Yi: Lunar New Year: Year of the Wood Snake at 2025-02-27 18:45 CMT

From Alfred Huang’s The Complete I Ching
#8 Bi • Union

NAME AND STRUCTURE
Bi is the inverse of the preceding gua, Shi, Multitude. Bi suggests intimacy and closeness. People living together should love and care about each other; then they will become intimate and close. Wilhelm translates this gua as Holding Together (Union); Blofeld as Unity, Coordination. In this book, Bi is called Union.
Sequence of the Gua: In a multitude, there must be a bond of union. Thus, after Multitude, Union follows. In ancient times, Bi was the fundamental unit of the Chinese household registry system. Every five households formed one unit, called Bi. In every Bi a head was appointed, to take care of the neighborhood. Thus, Bi also means neighborhood and symbolizes a close bond of the people in a community.

The ancient ideograph of Bi is simple; it shows two persons standing close together. The structure of the gua is Water above, earth below. When earth contains water, it becomes soft. When water is on the earth, it flows. The ancient king gained insight from the close relationship between water and earth; he established numerous states and maintained a close relationship with his subordinate lords.

Decision
Seeking union.
Good fortune.
Examine the divination:
Sublimely persevering, steadfast and upright.
No fault.
Restless factions just coming.
Lagging behind: misfortune.

Commentary on the Decision
Seeking union. Good fortune .
It is for mutual help .
The lower follows the upper .
Examine the divination :
Sublimely persevering, steadfast and upright .
No fault .
Due to its firmness and central position .
Restless factions just coming .
The upper and the lower correspond .
Lagging behind: misfortune .
There is no way out.

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Using Jou Tsung Wa’s transliteration of the Plum Blossom Method into Western numerical norms, this cast is based on the date and time of the event in question. Note that the lunar new year is at the exact same time for everybody on the planet, whereas of course with a solar calendar sunrises vary from place to place. Therefore this Cast’s interpretation is made with the whole world in mind, especially given that these are such geopolitically ‘interesting times’.

Embedded below are two pdf documents. All one needs to do is read the front page to ‘grok’ the entire reading, but lower down are extracts from classical texts and several different ways of looking at Hexagrams (layers and levels, always!), including trigram analysis, Heaven Earth and Man, looking at the lines, and all framed within William Horden’s Mathematical I Ching approach wherein broken lines are worth numbers and solid lines are not, counting from the bottom 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1.

Yesterday I used X’s Grok AI to write a script that can instantly calculate and display the five hexagrams based on the Event Time method and used it for the first time for this pdf presentation. It saves time and is fun, but ultimately doesn’t help determine the interpretation in any way.

I don’t use Huang’s ideograph in my reading, just posting here for visual appeal and extra value, but this one especially echoes the Derived Hexagram #29 which is Water below Water above featuring strong leadership in the central line of each hexagram and visually looks like a bipolar situation – in the sense of two poles, not any mental disorder. They are side by side in the gua, indicating a true partnership. If such can soon be forged between the various parties now in conflict, and especially Putin’s Russia and Trump’s USA, this would be a very fine thing for the entire world.

But there is more! Because the first result’s Primary was #8 wherein the classic text recommends casting again to see if the leader in question possesses the necessary qualities to undertake this great task, there is a second Cast made by myself using the coins supplementing the first. Both are hereby embedded. Enjoy!