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Calculating your Birth Day Hexagram

1. Write out your birthdate as a string. i.e. 01151962 for January (01) 15th, 1962
2. Add up the sequence of numbers i.e. 0+1+1+5+1+9+6+2=25
3. If the resulting number has more than one digit, add that sequence i.e. 2+5=7
4. The top trigram is based on this number, find the associate trigram name below:

Trigrams

1. Li / Fire
2. K’un / Earth
3. Chen / Thunder
4. Sun / Wind
5. if male - K’un / Earth
6. if female - K’en / Mountain
7. Ch’ien / Heaven
8. K’en / Mountain
9. K’an / Rain

5. To get the lower trigram, look up your date of birth in this chart:

6. Lastly find your top (Upper) and bottom (Lower)  trigrams on the chart below to find the number of your Birth Day hexagram.  Google your hexagram i.e. Hexagram 11 to find interpretations.

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I Ching

I spent all weekend looking at the I Ching. This isn’t the first time I’ve dabbled with it and it probably won’t be the last.

Although the interpretations have always seemed vague and rather outdated, I’m very attracted to the idea that these binary (On-Off, Yin-Yang) patterns underlie both things and concepts.

I’m working with a light weight book from the library called something like I-Ching Birthdays. Based on the numerology of the birthdate, a hexagram is built that is supposed to represent one’s basic personality. I did mine and many other peoples who I know fairly well and found the results accurate but not all inclusive. That’s just what I’d expect from a system based just on the birth date. The advantage is that unlike astrology you don’t need the location of birth and exact time of birth - data that’s often hard to locate. As such I could also do famous people like C.G. Jung - just by knowing his birthdate.

Speaking of which, this whole renewed interest of mine in the I-Ching was brought on by a recent obsession with Carl Jung. I’m almost done with his “Personality Types” and “Answer to Job” both amazing books. Personality Types is the groundwork for the Meyers Briggs Personality system and reveals so much that is helpful to an introvert like me. I suddenly “get” where the many extroverts who I’ve never understood and who don’t understand me are coming from. I see how I come across to an extrovert - something really hard to do unless someone else walks you through it.

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