Differences between the hexagram oracle and the trigram oracle

  The trigrams are in essence simply another way to access a hexagram. What I like about them is that they reveal a lot about the hexagrams, the “why and how” of their meaning. When two trigrams interact, it is like reading about ecology or paintings or symbols. A hexagram is more like a study, finding extensive information, with all the facts and with references to experts.

  The Chinese text I used is not a trigram oracle. It was created for finding a birth hexagram. I have only borrowed the descriptions of the trigrams. Many are poetic. E.g. "the branches sway from the roots" (earth and thunder). I saw that happen here in the garden. We have a simple shrub from a seed that blew in from somewhere and is related to the willow. Also another shrub that is nice and wide. There was a heavy storm, but the simple bush just swayed with the wind, as a whole. The wide bush also swayed, but each (broad) branch also wobbled on its own. They were torn from the trunk, they did not swing from the roots. Thunder (movement) in the earth: hexagram 24. You get the same hexagram as in the Yijing (I Ching), but it 'feels' different. To me, hex.24 now feels like a continuing way of life (swaying from the roots), not just a moment of return.

  By contemplating this way of changing, one learns a lot about the trigrams (and hexagrams!) which is less clear when moving the other way, from hexagram to trigram. That is why I have removed all references to hexagrams so that the mind does not go there by itself.

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  In a hexagram the two trigrams show how it works and how it can be solved.

Hex.39:
When the top line (initiative) changes, trigram Water activates Wind (hex.48). The Qi of water penetrates the high blowing wind and makes it moist.
(Opens the possibility of rain: solution.)

The bottom line (subject or space) is unchanging yin (#29, danger and movement).

When the middle line (Man) changes, Kan activates Kun (#8). Water penetrates the earth which prevents it from seeping away. It is an omen of accumulation and obstruction; everything has a beginning but no end, there is no effortless and easy gain.
Yang-yin: there is accumulation and obstruction, but yin (care and creativity) can improve things.

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  The two trigrams go next to each other. The first one at left, second one at right. First trigram is 'now', the situation, the second one shows the potential that points to a possible outcome. The trigram oracle is more fortune-telling than the hexagrams, but like a weather forecast, the result is not guaranteed. There is also a lot of advice, but you have to look for it, more than in a hexagram where the line text usually is an advice in the form of "if this - then that".
  If you want to turn the two trigrams into a hexagram, the second trigram goes BELOW the first one when you ask about your own concerns rather than about the outside world. It is the way one would write it on a narrow bamboo slip, from top to bottom.
   It is also the way an oracle is usually consulted: there is a situation you are nog happy about, and then you ask about what you can (or what will) change or improve.
  The changed lines with the red dot or cross (potential of change) are in the second or bottom trigram. The situation and its inhabitants etc. is in the first or upper trigram.

  For anyone familar with the Yijing, it is clear that the two trigrams form a hexagram, but I don't think they started that way. In all cultures there are 'elements': earth, fire, water etc. The space of a trigram is huge. Eight times bigger than a hexagram. Using two of them must have been obvious. Not making the meaning bigger, but specifying it. King Wen combined them into a coherent whole and the duke of Zhou added explanations to the lines.

  This trigram oracle most of all tells you where this will go, the direction and outcome. The future is based on your attitude and situation now, including your present needs and hopes, which you can see in the first trigram. But where will it direct you (first AND second trigram: a hexagram)?

  If you want to ask about someone else or politics or whatever outside your own direct realm, then you can put the second trigram above the first. You still read the lines in the second trigram, but now it is the upper trigram.

  This oracle looks like a precursor of the YiJing. I imagine King Wen sitting in prison and occupying his mind with this trigram oracle. Saving his sanity. Moving the trigrams around. Thinking about what they imply, how they are more than 8 images of the visible world, but combine into a complex structure of the entire cosmos. Giving birth to the Zhou Yi (I Ching).

  It is easy to turn the two trigrams into a hexagram and look it up in the Yi. The two are closely connected.

  The Chinese texts in this trigram oracle are a mix. Most come from the Neigua ChuwaiLi. If you are interested in it: there is a good (Dutch) translation in Harmen Mesker's astrology book and probably there are other translations as well. I couldn't find it in ctext.org, but I am more interested in the images of the trigrams. And in the trigram oracle itself: see the video of a Hongkong diviner: Tin Yat Dragon.