THE FIVE PHASES · LESSON 7 OF 7 · 14 MIN
The Sovereign Hexagrams and the Tide of the Year
The twelve hexagrams the Han scholars set over the months — yang returning at the winter solstice and climbing a line a month to the Creative, yin coming in at midsummer — the 'hexagram breaths' of Meng Xi and Jing Fang, and how to read the year's tide.
Open the I Ching tool's tide of the year and you will see twelve hexagrams in a ring, the whole lines rising through them month by month like a flood and ebbing again. These are the sovereign hexagrams, bìguà — the "ruler" hexagrams, each governing a month — and they are the Book of Changes turned into a calendar.