peripathetic

Run up against a mental roadblock? Just I Ching it. :o)
The I Ching, pronounced "Yi Jing", (also called "Chou I", or "Zhou Yi") is a Chinese book of 64 sections (Hexagrams) which was written in its earliest form many thousands of years ago. Some new-age people say it's for fortune-telling, an unfortunate climbdown from its original, and best, use as a divinatory text. Divination isn't fortune-telling. The I Ching won't tell you your future. But if you're looking for a new angle from which to approach your problems, successes, worries, normal life, it will certainly give you that.

How?

Divination is really an act of arriving at a suggestion of a kind through focused thinking. That's all. Something which will give you a new angle, or maybe just a way of seeing things that will illuminate your thinking a bit more.

To be simple about it: there are 64 sections in the book. Each section is identified by a discrete grouping of 6 horizontal lines - solid, broken, or a mixture - placed one above the other. The solid lines represent Yang (strength, action, solidity) and the broken lines Yin (openness, passivity, flexibility).

Each line is chosen by you, but you don't draw the lines. You arrive at a whole or broken line by having a corresponding number, and you arrive at that number by throwing coins, dividing sticks, throwing dice - to introduce equal probability and ensure an unbiased result. When you've got one line, you repeat the process again, and again, until you have 6 lines.

Anyway, those six lines: each group of six lines points to one chapter of the book. Any given chapter is made up of very simple, general sentences, expressed in terms of change, movement, stillness, resistance, etc. They provide general context. They are nothing in themselves.

But if you, as a person, have been thinking about your conundrum or whatever in an open-minded way for a good 20-30 minutes while throwing your coins or dividing your stalks or whatever, it's highly likely that when you arrive at your chapter and start reading, you'll be open to suggestions. Your focused thinking will make the text you are reading seem astonishingly, and I do MEAN astonishingly!, relevant to your question. It's not trying to lure you in or go behind your back - but a way of focusing your thinking in a different way.

It's as much psychological as anything else. There are resources here and here. Want a copy? Buy a real paper copy; there's nothing better. I'd recommend this one, and this one.