Divination by Planets
DIVINATION BY PLANETS:
To divine a hexagram by astrology, one needs to have a horoscope, or a computer program that will calculate it, or access to the web where a chart can be run off. A free chart can be run off at www.astrodeinst.com
In the horoscope, instead of a question we have planets with their respective natures and functions. A question will have the nature of or be concerned with the affairs of a specific planet. Where the planet is in the horoscope and its circumstances will determine the answer to the question. The sign will affect the attitude of the planet. The astrological house will reveal the circumstances of the planet. The aspects to it from the other planets, the sun or moon, will show you how much stress or tension is affecting that planet. From these factors a planetary function will be favourable or unfavourable.
The horoscope is a map of consciousness, a DNA of the soul’s incarnation. This DNA includes genetic distinctions as well as personal emotional qualities, character traits and behavioural tendencies.
It is as if time stops the moment we take our first breath (The great beginning!) Where the sun, moon and planets are at that moment become set in the circle of heaven as a map or fingerprint for each person. At the moment we are born we are pure potential. The horoscope is the map of that potential.
It works much like an alarm is set on a clock. There are however ten main alarms: one for the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in this celestial clock. The patterns and distance or closeness between these alarms shows the basic pattern and flow of one’s life, in a manner similar to that of a player-piano. This pattern will repeat every time the world turns around. This initial pattern, like our fingertips, becomes the measure and the map of our potentials and our destiny.
This is the map of the seed moment of our life. At this first breath we are pure potential. Everything we will do in our life is already set in our potentials. How much of our potentials we actualize is quite another story.
The celestial map of this moment of our first breath is the map of our character and our potentials within the signs in the heavens (the zodiac), the lines on the earth (the houses) and all the movements under heaven. With its help we can speak of all the confused diversities under heaven without arousing aversion and with its help we may even assist the gods themselves. This is one of the definitions of the I Ching in the Great Treatise. It is also the definition of astrology and the horoscope.
This takes us to the natal horoscope of the moment one is born. Let us now refer to it as a map of consciousness, or a measurement of our great beginning.
The zodiac with its twelve signs measures the changing ratio of day to night (light and darkness) across the year, and by this ratio and the sequence of the hexagrams, specific meanings and qualities of each are determined.
Think of the I Ching as a zodiac of 64 divisions instead of twelve. It still measures the changing ratio of light and darkness (day and night) across the year, and by this ratio and the sequence of the hexagrams, specific meanings and qualities of each hexagram are determined.
In astrology the planets move through the signs of the zodiac and are influenced accordingly. In the I Ching the planets move through the hexagrams and are influenced accordingly. Each hexagram occupies six degrees of the zodiac. Eight hexagrams overlap. Each place or line of a hexagram occupies one degree.
The position of a planet in a line of a hexagram puts a special emphasis on that line. (The equivalent of a changing line.) It becomes active or passive within the theme of the hexagram. This correspondence between astrology and the I Ching is like an eastern Rosetta stone for astrological glyphs and ciphers. It opens up vast new areas of psychological and mystical insight, and it reveals a new way of looking at Chinese history, and the development of literacy on the planet.
Each planet in a horoscope represents a different level of consciousness and a different function. The planets in our horoscope are set for our entire life: from the great beginning to the end. Instead of asking a question to the I Ching, these planets make a statement about how we function and live our lives. They affirm our personal character and potentials and they reveal the challenges of a lifetime.
The hexagram a planet is in reveals a special bias or influence that will affect that planetary function and the corresponding experiences in our life. It can reveal the nature of energy divine and even help us to assist the gods themselves.
(Great Treatise, Chapter 9, #9: “It reveals Tao and renders nature and action divine. Therefore, with its help we can meet everything in the right way, and with its help we can even assist the gods themselves.”)
For a listing of planetary natures and functions.
This work, The Sequence of Change, presents the hexagrams in the order they take around the zodiac. This happens to be the same order as the original sequence of hexagrams in the time of Fu Hsi (3300 BC).
The messages in the hexagrams reveal the implications of change. The horoscopes reveal the circumstances of change and their implications. By adding the hexagrams to the usual planetary associations by sign, house and aspect, a vitally new sense of implications arise. (These new implications add the wisdom of China to that of India). This represents a quantum jump of insight and depth; a gauge by which new research on astrology and the I Ching can be compiled and presented.
Each planet’s function is coloured or biased by the sign of the zodiac it is in, expresses itself into the affairs of the house it is in, and does so easily or with difficulty according to the aspects made to it. The implications and relevance of this planetary function will be revealed by the hexagram and lines it is in!
There is a more detailed way of accessing the planets astrologically. See Astro-I Ching Study Guide.