Changes, sunbeams and pots

[Trojina]

"The moon nearly at the full. The team horse goes astray. No blame." 61.4 to 10

For a book supposedly about the sun and moon, the character for moon is used fairly infrequently...

9.6: The moon is nearly full...
19: When the eighth moon comes...
54.5: The moon that is nearly full brings good fortune...
61.4: The moon nearly at the full...

Seems that the moon imagery is being used more in a poetic sense in these lines, rather than an astrological sense, but what do I know?

But its not a book about pots either, lol. I don't see why the moon need have an astrological significance here - just being the moon is enough - between them the sun and the moon pretty much govern what goes on on earth with or without astrology.

 

[bruce_g]

Oh my goodness! Not only are this wonderful to look at but you inspire me to do a collection of my own. I'm not a photographer, but I think I might start collecting images from magazines and cards etc. Where did the one for 14 come from? Are you any of these people? Is that Haylise in 25?

It's fun. I think you'd enjoy doing one. For me it gives a creative way to contemplate each hexagram. Um, LiSe is in 25, yes, and also the one on the left in 38. Carin is in the middle of that picture, and also the one walking in 56. The only (old) one of me (that I recall) is in 8, the one on the left. 14 is one of LiSe's, which I think is in an attic.

 

[lienshan]

The Richard Sear's "Yi" bronze insciption character b14545 looks like written on a "gui for the duke of Zhou".
The character is in the 7th column (3th from below) almost at the bottom on this page:

http://www.marymount.k12.ny.us/marynet/TeacherResources/bronzesproject/html/art.htm

There is a translation in english so it should be possible to read the exact meaning of the "Yi" character?

 

[lienshan]

The archaeologists have found 24 Xia signs shown on this site:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-11/11/content_280475.htm

one ------ two ----- three ------ speaking -------- wessel --- six
twelve -- five ------ water ----- hundred -------- divine ---- ten
four ----- stalk ---- twenty ---- sacrifice --------- seven --- eight
nine ---- singing -- thousand -- two thousand-- eleven -- flower

The above is my own translation of the signs. Have a look at the sign "sacrifice". The sign looks to me like the "pot sign" that LiSe think is the origin of the "Yi" sign of Yi Jing?

Jacques

 

[peacecat]

As a non scholar all this seems pretty haphazard to me - some say an image is of an eye some say a pot, some say sunbeam - whenever someone says what it is I just think well as far as I'm concerned it could be anything - and whatever meaning you go for you're bound to see all kinds of significance there. For preference give me sun/moon symbols anyday over pots - but to copy a well known phrase 'what do I know '

I'm no scholar either but according to Alfred Huang "the text is open to many interpretations" and the I Ching is "famously open-ended" in a large part due to the fact that the Chinese characters can have the same form but different meanings or different forms but the same sound and there is no punctuation. It makes sense to me that the characters representing the I Ching should be open to so many interpretations. It suits the title--Book of Changes.

It makes me wonder. If the meaning of I Ching is accepted as Book of Changes then the symbols sun, moon, pot, etc... could all refer to aspects of change which is a key ingredient in imagination. Karcher writes, "The term I emphasizes imagination, openness and fluidity. It suggests the ability to change direction quickly and the use of a variety of imaginative stances to mirror the variety of being. It further suggests that the imaginative ability is the true root of a sense of security and spiritual well-being."

Perhaps it should be called the Book of Imagination. But then we can still change without the use of our imagination but we cannot read, let alone divine, from the I Ching without a lot of imaginative thinking. Life is about change. The diviner's book is about change through imagination. How about Book of Imaginative Changes?

Kate :bows: