Yarrow Stalks I Ching

Yarrow stalk divination is the classical method of consulting the I Ching, predating the simpler three-coin method by centuries and still used by practitioners who value its meditative depth and its more nuanced probability distribution. The method involves fifty dried stalks of yarrow (Achillea millefolium), set aside for divination use, and a careful process of dividing and counting that is repeated six times to generate the six lines of a hexagram.

The practice is slow by design. Where casting three coins takes a moment, generating a hexagram by the yarrow method takes twenty to forty minutes of quiet, rhythmic work. This extended engagement is not a disadvantage but the central feature of the practice: the time spent counting and sorting is itself a form of moving meditation, and the question asked of the oracle is held in the mind throughout.

History and origins

The I Ching, the Book of Changes, is one of the oldest texts in continuous use in the world. Its origins are layered and debated: the hexagram system is traditionally attributed to the legendary figure Fu Xi, the line commentaries to King Wen of the Zhou dynasty in the eleventh century BCE, and the philosophical elaborations of the Ten Wings to Confucius or his school. Modern scholarship places the formation of the received text in the late Zhou and early Han periods, but the divinatory use of the hexagrams extends to at least the Shang dynasty, roughly 1600 to 1046 BCE, based on archaeological evidence.

The yarrow stalk method is described in detail in the Xicizuan, one of the Ten Wings philosophical appendices to the I Ching text, which suggests it was the established method by at least the fourth century BCE. The three-coin method developed later, probably during the Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE), as a faster alternative. The coin method gained wider adoption in the West following the publication of Richard Wilhelm’s influential German translation in 1923 and its subsequent English translation in 1950 by Cary Baynes, which used coin instructions. Many Western practitioners who discovered the I Ching through Wilhelm subsequently learned the yarrow stalk method as they deepened their practice.

Yarrow itself is not arbitrary in this context. The plant (Achillea millefolium) is named for Achilles in Greek tradition, who is said to have used it to stanch wounds, and it has a long association with healing, protection, and divination across multiple cultures. In Chinese folk tradition, yarrow was understood to be a plant of spiritual power, growing at sacred sites and concentrated by long attention to the patterns of heaven and earth.

A method you can use

You will need fifty dried yarrow stalks of roughly equal length (between 25 and 40 cm), a flat, quiet surface, and a copy of the I Ching for interpretation. Prepare your space quietly, hold your question clearly in mind, and work without distraction.

Preparation. Set aside one stalk from the fifty. This stalk is placed to the side and not used in the counting process; it represents the supreme ultimate, the whole, and is returned at the end. You now have forty-nine active stalks.

Generating one line (repeat six times for a complete hexagram).

Step 1: First division. Hold all forty-nine stalks loosely in both hands. Without counting, divide them into two random groups, one in each hand. Place the right-hand group on the table. Take one stalk from the right-hand group and place it between the ring finger and little finger of your left hand. This represents the observer.

Step 2: Count the left group. Count off the stalks in your left hand in groups of four, setting each group aside. When you reach a remainder, place it between your middle and ring fingers. The remainder will be 1, 2, 3, or 4. If you count out exactly, count four as your remainder.

Step 3: Count the right group. Count the right-hand pile in groups of four in the same way. Place the remainder between your index and middle fingers. The remainder of the right group will be the complement that makes the left and the inserted stalk add up to either 5 or 9.

Step 4: Note the total. Gather the three held remainders (the inserted stalk, the left remainder, and the right remainder). Their sum will be either 5 or 9. Set these stalks aside in a separate pile. Take all the remaining stalks (40 or 44) and recombine them for the second operation.

Second and third operations. Repeat the division and counting process twice more with the recombined stalks. On the second and third operations, the remainders will sum to either 4 or 8.

Determining the line value. After three operations, you have three piles of set-aside stalks. Count the total stalks set aside: 13, 17, 21, or 25. Subtract from the starting number (49) to find how many stalks remain. Divide the remaining stalks by four:

• 9 groups of 4 (36 stalks): an old yang line, a nine, drawn as an unbroken line with a circle. This is a changing line.
• 8 groups of 4 (32 stalks): a young yin line, an eight, drawn as a broken line.
• 7 groups of 4 (28 stalks): a young yang line, a seven, drawn as an unbroken line.
• 6 groups of 4 (24 stalks): an old yin line, a six, drawn as a broken line with an X. This is a changing line.

Record this line, then recombine all forty-nine stalks and repeat the entire three-operation process five more times to generate all six lines of the hexagram, building from the bottom line upward.

In practice

Once you have all six lines, identify your hexagram in the I Ching using the upper and lower trigrams. If any lines are changing (sixes or nines), read both the primary hexagram and the transformed hexagram produced by changing those lines to their opposites.

The interpretation is the beginning of the real work. The I Ching speaks in images and situations rather than directives, and its wisdom typically requires sitting with the text, comparing it to the question, and allowing understanding to develop over time. Many practitioners journal their readings, noting the question, the hexagram or hexagrams generated, and their initial response, then returning to add further thoughts as the situation unfolds.

The yarrow stalk method, with its extended, meditative process, tends to produce a quality of engagement that makes this interpretive work feel natural. By the time the hexagram is generated, the question has been held in mind for nearly half an hour, and the mind is prepared for the kind of patient, receptive reading the I Ching rewards.