Plum Blossom Numerology

Hold one question in mind, then cast a hexagram from this moment or from three numbers.

Your time zone

Sample cast: Plum Blossom Watching, from the classic

Revolution, moving toward Influence

Primary

The situation now

澤火革

49. Revolution

Gé

Nuclear

What lies inside it

天風姤

44. Coming To Meet

Gòu

Changed

Where it leads

澤山咸

31. Influence

Xián

Moving line 1

From the Book of Changes

Judgment · Revolution

已日乃孚，元亨。利貞。悔亡。

When the day has passed, there is trust. Great success. Steadiness pays. Regret fades.

Image

澤中有火，革；君子以治曆明時。

Fire within the lake. The noble person sets the calendar and makes the seasons clear.

Moving line · Line 1

鞏用黃牛之革。

Bound with the hide of a yellow ox.

Where it leads · Influence

亨。利貞。取女吉。

Success. Steadiness pays. Taking a wife brings good fortune.

The Chinese is checked against two classic editions. The English is our own modern version.

Body and Use

Body兌Lake · MetalYou, or the one who asks
Use離Fire · FireThe matter you ask about
Fire overcomes MetalUse overcomes Body

The matter presses on you. Tradition reads this as obstruction.

How this cast was made

  • Upper trigram: year 5 + month 12 + day 17 = 34. Divide by 8 and the remainder gives Lake.
  • Lower trigram: year 5 + month 12 + day 17 + hour 9 = 43. Divide by 8 and the remainder gives Fire.
  • Moving line: year 5 + month 12 + day 17 + hour 9 = 43. Divide by 6 and the remainder gives line 1.

Understanding Plum Blossom

Plum Blossom Numerology is a way of casting I Ching hexagrams from numbers, credited to the Song dynasty scholar Shao Yong. Legend says he once saw two sparrows fighting on a plum branch and read the omen from that moment, which gave the method its name.

How it is calculated

  1. Take the numbersUse the year branch, lunar month, lunar day and double hour, or three numbers of your own.
  2. Find the upper trigramDivide by 8. The remainder picks one of the eight trigrams.
  3. Find the lower trigramDivide a second total by 8 in the same way.
  4. Find the moving lineDivide the total by 6. The remainder picks the line that changes.
  5. Build the other hexagramsThe nuclear hexagram comes from the inner lines. Flipping the moving line gives the changed hexagram.

How to read it

  1. Find Body and UseThe trigram with the moving line is Use, the matter. The other is Body, the one who asks.
  2. Compare their elementsWhether one feeds or overcomes the other sets the main reading.
  3. Read the nuclear hexagramIt shows what is developing inside the situation.
  4. Read the changed hexagramIt suggests how things may end.

Our method

Year
The year number uses the lunar year's branch, so it changes at Chinese New Year.
Date
We use the calendar day on your clock, converted to the lunar calendar.
Hour
Double hours are numbered from Zi as 1 to Hai as 12. The 23:00 hour stays on the same day.
Remainders
A remainder of 0 counts as 8 for a trigram and 6 for a line.
Three numbers
The first gives the upper trigram, the second the lower, and all three added give the moving line.
Body and Use
We read out only the relation between them, using the wording of the tradition.

Common questions

Why does the result change when I cast again?

A time cast depends on the double hour, so it stays the same for up to two hours. Tradition says to ask once and reflect.

What are good numbers to use?

Tradition uses whatever presents itself: a count you notice or numbers that come to mind.

Does it give a yes or no?

It describes a situation in images. Treat it as a prompt for thinking, not as advice.

Is my question stored?

No. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.

Sources

  • 梅花易數 Mei Hua Yi Shu
  • 周易 Zhou Yi