Where am I? or Using the I Ching Map

When we start talking about transformation we need to know where we are and where we are going. Isn’t this exactly what we do when we use the I Ching for divination? The coins are tossed to divine where we are and which lines are either stable or changing. Stability and chaos.

Having a map is useful if you know where you are. The I Ching is a map, but it is a map that is written in a symbolic or foreign language. It isn’t a map to help you get to grandma’s house. It is a map of energy transformation.

I believe the Bagua symbol is also a symbolic map. It is just significantly simpler than the I Ching. So, when we talk about transformation we have to know where we are and where we want to go.

If you can create Heaven, ☰, you can start there. If not, you don’t know where you are.

To transform from Heaven, ☰, to Wind, ☴, you follow the transformation map. It doesn’t mean, turn left at the next intersection. The map simply says that if Heaven, ☰, goes to its extreme it will begin to change to yin. That’s it.

So the form we were taught for the Wind palm change has to start with Heaven, ☰, and take it to the extreme where yang will naturally start to change to yin. The mistake is to try to change yang to yin. The chaos is in allowing extreme yang to do what it does – change to yin.

The NYC Wind Palm change I was taught had two transformations from Heaven, ☰, to Wind, ☴. It expressed one as a cutting palm that worked much like a drawing cut with a sword and a second example where the palm came out soft like a slap. The form is just an expression of the transformation, but you have to know where you are and where you are going.