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MEI HUA · COURSE 2 · LESSON 1 FREE
Mei Hua · Images
Ten lessons that turn a cast into one concrete sentence: correspondences, mutual and changed trigrams, Later-Heaven casting, omens, timing, fifteen topic verdicts and other ways to cast, with eight classic cases, twelve practice casts and six tools you keep. Take Principles first.
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About 10 min
The plum-viewing case: reading “a girl, a broken branch, a hurt leg”
Free sample. The most famous Mei Hua cast, and what principles alone cannot say.
ONE THING TO REMEMBER
Principles say good or bad; images say who, what and where. Put trigram correspondences into Body/Use and the mutual and changed trigrams, and a cast becomes a concrete picture.
Two sparrows fight over a branch and fall
The method takes its name from this cast. The book says Shao Yong was looking at plum blossom at the Shen hour on the 17th of the twelfth month in a Chen year when two sparrows fought over a branch and fell. He said a line that has been quoted ever since:
Mei Hua Yi Shu: the plum-viewing case
不動不占，不因事不占。
No movement, no cast; no occasion, no cast.
Do not cast for nothing. Sparrows falling out of a tree is unusual: something moved, so there is something to read. Lesson 5 comes back to this rule.
From the year, month, day and hour
This is the date-and-hour casting from course 1, lesson 2:
- UpperChen year 5 + month 12 + day 17 = 34, ÷ 8 leaves 2 → Dui
- Lower34 + Shen hour 9 = 43, ÷ 8 leaves 3 → Li
- Moving43 ÷ 6 leaves 1 → Line 1
Ge (Revolution), Line 1 moving; mutual Gou (Xun below, Qian above), changed Xian.
- Body
- Dui (Metal)hostthe still trigram: the asker, or the subject asked about
- Use
- Li (Fire)presses Bodythe trigram with the moving line: the matter
- Mutual lower
- Xun (Wood)Body controls itthe middle
- Mutual upper
- Qian (Metal)same phasethe middle
- Changed Use
- Gen (Earth)feeds Bodythe end
How far principles alone can go
By the five steps: Body is Dui (Metal), Use is Li (Fire); Fire controls Metal, so the subject is harmed. The mutual Xun (Wood) feeds that Fire and makes it worse. But at the end Use turns from Li into Gen, and Gen-Earth feeds Dui-Metal.
So principles give: “there will be an injury, but it ends without real danger.” Right direction, yet nothing about who, how, or where.
How Shao Yong read it
Mei Hua Yi Shu: the plum-viewing case
明日晚當有女子折花……幸而變為艮土，兌金得土有生意。
Tomorrow evening a young woman will break off blossom … Fortunately it changes to Gen-Earth; Dui-Metal, fed by Earth, has life in it.
The book goes on: the gardener, not knowing who it was, chased her; she fell in fright and hurt her thigh. It happened the next evening. Each detail has a place in the cast:
| Detail | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| A young woman | Body is Dui, the “youngest daughter” of the family of eight. |
| Injury | Use Li-Fire controls Body Dui-Metal, and the mutual Xun-Wood feeds the Fire. |
| The thigh | The mutual holds Xun, which is the thigh on the body; Xun-Wood is cut by the Metal of both Qian and Dui. |
| Not serious | Use changes to Gen-Earth, which feeds Metal: Body is rescued. |
| Breaking blossom | The cast arose from looking at plum blossom; Dui also means “breaking off”. |
To be honest: not every word has a formula
The book does not explain how “tomorrow evening” or “the gardener” were derived; later explanations are after the fact. This course teaches only what the book spells out and you can repeat: correspondences, the mutual and changed trigrams, omens and timing rules, and it says how reliable each one is.
Turning that table into your own skill
| Lessons 2–3 | Trigram correspondences: people, body, temper, animals, objects, directions, colours, numbers, with a lookup tool you can keep using. |
|---|---|
| Lesson 4 | Reading the mutual and changed trigrams as “middle” and “end”, and why “Body controls Use” can still be bad. |
| Lesson 5 | Later-Heaven casting: turning a person or thing you see into a cast. |
| Lesson 6 | Omens: using what you see and hear at the moment of casting. |
| Lesson 7 | Timing: roughly when it happens, three methods and how far to trust them. |
| Lesson 8 | Verdicts for fifteen kinds of question (money, marriage, travel, lost things, illness …) and a seven-step reading. |
| Lesson 9 | More ways to cast: characters, sounds, measurements, casting for others and yourself, and what not to cast from. |
| Lesson 10 | Practice: twelve everyday casts you read yourself, from Body and Use to images and timing, then compare with a reference reading. |
Principles give good or bad; images give who, what and where.
Plum case: Body Dui is a girl, mutual Xun is the thigh, changed Gen-Earth rescues Body.
No movement, no cast; no occasion, no cast.
Try it now
5 small points in this lesson; get each right once and you pass. A miss is fine: it comes back two questions later, asked a new way.