Enthusiasm

Wooden sculpture of hexagram 16 of the I Ching: by Julien Signolet

This hexagram represents “Thunder breaking from the earth”

Julien is the partner of Gina who organises my courses for Shiatsu practitioners on maternity care  in Paris. He is a sculpteur and his current project is to make sculputures of the 64 hexagrams of the I ching.

http://signolet.wix.com/sculpteur#!__yi

I threw the I Ching in his studio and it came up with this hexagram. He made the sculpture from an old elm from the Pere La chaise cemetery in Paris.

I love the idea that a tree which has grown in a grave yard and bore witness to the many souls which have passed through, finds a new life in the essence of the I Ching.

Each hexagram is made up of two triagrams: in this one the lower triagram is the earth and the upper is thunder. This symbolises that the power which fuels new growth is above the earth: creative energy is free and storming through the world.  The thunderstorm refreshes nature and brings joy and relief; enthusiasm. This is often expressed as music, song, dance or rhythmic movement of the body. Music was considered holy and used as a way to connect not only with the sacred but also the energy of the ancestors.

The I Ching is referred to as a book of divination and a foundation Chinese text. Chinese medicine in essence is based on our connection with nature and the many different aspects of the combinations of Yin and Yang: contraction/expansion.  The I ching is essentially the base of Chinese medicine, representing as it does different possible Yin Yang combination and their effects. Yin is represented by a broken line and Yang by a straight line.