing. Washing hands, and not making the offering.There is truth and confidence like a presence.’ Earth will not act, but allows: the ritual provides… Read more »Earth inside (part 2)
Earth inside The easiest way to get to grips with the first two hexagrams, for me, is always to think how much they’re not each other. Qian, the creative force of heaven: nothing but solid lines, like the paths of sun, moon and stars across the sky. It moves without… Read more »Earth inside (part 1)
I’ve been working on a post on the trigram kun, earth, as inner trigram. That one will come soon – this is just something I wondered about along the way. I started going through the sequence of hexagrams, looking at the Image texts for the ones with earth inside… ‘Above… Read more »Ancient kings and their trigrams
Tradition tells us that Hexagram 63, Already Crossing, has its trigrams in the right places: water is above fire, like the pan on the stove; things are cooking; everything is in good working order. And then by contrast, Hexagram 64, Not Yet Crossing, with the same two trigrams in reverse… Read more »Fire on the river: Hexagram 64
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
The trigram picture of Hexagram 50, the Vessel, is a dynamic one: wood in the fire, burning. The wood is becoming fire; the food in the vessel is cooking for the ritual meal. ‘The vessel.From the source, good fortune.Creating success.’ Hexagram 50, the Oracle This is an exceptionally fortunate beginning,… Read more »Fire above wood: Hexagram 50
In my last post, I talked about how the Daxiang paints pictures of individual hexagrams, as a whole. In this one, I’d like to try a change of perspective, zooming in and zooming out, to see what comes into focus. Commentary on the lines The Image builds on and humanises… Read more »The genius of the Daxiang (part 2)
