About Consulting Change

The old character heng or fixing the omen shows a heart, a boat between two shores and the spiral path of the waxing moon. The imaginative perseverance it represents grows out of a real encounter with the symbols of Change, the inner ground that brings the blessings of the spirit.

Heng refers to creating rituals and symbols that fix a spirit influence so that its power and virtue (de) endures in the heart, solidifying our inner power and keeping harm away. The word is related to keng/moon, the path of the Moon and the old Moon Cult that read the Changes at key moments. It suggests the regular movement of a boat between two shores, the faithful heart, laws and habits, continuity in development. It sanctifies a center, like the circular furrow plowed around a new city, the rings that lovers share or the circle a shaman draws around a patient.

This imaginative practice fixes the experience of the spirit so that it can return again and again, changing the shape of the heart-mind into a self-contained and self-renewing whole.

A divinatory consultation is not predictive in a literal sense; rather, it helps you make the omens of Change an enduring part of your life. Confucius said: “It is said in Change: A person without heng will not succeed in working with the great symbols. How true! Not fixing the power and virtue of an omen will lead to failure. Just reading it is not enough.”