questions as a result of our website. We would like to share some of the answers with our visitors. You can email us through the link below.
Mitch asked:
I am very interested in a way to assign the I-Ching to the decans of the year. I wonder if you have
come across any useful data on this possibility?
David Allen Hulse answered:
The decans cannot easily be correlated to the 64 hexagrams, but they can be applied to the eight
trigrams indirectly. Go to pages 499-502 in Book One to see the classic 12 hexagrams for the 12 signs. These cannot easily be brought into 36 decans. However, the 8 trigrams have a secret attribution of
36 separate numbers, for the strokes necessary to draw the 8 hexagrams are 36 in number if yang is seen as one long stroke and yin as two short. Use the table on page 383 that shows a peculiar order
for the 8 trigrams based on yin and yang. Start at the bottom line of the top trigram and end with the top
line of the bottom trigram. Here is the value of yin or yang for the progression of the number series 1
through 36 which can be seen as the 36 decans.
1-yang
2-yang
3-yang
4-yang
5-yang
6-yin
7-yin
8-yang
9-yin
10-yin
11-yang
12-yang
13-yin
14-yin
15-yin
16-yin
17-yin
18-yin
19-yang
20-yang
21-yin
22-yin
23-yang
24-yin
25-yin
26-yin
27-yin
28-yin
29-yin
30-yang
31-yin
32-yin
33-yin
34-yin
35-yin
36-yin
(12 straight lines, 24 broken lines)
The sum of 8 is 36, and in many Taoist exercises the count of 36 is used
for each movement in a given set of exercises. I remember a rotation exercise of the
shins which were 36 clockwise, 36 counterclockwise. I hope this helps a little.