Moon, time and I Ching

Chi is expressed as two structuring and polar principles, yin and yang, represented in I Ching to express cycles in Heaven, human beings and Earth.

According to comments attributed to Confucio, I Ching (The Book of Changes) is the most ancient book in the world because its basic structure was developed in prehistory, and was also the basis for the order installed by mythological sovereigns in ancient Chine before XXI^st century B.C. (the Three Augustes and the Five Augustes emperors).

Around the year 2200 B.C., in the age of Xia dynasty (the first one), fortune-telling was performed by cracking turtle's shells with a red hot iron (escapulomancy). The technique produced heat emissions, so cracks displayed chi as a revealing surface. To read them, they draw pictograms based on a system derived from Fu Hsi's trigrams, although there were no consensual rules for readings, so each performer was free to interpret in the own way.

turtle shell from Shang
dynasty's age (1600 – 1046 B.C.)

Later, another method was used: 50 yarrow rods. Lenght, straightness, durability and lightness of dried stems make them especially good for random handling. And, as it happens in fortune-telling, they're used as a receptive tool to provide the context of irradiations, chi flowing in all beings and things, intentionally perceived by who's asking the oracle (the other receptive tool).

Using rods is about operations representing the cosmic characteristics of a year (return) by referring to the Moon, its phases, and the interspersed time.

A reading starts by separating one stem from the group, so 49 stems remain, as there are 49 Moon's phases, plus a fraction. The separated stem represents that fraction, and the remaining 49 represent the whole lunar phases.

The remaining 49 stems are gathered in groups of 4, because 4 stems represent a complete lunation. The remanent that remains after forming groups symbolizes the interspersed time, "the time out of time": it's fortune-telling's time, during which we go back to zero point because linearity in the subject of interest is no more. It's a way to symbolize that fortune-telling is a new beginning allowing a restart in the matter of interest, letting play chance as rods are grouped again and again according to chi in the situation.

If you're interested in asking by using rods, read the following steps:

# 1

Separate one of the 50 rods and leave it aside. Group the remaining 49 stems and divide them into two groups, more or less similar to each other. Place one of them on the right, and the other one on the left.

# 2

The left hand takes one of the stems in the group on the right, and puts it in between the pinky and ring fingers.Then, the right hand forms groups of 4 stems each one, on the left side. When remaining 4 stems or less, they're put in between the ring and middle fingers in the left hand.

# 3

Similarly, groups of 4 stems are also separated in the group on the right side until 4 or less remains. The remanent is placed in between the middle and index fingers in the left hand.

# 4

Count all of the stems in the left hand (3 groups in between fingers). The results may be 9 or 5. Write it down and place the groups aside. This is the first stems' counting.

# 5

Repeat the process from the beginning, two more times. During the repetitions, the results in each counting may equal 8 or 4.

# 6

The results are transformed two times. The first stem placed in between the pinky and ring fingers should not be taken into account. 9 turns into 8, and 5 into 4; then, 8 turns into 2, and 4 turns into 3.

# 7

Sum the results of the three countings. There will be 4 possibilities: 9, 6, 7 or 8. This is the final result, the first line of the reading. Only the old lines change (6 and 9), whereas the young ones rest (7 and 8).

# 8

Repeat all of the previous steps 5 more times to get the other five lines forming a hexagram.

Fu Hsi, Wisdom Incarnated

He invented the calendar in Ancient Chine, introduced writing and social organization, and also invented the 8 trigrams by observing phenomena in Heaven and on Earth.

• Yang (heat, expansive) is represented in Chien (Heaven)
• Yin (cold, contracted) is represented in Kun (Earth)
• Chi (vital energy) is represented in Chen (Thunder)

chi's fluctuations produce the 5 elements, and all things come up from their interactions

• Metal is represented in Tui (lake)
• Earth in Ken (mountain)
• Fire in Li (flame)
• Wood in Sun (wind)
• Water in K'an (abyss)

After Fu Hsi, King Wen of Chou dynasty wrote his own sequence of signs in the XII^th B.C. century and added descriptions for the 64 hexagrams considered as paired signs, which allowed a better representation of the rhythmic structure of an always elusive and changing present. His son Tan, the famous Duke of Chou, wrote the judgments we know for each line nowadays.

Sources: IKching, Oráculos chinos: 7 históricos sistemas de adivinación orientales, Yi Jing: Oracle of the moon, Chinopedia, Wikipedia.