Hi Mind Bod Squad!
This week we’re joined by Hilary Barrett, I Ching translator, author, and the mind behind I Ching with Clarity. Jeff has relied on her site for years whenever a reading’s left him puzzled.
The I Ching is a 3,000-year-old Chinese oracle, older than coins, once consulted by sorting yarrow stalks. Hilary describes it as a way of having a conversation with reality. It has its own personality: a wise, completely truthful grandmother who is bottomlessly compassionate and won’t let you fool yourself. As she puts it, the I Ching doesn’t do fluff. It’s direct, occasionally impolite, and, as Jeff will tell you, often very funny.
Rather than just explain the I Ching, we get Hilary to show us! We cast a real hexagram, using a live question.
We talk about:
What the I Ching is, where it came from, and why you need a real translation
The I Ching’s personality, and how it compares with tarot
Why readings reward slowness, and what happens when you consult it too often
How a hexagram’s shape (solid lines, broken lines) becomes its meaning
How to build a spiritual practice with the I Ching
The Adventure:
Hilary walks us through the reading, hexagram by hexagram. We ask: what do Tasha, Jeff, and everyone listening need to know about the I Ching?
She reads the images as scenes. Piglets and fishes. Wind moving over a lake. A king making an offering in a temple made of wind and water. These are cryptic but intuitive images that we get to sit with instead of rushing to a verdict.
It’s a real-time demonstration of the patience the practice asks for: read slowly, resist the urge to simplify, and let the hexagram’s images do the talking.
Tell us about your experiences with the I Ching or your favourite oracle system: What kinds of questions do you ask? How do you use its guidance?
Till next time,
Hilary’s Links
Website: I Ching with Clarity
Book: I Ching
Free translations: yijing.nl (LiSe Heyboer) and hermetica.info (Bradford Hatcher)
