Diagram of I-Ching showing Spherical Interrelation between 64 Hexagrams.
The I-Ching is an ancient Chinese divination system. Early legends cite that the trigrams were discovered by a farmer on the shell of a turtle, and that in seeing them, he suddenly could predict everything that would happen in the future. Chinese Emperors would have the classic reading form of three coins tossed daily, and then hear reports from around the kingdom, detailing what had happened. These reports were then recorded with the hexagram that was revealed in the coin toss, and kept in massive manuals that eventually became many of the I-Ching parables found in “The Book of Changes” today.
The I-Ching book consists of 64 hexagrams. A hexagram is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines, where each line is either Yang (an unbroken, or solid line), or Yin (broken, an open line with a gap in the center). The hexagram lines are traditionally counted from the bottom up, so the lowest line is considered line one while the top line is line six. Hexagrams are formed by combining the original eight trigrams in different combinations. Each hexagram is accompanied with a description, often cryptic, akin to parables.
The I-Ching is based on simple energetic principles, and the dynamics between Yin and Yang. When fully understood, these dynamics reveal everything about our experiences in time, how they change, and what they mean.