Hexagram 21 and 22
Hexagram 22
The ideogram is a plant in a pot, but usually there is no flower on it.
Only a stem with leaves.
(BĚ: The character represents a flowering
plant, which means brilliant, ornate, to honor. Pronounced 'ben' it is
ardent, brave, energetic. bright, decoration, brilliant, bright, luminous,
ornate, to honor. Pronounced ben1: ardent,
brave, energetic, strenuous, to forge ahead. Pronounced fen2:
great, to express, to make visible. Pronounced fen4:
defeated. Also in an inscription used for a kind of sacrifice)
With the heart radical added: rage, temper, indignation, resentment, burst
forth, surge up.
With man radical: to ruin, spoil, put to flight (army), fight, manifest, reveal.
Pén-pén (same character, other pronunciation): fiery, turbulent, vehement.
In the MaWangDui I Ching hexagram 22 has a different name: Fan. This is Artemisia Stelleriana, mugwort or wormwood or sage, one of the most important healing herbs in China.
Moxa sticks
The Artemisia family is big,
and all members are important in pharmacopy. They are bitter and
slightly poisonous. Their most important quality is restoring
energy. In several countries their name refers to that: in German
Beifuss: it restores the energy of tired feet. Put it in your
shoe, and you will not need a carriage: line 1! In English the most
common one is Wormwood, but there is no line in the hexagram which
refers to that, as far as I could find. And neither for the qualities as
woman's herb.
In China it was used since ancient times against insects. The smoke as a
mosquito repellant, the dry leaves to protect the grain, a decoction for
watering vegetables and flowers against aphids and larvae. Its most famous use
is in moxibustion. A cone of finely pulverized Artemisia leaves, moxa, was
lit on the acupuncture places, which needing activating, to drive out illness.
Especially against rheumatism and urinary infections. The powder burns without a
flame, but the heat spreads inward and the room fills with its strong aromatic
smell. (Source: China, empire of living symbols, by Cecilia Lindqvist)
American-Indian smudge, made of sage
(Indians seem to have entered America from Asia)
It grows easily and everywhere, and it is also used in the culture of silkworms, to make it easier for them to come out of the cocoon (or maybe make them so irritated that they come out pronto). Grow it in the hilltop garden for a small silk harvest??
It is white! Or at least silvery all over, with white flowers. White plain modest wormwood, but look at its workings (line 6)!
Could it be that the ‘beauty’ of hex.22 is the beauty of nature containing its healing qualities? And about the way a plant looks, its beauty, which tells about its powers? The same character can also mean energetic.
In the GuiCang YiJing still another name: Ying Huo. As a word (yinghuo, the two characters together) it means 'to dazzle; confuse, god of war, (astr.) Mars'. But when one looks at the two separate characters, they mean 'glow' and 'mist'. Moxibustion??