Clarity,
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Yes, absolutely, he's quite funny!I think you've summed up Harmen's approach quite well. I think its really interesting, BUT that it's probably just one tool among many that you could use to understand a reading. Sometimes it really seems to hit the mark, others less so. But it's worth looking at. Also, he's a great story teller with a funny, dry style that makes him fun to listen to. Haha. I think he likes getting a rise out of people, provoking them. He's positively proud of how many thumbs down he got for one of his YouTube shows. Maybe his saying you don't need to look at the text is part of that. I'd love to read his book if he ever gets around to translating it into English!
Absolutely. I've been experimenting more with trigram stuff. For quite a while now I'd been mostly very focused on the text... the trigrams just didn't speak to me the same way. But now I'm finding that's changing, and I'm enjoying trigram interpretation more. There's a certain flexibility there that allows one to go beyond the text, while, as you say, not neglecting the text either.I think you've summed up Harmen's trigram-only method very well - and it is remarkable how much he can 'get' just from trigrams.
However, you don't have to ignore the text in order to benefit from the trigrams. You will normally see people here looking at both together - two parts of a whole. (Along with other things like the shape of the whole hexagram, and all kinds of relationships between different hexagrams.)
I quite like looking at the imagery of the trigrams. I have taken Harmen's online workshop ‘The Power of the Hexagrams’ - a new session of this course is starting this week, and I've linked to it here.What do people think of Harmen Mesker's approach to readings, which focus heavily on trigrams?
How much value do you find in the shape of the hexagram/relationships between different hexes, etc.? Is that very important to you in your readings?
Yes - hexagram relationships, especially, are woven into how I understand hexagrams and lines.How much value do you find in the shape of the hexagram/relationships between different hexes, etc.? Is that very important to you in your readings?
Yaaaaaaa. None of the rules apply all the time to all of the hexagrams. Sometimes they help to explain a few of them, either to a greater or lesser extent. Even people who don't usually give a second thought to the idea of an appropriate place for broken and solid lines seem to think it works for 63 and 64. On the other hand, it's hard to ignore the shape created by the lines for 50. And the story of the tree pushing up through the earth is a delightful image for 46. And so on.Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but it embodies ideas that I've been considering, and rather than reinvent the wheel...
My impression is the meanings/images for each hexagram (the overall hexagram meaning and the individual line meanings) were arrived at using a handful of principles. However, the same principles weren't all used every time for each hexagram, and certainly not consistently. It wasn't a systematic, comprehensive, mechanistic approach, in other words. The sage(s) just drew on these principles as they suggested themselves in order to arrive at a range of usable meanings for the oracle.
What do I mean by handful of principles? Things like trigram meaning and relation, relation of type of line to its position (and/or in the context of overall hexagram meaning), the meaning of the hexagram it's paired with, hexagram shape, preponderance/scarcity of yin or yang lines. Have I missed anything? (From where I'm sitting, the jury's still out on nuclear hexagrams - although I know for a fact that considering nuclear hexagrams can be useful when consulting, I am much less convinced that meanings were assigned to hexagrams based on that. I am, however, completely happy to be shown how wrong I am on this one. )
What do I mean by the principles weren't used consistently for each hexagram? Well, for example, not only does 27 look like an open mouth (hexagram shape) but the action of the trigrams suggests the action of a rigid upper jaw and a moving lower jaw (trigram meaning). By contrast, I'd say that 24 derives its meaning, not from its shape, but primarily from the appearance of the single yang line at the bottom in the context of all the other lines being yin. Shape's unimportant here because the idea is more abstract - the cycle of time/season/energetics. Conclusion: the same principles weren't applied in assigning meaning to these hexagrams.
Whatcha think? The meanings aren't arrived at systematically, they were arrived at by a process of symbol association using a handful of principles. In other words, looking for patterns is fun and useful, even, but if you really want the richest experience when consulting the oracle, develop a rich repertoire of associations and meanings for each hexagram, each line, pretty much case by case.
Phew. Sorry about the length - I've been mulling this one for a while.
Well that bit of obviousness finally clicked with me, thank you! Mountain over thunder.not only does 27 look like an open mouth (hexagram shape) but the action of the trigrams suggests the action of a rigid upper jaw and a moving lower jaw (trigram meaning).
Probably not, depending what you mean by hexagram shape, which turns out to give rise not just to mental images but to character images: https://onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/index.php?threads/blog-post-hexagrams-as-pictures.34461/ .What do I mean by handful of principles? Things like trigram meaning and relation, relation of type of line to its position (and/or in the context of overall hexagram meaning), the meaning of the hexagram it's paired with, hexagram shape, preponderance/scarcity of yin or yang lines. Have I missed anything?
I must say, I don't get that. I find your approach to the Yi extremely inclusive. You seem to find something of value in almost all the major ideas about the Yi, and quite a few of the minor ones -- with the one exception that line position seems to leave you cold.I don't think line position stuff is relevant, though - it's a more recent invention/discovery (delete ad lib).
Philistine!I never found much in the sequence, for example,
Oh. Ah. Well, I like ancient cave paintings. Great fun speculating what might have been going in people's heads when they were doing them. All sorts of clever theories about it. It's fun asking questions about stuff to which you'll never know the answer.Dobro's question was about how people arrived at the meanings of hexagrams and lines originally, which is not the same as what might help us to understand them now. Whole other kettle of fish.
It is!It's fun asking questions about stuff to which you'll never know the answer.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).