Dragons are know to be: artistic, decisive, dignified, direct, eccentric, fiery, generous, intellectual, loyal, magnanimous, noble, passionate, pioneering, proud, self-assured, stately, strong, vigorous.
And may be: arrogant, brash, demanding, dogmatic, imperious, impetuous, intolerant, tactless, tyrannical, violent.
I constantly complain to myself about how long it has been taking me to complete work called, I Ching Meditations.
The reason it is taking me so long is because not only is this a huge task to make seven images and words for sixty-four hexagrams, I have started from the beginning several times as my medium changed over the years. I began this work before there was such a thing as a personal computer and Internet. My original I Ching inspired images were drawings, etching and paintings. I am also frequently side tracked with what I feel are other seductive tasks such as, The SketchBook Project sponsored by The Brooklyn Art Library.
My confession is that I have a new addition to my I Ching obsession.
All my illustrations that are seen here for I Ching Meditations were created on a computer with digital programs. I love making images using computer technology and my mantra is that the Internet is the greatest invention since the discovery of fire. Creating in this way is fun and rewarding and a very different experience from using any tactile medium. Every once in a while I am over come with a fit of wanting to use real paint. The feeling is physical, sort of like when I am very thirsty and need a drink of water.
Recently I suddenly felt that nagging urge to use the hands-on medium of paint again. There wasn’t any particular image I wanted to paint. I just wanted to “play” and enjoy the experience. I thought of the book Henry Miller wrote after he left Paris and was living in California, called, “To Paint is to Love Again.” That’s a good way to describe it.
In order not to get side-tracked from my work on I Ching Meditations I decided to paint something simple and fairly small while staying connected to the I Ching. I began by using the Chinese glyph for hexagram one, as the basic starting point for an abstract design. I enjoyed the process so much I am compelled to complete all sixty-four glyph paintings and will gradually scan and post them here. The originals are each nine by twelve inches, painted with acrylics. I have had to make two promises to myself for this paint series. I limit the time I spend each day working on these paintings and do it as a treat, like having desert. I often work on them while I watch my two favorite television shows, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, combining two pleasures at once. The second promise to myself is that I will not start over on any painting until I finish all sixty-four.
The act of making these glyph paintings may be like taking vitamins to keep my system in good health. They become a meditation themselves as I focus on shapes of the Chinese calligraphy that signifies the meaning of the hexagrams. I think of them like the manuscript illuminations from those early days of books when works were hand painted with elaborate initials.
I begin here with the glyph painting for hexagram one, The Creative.
I recently posted the image and line one for Hexagram 14 in a Page. The rest of the lines and hexagrams to follow there.
Tags: Art, Chinese Glyphs, I Ching, I Ching Fonts
Guest post by Katya Walter, PhD
From her book, Tao of Chaos Patterns, Chapter 13, Section 5 (ebook)
This TOE suggests that the deep-level structure of primal space, time, matter, and energy is fractal. A source code turns this primal foursome into a pair of polarized pairs: space and time become the universal carrier pair, and matter and energy become the universal contents pair.
Space and time stay dependable in their task of containerizing matter and energy. These containerized contents continually flux in their specific details. Old configurations of matter and energy decay in the container of space and time, but then morph into emerging new events.
Mind itself, above and below the Planck level, helps shape the thrust of this process. Information crosses the central threshold of the Planck level. This threshold separates the two conjoined twins of a double bubble universe. Each twin bubble has its own dependable 4D space/time container that holds its matter/energy contents with evolving specific details.
The conjoined twins also interrelate constantly across the Planck level. They carry on a continual conversation at the Planck level. To do so, they use a fractal code based on vertical and horizontal period 3 windows. A shorthand version of this code exists in the I Ching’s trigrams and hexagrams, which are holographically resonant to reality itself.
Our universe consists of both twins together, It is holographically resonant and exhibits chaotic flow in a complex, non-repeating pattern. This means that you may be able to predict the general fractal carrier form of a chaos pattern—but not its specific contents. A minor event in one place can have huge, seemingly unrelated consequences elsewhere.
A modern weather forecast is rather like a message from the ancient I Ching oracle. Both the weather forecast and the I Ching message speak more about the fractal carrier form of a qualitative dynamic rather than the quantitative load of its specific details. The ancient Chinese enshrined this “butterfly effect” in the saying, “I wave my left hand, and the whole world moves.”
Likewise, the ancient Chinese believed that consulting the I Ching oracle helps you foresee and weather the emotions of life better. It won’t predict the quantitative details of an emotional hail storm or tornado or drought or rainbow that’s upcoming, only its general qualitative dynamic for your life.
In both cases, a forecast on either physical or emotional weather, you’re provided with a basic outline of the dynamic in its fractal form, but the unique details must be filled by living through it as you make your free will choices. The advantage here is that at least you now have a heads-up.
Perhaps you scoff, thinking, “How can consulting some old oracle possibly give me a true answer?”
Well, consider this possibility: a hexagram answer embodies the principle of co-chaos patterning generated between domains. It succinctly describes the dynamic of an event occurring in mattergy over space and time, yet it still lets you fill in the specific details with your own free will. It even describes this dynamic using both a verbal analogy and a mathematical shorthand.
This TOE suggests that the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching resonate with the universal source code. That cryptic shorthand reflects the fractal dynamic that is embedded in the great hologram of reality. Each hexagram is a miniature model for this paradigm.
Each hexagram holds a pair of trigrams. Each trigram has three lines or “3 dimensions” that indicate a specific dynamic organizing its own domain, above or below, on a p-tree. A hidden bond or 4th dimension in each domain attracts the two trigrams to each other. Together they develop a co-chaos pattern that bonds the two trigrams across domains.
This is a miniature version of what happens to our double bubble universe with four dimensions in each domain, above and below the Planck level—plus 4 more tiny dimensions that create the attraction hidden right inside the Planck level.
What a gift from the master code! For more on this, see the third volume of this series, Double Bubble Universe.
Tapping into the I Ching gives you a way to get an insight on the fractal dynamics of our universe. It helps you perceive and adjust your own fit in it. Your I Ching answer is complex and nuanced. Understanding it encourages developing a subtle, associative mindset.
An I Ching answer is a far cry indeed from the mere flat, dogmatic, binary right or wrong, yes or no, that we have come to expect on a pop quiz and we currently demand in a law court. Learning to understand the I Ching is necessarily an experiential voyage into exploring your own life and psyche.
This exercise is pumping iron for the subtle body. It resides in the universal patterning and will reside there it long after your physical body is gone.
Katya Walter has a Ph.D. with an interdisciplinary emphasis from the University of Texas at Austin. She spent 5 years of post-doctoral study at the Jung Institute of Zurich, and a year of post-study in China. She taught in colleges and universities in the USA and abroad for sixteen years before focusing on writing and lecturing. She has presented numerous workshops on the I Ching, Chaos Theory, Synchronicity, and Dreams in the United States and Europe. Katya is author of the Touching God’s TOE series of books. She also authored an accompanying handbook called Dream Mail – designed for contemplating the deeper structure of dreams. It discusses the fractal messages that are carried in the symbolism of dreams and how to interpret dreams for daily life.
I have a guest post by Kartar Diamond. She not only writes about the I Ching and Feng Shui as it relates to the Trigrams, she includes her synchronicity of asking the I Ching a question.
The image I include is one from my book, I Ching Prescriptions, showing the “Pre-heaven” and the “Post-heaven” arrangement of the trigrams that Kartar Diamond discusses in the article.
Which Came First, Feng Shui or the I-Ching?
You may be familiar with the practice of Feng Shui and some of the symbolism associated with the eight Trigrams. Each “trigram” is associated with a part of the body, colors, an element, a family member, and a direction. These trigrams are each symbolized with three lines. The word “tri-gram” means “three lines.” The lines can be broken or solid and in a certain order to depict the unique trigram and direction.
For instance, the Qian Trigram is three solid lines stacked on top of each other and associated with the direction of Northwest (post-heaven sequence) and the father in the family structure. The Kun trigram is three broken lines, symbolic of the direction of Southwest (post-heaven sequence) and the image of a mother.
What the heck is “post-heaven sequence?” Some people reading this know what this means, but for the lay person let’s just say that there are two versions of the trigrams in relation to the directions associated with them. We have something called the “pre-heaven sequence” which is used for different types of insight in a Feng Shui analysis and it is the more “obscure” arrangement of the eight trigrams when a person studies these theories.
These same three-lined symbols are grouped in pairs to form “hexagrams.” And it is the 64 hexagrams of the I-Ching which are symbolic of profound and mystical advice that adherents seek when they turn to the I-Ching for inspiration. We can say that the I-Ching, (also spelled Yi Jing) is an ancient Oracle or Book of Divination closely related to the fundamentals of Feng Shui. There is even a ring on the Chinese Feng Shui compass that identifies the 64 hexagrams.
When I was first trying to decide if Feng Shui was really my destined professional calling, I threw the coins to do the simple calculations on the energy assigned to the timing of my question. The answer I got from the I-Ching? I got hexagram #55 which translates as “Feng.” It is the pairing of the two trigrams: Thunder above (Zhen Trigram) and Fire Below (Li trigram). It was more than ironic. This might be the equivalent of wondering what you should do with your life and randomly opening up a book to a Chapter Title that says “You Are Already Doing What You Are Meant to Do.”
You may assume the trigrams and the I-Ching are irrelevant to modern times, but early on in my studies of Chinese metaphysics, an acquaintance sent me a book on the trigrams in relation to DNA. We don’t know who or how many people originally figured out these mathematical correlations, but they surely happened over long periods of time and after meticulous observation of the cycles of nature. More theories about the trigrams are continuing to evolve in modern applications and interpretations.
Eight Trigram theory is quite practical and predictable and there are many applications that can be used to help people. For example, the Zhen trigram is associated with the direction of east and the eldest son. If a house is missing the east sector of the floor plan, it can make it harder for a couple living there to conceive a baby boy. If a family moves into a house with a missing east sector, the eldest son in the family may have some struggles or some thing wrong with his health. If the east sector of a house has something wrong with it or in ill-repair, like a crack in the foundation, this could also harm the eldest son in the family. The more you learn about the trigrams, the more you will see them as a mirror to our lives.
[gplus count="true" size="Medium" ]Kartar Diamond is a full time classically trained consultant and author of numerous books, ebooks, a DVD, teleseminars, and an on-line case study program. Visit Kartar’s website at http://www.FengShuiSolutions.net for details of all her professional services and learning tools.
Recent Comments