← Casting a Gua

If you already understand the coin method, you already understand the reading. The yarrow-stalk method still creates one line at a time, beginning with Line 1 at the bottom and building upward to Line 6. Each finished line is still a 6, 7, 8, or 9; 6 and 9 are still moving lines; and changing those lines still produces the resulting gua.

The difference is only in how each number is produced. With coins, you throw three coins together and add their values. With yarrow stalks, you reach the same four possible line values through a slower ritual of dividing a bundle and repeatedly counting by fours. Each line requires three rounds of dividing and counting, so a complete six-line gua requires 18 counting rounds.

The stalk method weights 6, 7, 8, and 9 somewhat differently from the three-coin method, but everything you learned about stable lines, moving lines, the primary gua, and the resulting gua still applies.

What you need

The traditional method begins with 50 yarrow stalks. Sets prepared specifically for Yi Jing casting can be found online. If historical atmosphere is not important to you, any fifty reasonably uniform, thin sticks will work, provided they are long enough to handle comfortably and narrow enough that you can hold the bundle together in one hand.

Make one line

1. Start with all 50 stalks. Set one stalk aside. It remains unused for the entire casting, leaving 49 working stalks.
2. Divide the 49 working stalks into two piles without carefully counting the split.
3. Take one stalk from the right-hand pile and hold it aside.
4. Count the left pile in groups of four until only 1, 2, 3, or 4 stalks remain. Put that remainder with the single stalk you are holding.
5. Count the right pile in groups of four in the same way and add its remainder to the stalks you are holding.
6. On this first change, the little group you have set aside will total either 5 or 9 stalks. Leave those out and gather the remaining working stalks together.
7. Repeat the same divide-and-count process two more times. On the second and third changes, the group removed will be either 4 or 8 stalks.

After the third change, the number of working stalks left will be 24, 28, 32, or 36. Divide that number by four to get the value of the line:

Record the number and draw the line just as you did with coins. Then gather all 49 working stalks back together and perform the three changes again for the next line. Repeat until you have built all six lines from bottom to top. The one stalk set aside at the beginning remains outside the working bundle throughout.

The odds are a little different

The stalk method and the coin method both produce the same four line values, and in either method a line has an overall one-in-four chance of being a moving line. They distribute the individual values differently:

A three-coin cast compresses the decision for a line into a few seconds. The yarrow method stretches that decision into a small ritual: divide, count, gather, and repeat three times before a single line emerges. The slowness is part of the experience.

From here, use the coin instructions

Once all six numbers are written down, nothing else is different. Use the Coin Method explanation to identify the lower and upper trigrams, find the primary gua, read the moving lines, change the 6s and 9s, and find the resulting gua.