So, yesterday I decided to consult the I Ching. Today I’m writing about it. The first thing is that yesterday I was very excited about it and today I’m, well, not. I am still excited, but this morning is one of those mornings when being a writer seems pointless. I don’t mean that. Being a writer is never pointless.

I’m trying to put into words a feeling, that feeling of How do I start this day? How do I be a writer today?

I’m upstairs at my writing table by the window. There is a wood pigeon on the top of the hawthorn tree, and beyond it a magpie on the TV aerial of one of the houses in Bridge Road. The magpie has now gone, before he was even written down. He’s been replaced by a blackbird. I’ve opened the window to let in more of the sound of the world.

I’m beginning to settle. Writing this is helping. Part of the process of being a writer is writing. That sentence makes me smile, partly because it is completely obvious, and partly because it is so easily forgotten.

So, yesterday I decided to consult the I Ching. I have my father’s two volume copy of the Richard Wilhelm translation (to German) rendered into English by Carl F. Baynes. A few weeks ago I cut yarrow from the patch of grass outside the front of the house, and yesterday I prepared fifty yarrow stalks for the divination process. The process is elaborate, and not easily followed from a book. However I did come up with a hexagram, number 32 Heng – Duration.

Now, I was happy with this. I had asked a specific question, and this hexagram provided a good answer. However a little further on in the interpretation process I realised that I may have constructed the hexagram incorrectly. As I write I realise that that is indeed the case. I will stop writing for a moment and look again at the results, which with this new information are possibly quite remarkable.

OK, I’m dead happy now. That’s a weird expression. Live happy. Happy happy. My actual correct hexagram is number 31 Hsien – Influence (Wooing) and the moving line is a nine in the third place. However I will also embrace the teaching of Heng, as that is also appropriate to my question. Hsien, as well as being appropriate to my question, is also appropriate to my life right now. I’m in the right place and the time is right. And in both hexagram Judgements (which are a bit like haiku) the central line is Perseverance furthers. I’m happy with that.

I am aware that the last three paragraphs could be described as mumbo-jumbo. I have spent half a day getting an answer to my question using yarrow stalks to create a pattern and the book tells me what the pattern means. However two things are important: one is that the I Ching is two and a half thousand years old and as such could be said to have stood the test of time, and the other is that I spent half a day focusing on myself and my current situation. The answer I have come up with is that I’m in the right place and I’m doing the right thing, which is a good answer, and also, just as well!

So, finally, the Judgement:

INFLUENCE. Success.

Perseverance furthers.

To take a maiden to wife brings good fortune.