I-ching Readings - Yarrow stalks method

I-ching > Methods of Consulting

The Yarrow Stalks Method

1. Take a single stalk from the bundle of 50 and lay it crossways in front of you. This symbolizes the Wu Chi - the unchanging ground of being.

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2. Divide the remaining stalks into two piles. Set down the pile in your right hand.

3. Talk one stalk from that right-hand pile and place it between the 4th and little fingers of your left hand (while still holding the left pile in your left hand)

4. Count off the left pile by fours, setting the fours in a pile separate from the right-hand pile. When you have 4 or fewer left from the original left pile, tuck them between the 3rd and 4th fingers of your left hand.

5. Now put the right-hand pile into your left hand and also count it off by fours until four or fewer sticks remain.

6. If you counted correctly (ie. got fours not threes or fives each time you removed stalks) you now have a total either 5 or 9 sticks in your left hand. Think of 5 as a small number, equivalent to heads or yang in the coin method, and think of 9 as a large number, equivalent to tails or yin in the coin method.

7. Lay these 5 or 9 stalks across the one you removed in step #1.

8. Repeat steps 2 through 7 twice more. You will get either 4 or 8 stalks each time (not 5 or 9 as in the first time).Here 4 is small, yang or heads; 8 is big, yin or tails.

9. Now look at the three piles that are lying across the single stalk. There are only four possibilities:

All are small (4 or 5 stalks) - This is a changing yang line - solid becomes broken;

All are big (8 or 9 stalks) - This is a changing yin line - broken becomes solid

Two are small and one is big - This is an unchanging yin line - broken

Two are big and one is small - This is an unchanging yang line - solid

This is the first (bottom) of the six lines in your hexagram - remember it or write it down.

10. Pick up all the stalks except the single one from step #1, then repeat steps 2 through 9 five more times.

The whole procedure takes about 10-15 minutes.

More information about using yarrow stalks may be found in James Legge's and well as in the Richard Wilhelm's English version of I-ching.

*Text quoted above is from: http://www.eheart.com/yarrow/use.html.

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