Prints £85 for A3 size
My favourite line in the Book of Changes is for hexagram one in the fifth place: “Flying dragon in the heavens.” I like it for philosophical reasons, and what it means structurally. The fifth line of the first hexagram is important.
Another line I like is in hexagram five: “Waiting in the meadow, it furthers one to abide in what endures.” Why a meadow, and enduring in relation to what? That’s a philosophical discussion I might pursue some time. More simply, it suggests nature as a symbolic resource beyond the ephemeral.
Curiously, the flag for Wales contains a dragon. Western symbolism is different from the Chinese, but I like the connection. The first hexagram describes a dragon in six stages of manifestation.
The view in my picture is Nant Gwynant in Snowdonia where I’ve camped, walked, read, sunbathed, photographed, and gazed at starry skies. Beddgelert is the nearest village, a lovely place, beyond which there is a drive I like and a hill where I’ve camped. It’s in the starting frame below called Moel Hebog: the Hill of the Hawk.
If you know the I Ching, you will recognise animals from the text. I’ll explain the flowers in this Conceptual Art, because it’s more complex. There are references to blossom in the book, and there is something called The Plum Blossom Method of consulting it.
There are many ways of using the I Ching. I don’t use the coins or book as much as I used to. A hexagram idea comes to mind and that’s what you need, without doing anything.