I Ching

I Ching

I Ching is an ancient Chinese form of divination that uses numbers to form I Ching hexagrams. The hexagrams are then read and interpreted to provide guidance and wisdom into people’s lives. I Ching has not always been used to read fortunes and gain insight related to the day to day, however. For thousands of years, I Ching (often translated as The Book of Change) was a deeply influential text used by emperors, generals, sailors, and everyone in between. The text is said to contain the world’s secrets and it offers those secrets freely to anyone with the ability to understand it’s message.

To have your I Ching chart read, there are a few different options available to you. An I Ching reading online is probably the easiest but to have your I Ching hexagrams read in person is a unique and rewarding experience in its own right.

All types of I Ching readings, including I Ching online, follow the same basic principals. I Ching meaning origins come from the formation of eight trigrams which represented many natural attributes of the Earth and the heavens. Each of the formations was made up of three bars, some of which are solid and some are broken in the middle. The various combinations lead to readings that relate to virtually everything pertaining to life and the universe.

Those eight original trigrams represented Earth, mountain, water, wind, thunder, fire, lake, and heaven and went by the names Kun, Gen, Kan, Xun, Zhen, Li, Dui, Qian, respectively. The I Ching we know today is built upon these trigrams. There are a total of 64 hexagrams and each has its own meaning.

The solid lines represent the masculine forces of nature and the broken line indicates the feminine side. In I Ching, both sides are represented as are the relationships between them. The hexagrams create meaning from the lines individually, what they represent when two of the same type are stacked. The order of the lines across the entire grouping of hexagrams also comes with distinctive meanings.