Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this I Ching thing, and I decided to try casting Hexagram 6, “Conflict.” It’s all pretty new to me, but I’m trying to keep a record of my experiences, so here’s how it went down.
First, I grabbed my three coins. I’ve got these old Chinese coins I picked up at a flea market – figured they’d be perfect for this. I cleared my mind, tried to focus on a specific question I had about a disagreement with a friend, and then started tossing the coins.
The Coin Tosses
- First toss: Two heads, one tail. That’s a yang line, so I drew a solid line.
- Second toss: One head, two tails. Yin line this time – a broken line.
- Third toss: All heads! That’s a changing yang line, so a solid line with a little circle on it.
- Fourth toss: Two heads, one tail. Another regular yang line.
- Fifth toss: Two heads, one tail. And another yang line.
- Sixth toss: One head, two tails. A regular yin line to finish it off.
The first line is the bottom and you go up.
So, I ended up with this: a broken line on top, then three solid lines, then a changing yang line, and a broken line at the bottom. That’s how I got to Hexagram 6, with a changing line in the third place.
I looked up the hexagram and the changing line. It’s all about conflict, surprise surprise, and the changing line seemed to suggest that sticking to my guns might not be the best idea in this situation. Maybe I need to find a way to compromise or back down a bit. It definitely gave me something to think about. I am going to keep practicing this.
It’s still early days, and I’m not claiming to be any kind of expert, but it was a pretty interesting experience. I’m going to keep practicing and see if I can get better at interpreting the results. It’s a cool way to get some perspective on things, even if you’re not totally sure you believe in all the ancient wisdom stuff. Just my experience.
