Ascending Hexagrams

I was re-reading Language of the Lines by Nigel Richmond, and it occurred to me that the primary and secondary hexagrams (or any two hexagrams, for that matter) are linked by five overlapping hexagrams.  Below is an illustration applied to the two hexagrams at the right.  The second is drawn above the first, as if the lines were a continuous sequence.  I am calling the overlapping ones “ascending,” for obvious reasons.  (It sounds a little better than “the crawl.”)


   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
   
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 


The base hexagram:

40.  Deliverance

The five ascending hexagrams:

36.  Darkening of the Light
7.  The Army
24.  Return
23.  Splitting Apart
20.  Contemplation

The transformed hexagram:

45.  Gathering Together


One could include the moving lines in the ascending hexagrams, and branch off in multiple directions creating more and more hexagram pairs.  I have considered the lines to have already changed to form the second hexagram.  And the ascending hexagrams are potentially applicable to any two hexagrams, not just those resulting from moving lines.  Applied to a duplicate of a single hexagram, the ascending constitute the hexagram cycle described in Edward Hacker’s I Ching Handbook, and are reminiscent of the evolutionary hexagrams described in Mondo Secter’s I Ching Handbook

I have added the ascending hexagrams to The Virtual Yarrow Stalks I Ching.


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