Yang-Yin-Rén-Yang
Yang crosses into yin, yin crosses into yang.
Things climb into the Hall of Light, brilliant and blazing.
1
He meets the spirits in the dark.
He keeps the fast without meaning it.
What he carries in is his own shame.
2
He meets them in the dark and is believed.
Brightness.
Good faith is what reaches that far.
3
He keeps company with wood and stone.
Nothing in them turns to face him.
Nothing in him turns to face a person.
4
Coming and going, warm and thick with smoke.
This is the door where things are got and lost.
Something walks the road beside him.
5
He keeps company with parrot and ape.
They talk, and nothing comes of it.
Bird and beast, and both from the same province.
6
The big pen stands wide, the small pen comes across.
I have good meat here; I will share it out with you.
The light in this is the waiting for someone worth it.
7
He keeps company with birds and rats.
The millet goes.
Nothing was bought with any of it.
8
Halberd and spear going back and forth.
Upright in it, and nothing to regret.
Some things cannot be put down.
9
He meets them in war and is not upright.
The city goes over, and the fiercer one eats.
How was this ever going to be finished?
THE IMAGE
Two celestial dragons (azure and golden) interlacing in harmonious cosmic dance above a tranquil mountain river confluence where two imperial trade barges meet, with ribbons of interwoven qi connecting heaven and earth.
THE COMMENTARY
You are not dealing with this situation alone. Two people, forces, interests, or worlds are meeting, and what happens between them now matters as much as what either one brings separately.
Interaction can create warmth, exchange, partnership, and mutual recognition, but contact by itself does not guarantee relationship. Some encounters remain superficial, some become transactional, and some awaken conflict that was already waiting beneath the surface.
The oracle asks you to examine the quality of the exchange. Is there genuine responsiveness? Is something being shared, changed, or understood? Where the meeting is real, both sides become more than they were alone; where it is false, proximity only exposes the distance between them.
This figure is one of 81 in Taixuanjing for Today, a book by Joe Perez that renders Yang Xiong’s Canon of Supreme Mystery in original verse, with expanded commentary, essays, and full instructions for casting the oracle yourself.