The I Ching

A guide for those beginning the journey

ORIGINS

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is one of humanity's oldest living texts — its roots reaching back more than three thousand years to ancient China. It began as a system of divination used by court oracles of the Zhou dynasty, who would inscribe observations about natural and human events alongside sixty-four symbolic patterns called hexagrams. Over centuries, the philosopher Confucius and his students added layers of commentary, transforming the text into a profound meditation on change, balance, and the movement of life.

It has been consulted by emperors, poets, physicians, and scholars across millennia. In the twentieth century, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung became deeply interested in it, writing the foreword to the first major Western translation and finding in it a mirror for his own ideas about the unconscious, synchronicity, and the psyche's movement toward wholeness.

HOW IT WORKS

The I Ching speaks through sixty-four hexagrams — each composed of six horizontal lines, either unbroken (yang, the active principle) or broken (yin, the receptive principle). These lines are traditionally cast using yarrow stalks or coins, and the resulting hexagram is understood not as a fixed prediction, but as a reading of this moment — the quality of the energy presently in motion.

"The superior person, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security, they do not forget the possibility of ruin."

— I Ching, Hexagram 11

The text associated with each hexagram is deliberately open — written in image and metaphor rather than instruction. A hexagram might speak of thunder over still water, or wind moving through the mountains. This language invites reflection rather than prescription. You bring the meaning; the oracle holds the mirror.

WHY WE USE IT HERE

Grief is not a problem to be solved — it is a critical threshold to be moved through. The I Ching has accompanied human beings through passages of loss, transition, and unknowing for three thousand years. It speaks the language of change because it knows that everything changes and that, even in the most profound dissolution, there is pattern and meaning.

We use the I Ching at the opening of our work together not to tell you what will happen, but to help you arrive. To settle into the present moment. To bring your question — held perhaps wordlessly in the body — into contact with something ancient and unhurried. Many people find that the image or phrase they receive names something they couldn't quite articulate, giving shape to what they carry.

You don't need any prior knowledge or belief. Come with an open question — something you are sitting with, something you are moving toward. The I Ching will meet you there.

APPROACHING THE ORACLE

Before we cast, we invite you to spend a few quiet moments settling. You might place a hand on your heart and ask: What am I truly carrying right now? What needs to be seen? You don't need a perfectly formed question — a feeling, an image, or a single word is enough. Trust what surfaces.

The response you receive is not a verdict. It is an opening. We will sit with it together, gently, and let it speak whatever it has to offer for this moment in your journey.

May your passage be held with care  ·  May what is lost be honored  ·  May what remains be known