Taixuanjing for Today is a forthcoming book by Joe Perez. When it is released, we will announce it here on the blog.
This site is the book’s online companion. It presents a working draft (version 0.9) of the poem: original renderings of the head texts and all 729 appraisals of Yang Xiong’s Taixuanjing, with short commentary on each figure. The printed book will contain the final text, and much more.
What the book will include
- The full poem. The complete text of Joe Perez’s rendering of the Taixuanjing, revised and finalized for print.
- Expanded commentary. Longer, more detailed commentary on each tetragram and its appraisals, written for readers who want to use the oracle, not just read it.
- Essays on Yang Xiong’s work. A few essays to place the Taixuanjing in context: who Yang Xiong was, what he was answering in the Yijing, and how his ternary system orders the year and the human life.
- Instructions for divination. A complete method for casting and reading the oracle, from building the tetragram to choosing the appraisal and interpreting what it says.
Until then, the draft text is here to read, to contemplate, and to cast with.