Yang-Yang-Yang-Yin
The yang breath circles the spirit and returns to the start.
Things follow on, kind after kind.
1
Back to the heart of heaven,
claiming a virtue not yours.
The center extends no pardon.
2
Set the pivot at the middle.
A circle has no corner.
What turns must turn on something fixed.
3
It goes out from me, it comes back into me.
This is the ladle that pours fortune both ways.
Fear it, and keep fearing it.
4
Belt-hook and sash fastened,
weighted with a ring of jade.
They bind themselves in their own ornament.
5
A hut set square in the earth,
a chariot of metal drawn up beside it.
The warning is that things change.
6
Trust that goes all the way round.
It reaches heaven and passes through.
Nothing was left on the far side.
7
Glutted on plenty, they catch sight of their own crowd.
They circle back into the fog.
They cannot follow where they are led.
8
The return misses the body and passes outside.
The harm does not go deep.
The blow lands on the coat.
9
A circuit that comes back to mourning.
Some abandon the road here.
The road had already ended.
THE IMAGE
The cosmic bronze celestial pivot anchored on an immovable axis mountain, with an unbroken circular ouroboros qi-stream revolving through heaven and earth.
COMMENTARY
Something is coming back around. A situation you thought had moved on may be returning in another form, or you may find yourself facing the consequences of an earlier choice, habit, promise, or relationship. Do not assume that repetition means nothing has changed. A return can reveal what was hidden the first time.
The important question is what remains fixed while everything else turns. Without a center, recurrence becomes a loop; with one, the same ground can be travelled differently. Look for the principle, commitment, or truth that gives the cycle its meaning.
Circuit also asks you to notice what you are carrying forward. Some things deserve renewal; others have already completed their course. The wisdom here lies in recognizing the difference between a genuine return and an inability to let an ending be an ending.
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.