Many centuries ago the people in China did what we also do when when we are looking for a good place for a house. Like what everyone on this planet does when he/she has the chance. We want a sunny place but not one where you get too hot or too cold. A safe valley out of severe storms would be nice, or water close by. In the city a park, or simply a little bit of a nice view. Shops or school or hospital or job not too far away.

  The Chinese back then did this too, but also for their ancestors. They wanted their deceased family to enjoy their spot just as well. It was very important, because the spirit of a happy grandparent would help you, a sad or angry one was dangerous.

  They turned this search for a good place into a science: Feng Shui. It has 8 images from nature for the kinds of places: Heaven and Earth, Water, Fire, Thunder, Wind (or Wood), Mountain, Marsh (or Lake). But a place never has just one of those, and each combination has its own good and bad features. Thunder and Lake together might cause good rain for the crops or bad big waves or whirlwinds, Fire and Heaven a sunny place or a hot one, Earth and Thunder a healthy crop or an earthquake. In Feng Shui it is possible to combine all 8.

The Mingtang temple

Floorplan of the Mingtang temple

  The emperors took it a step further. They arranged their state hall, which was both temple and reception hall, in a way which gave them the right 'place' to speak to gods and spirits, and also to the representatives of the nine regions. The clan from the South was received at the south of the temple, with the trigram Li, fire. In the center was the 'pivot' of the four quarters or the nine regions. The 'later heaven diagram' is this same arrangement. In summer the emperor performed the rites in the southern room, in autumn in the western room, and so on. Ming (top) means bright, xuan (bottom) means obscure. Tai (center) is eminence. Maybe indicating the place of the emperor's throne.
The moons are counted from Feb.5, Chinese newyear, so midwinter would be the center of moon 11.
  The characters closest to the center are numbers. Together they form a magic square. In each direction they add up to 15. In the West we know this same square as the magic circle of Saturn. An old symbol for Saturn was drawn like the sequence of the numbers, a line 1-2-3, another 4-5-6 and the third one 7-8-9. Saturn is the planet of structure.
  There are also twelve openings in this temple, one for each 'moon', starting in the bottom-left corner with new moon. Defining their use in accord with the time?

  In this trigram oracle we look at two trigrams, not all 8 at once, but since they are drawn with three lines, each line apart also changes the initial trigram into another one. A one-line-change is reasonably easy, a 2 or 3-line change gets more complicated. And what about the not-changing lines - even they have a meaning. A changing season makes a difference, but what about a season which will not change when it is supposed to? An endless cold spring which looks more like winter. Or a lingering Indian summer.

  In combination with the Mingtang diagram, the first, the 'place' trigram is the situation you ask about. Maybe you get an anwer about where you are now: place number 2 (two horizontal lines) in the Southwest. And as second hexagram zhen, thunder, about what you can do "to make or keep it right". The Heluo-lishu says about this combination: "When thunder enters the earth, the branches sway from the roots".

  In every answer you get the 'big' trigram change, but also 3 individual line-changes which add their own images to the answer. Each line has its own meaning, exactly like in a landscape. There is heaven above, where the rotating sun and stars tell us when the seasons are due. It is where all laws come from which give everything a structure. Laws for everything concrete: trees grow like trees, a lizard grows like a lizard, a diamond grows like a diamond. Laws for time: days, nights, seasons and years follow each other. Good and bad: laws of living creatures which are embedded in all of them. Even a crocodile has its own sense of good and bad, or smart and stupid.
  And there is the Earth below, which gives all those possiblities of Heaven's laws a concrete existence. She feeds the tree and the diamond, gives them a space to exist with many challenges to conquer.

  The line in between is 'man'. Us, people, animals, plants, even 'things', all creatures doing their own thing to create something with the intangible tools from Heaven and the tangible reality of Earth. In the trigram oracle this line tells us specifically about the outcome of a question: what is changing on account of this person or animal or plant or diamond. Even a tree can change a lot: it can grow big and uproot your house, or get fruit and nourish many creatures around it. Don't forget the impact of a sea or climate which changes.

  Heaven and Earth can also change, but they rather continue what they always do. The disturbing changes in both are often the result of what we do to them. Much of it comes again back to the middle line, the creatures which fill the space in between.

The trigram change

  The first trigram is 'now', the situation as it is. It is the cause of the question, called Hui, regret or to consult. The second trigram is the 'outcome', called Zhen, divination. It is why the difference is marked in the second trigram: the change happened, or rather the line is activated. In the first trigram it is not yet visible what will happen, but the source is the lower trigram. This changing line 'activates' its upper counterpart.
  The second trigram shows how Heaven and Earth changed, but most of all what YOU did to cause this change. Decisions, wishes or fears, habits, mental make-up, all these things have a huge influence. A change is not just caused by what you do, but for a very large part by who you are. Your mind and heart, and probably the latter more than the first. Your dreams and ideals steer a big part of your life. If you can give them power and a direction, the changes will really be your own changes.

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought" (Buddha)

  Very interesting is what Dean Radin says in "Supernatural", final chapter.
One sentence I like especially: "Perhaps the fabric of reality is woven from the woof of matter/energy and the warp of mind. And when those threads are examined very closely, we find that they don't consist of ordinary stuff. They are made out of pure information."

  There is mind and matter (Heaven and Earth) and consciousness, (the middle line) which might be the most important of the three, and maybe the creative factor of the universe. Warp is mind, the structure, woof is matter, the colorful result, life or consciousness is the weaver, and all of it is 'information'.

  I wish you profitable trigram oracle castings!