A student with some experience from divining with the I Ching will soon realize that some calculated birth hexagrams seem utterly incomprehensible. The traditional meanings ascribed to them and even more the so-called judgment texts just don't seem to fit the facts. Sometimes even another line than the one assigned the birth hour appears to fit better. This would indicate either that the system has no connection with reality OR that we have failed to grasp the true message. The present author has realized the judgments appended to each of the 64 symbols cannot automatically be used as a reliable indication as to what behavior or type of personality to expect. Those having a copy of Sherrill & Chu's "Astrology of I Ching," the only book presenting this method in English, have probably come to a similar conclusion.

Let's take the famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a case in point since his birth hexagram happens be one of those fairly common among celebrities. On its literal level an unfavorable situation in the parental home is vaguely indicated, but the judgment text focuses rather on remedying the deteriorated state. It is one of those hexagrams using a social theme for its symbolic directions - how the offspring must in their own way of life compensate or make good where the parents faltered, either because of sickness, old age or some other reason. It has, so to speak, to do with restoring the family name and honor. This is hexagram number 18, Ku, a title which in Richard Wilhelm's translation was given as "Work on what has been Spoiled." Mozart was born to the fourth line (counting from the bottom).

The trigrams are Kên, "Keeping Still" on top of Sun, "Penetration", or, in terms of their manifestations in nature: the mountain obstructing the free movement of air so that the latter is thrown back upon itself. One key to this combination is to think of complex and turbulent air patterns and then connect this phenomenon to air as an equivalent to mind processes and also their expression in various ways.

Something blocked by "the mountain" and not managing to break free would of course be spoiled over time (analogously, the complexity of the air turbulence would break down the pattern of the initial gust of wind). An example would be a group of settlers locked inside an isolated mountain range and over time becoming inbred by intermarriage. However, I Ching's authors used another image: "ku," a character showing worms breeding in food left on a plate, and translations like "corruption" or "decay" is much to the point. The I Ching, as mentioned, promptly recommends getting on top of this progressive worsening of the matter, cleaning out the old in order to introduce something new. For this advice the text repeatedly mentions "worm eaten parents." How is one then to interpret such symbols when approaching this astrology. Literally? No, and I have already hinted at one type of allegorization of the trigrams by taking their reciprocal action as relating to some peculiarity of the mental (air) processes of the person in question. This wind thrown back upon itself may in fact be an important indication of Mozart's way of thinking if not genius!

From what I have gathered, Mozart's father Leopold is in fact a key - if not THE key - to the enigmatic composer and not only helping by him along and introducing his considerable talents to the world. Young Wolfgang seems to have been suffering from OCD, obsessive compulsory disorder and the father kindly obliged with his son's demand for excessive bedtime rituals, repeated time after time, until little Wolfgang felt everything was to his satisfaction.

Mozart's very eccentric personality as a grown-up has also led to the theory that he might have had a rather severe type of Tourette's syndrome, not only causing ticks, spells of acute boredom and the ensuing restlessness but also to his obsession with excrements and speaking dirty words, even to the point of setting the finest music to some extremely coarse texts! It has been pointed out that even in his surviving love letters the language is totally appropriate. An article (there are several on the Internet) concerning Mozart's possible condition is to be found following this link (opens in a new window).

I do not want to stress this sordid point unduly, but look again at the image giving name to the hexagram: it really is about the decomposition and decay of food! The digestive process and resulting eliminations are not far away from this image. With obvious delight the Chinese character "ku" presents us with the miniscule happenings in the rotting remnants of food by including three small worms in the written sign! This is really not far from Mozart's obvious delight in bringing up and giving voice to all those little details normally glossed over in his day. Could we generalize and take that this hexagram indicates a fixation on "excrements" understood as the waste products from any manufacturing process? This is of course highly speculative and at this point only a suggestion.

In his adult profession, the composer did not settle for one employer but became an itinerant, a traveler from court to court writing his music. Obviously a very freedom longing spirit, he all too soon began to feel restrained and from within was urged to move on.

To what extent, then, does hexagram Ku give a hint of this highly gifted but extremely complex personality and life beyond a possible indication of some very complex mental processes?

Sherrill was clearly theorizing heavily, using the judgments texts as if they were matter of fact statements when penning a very brief characterization to each hexagram and each of its six lines. Concerning the fourth line of Ku, he said:

"Tolerating troubles caused by the father. Weakness in going forward. Humiliation."

The controlling line here is a weak line in a weak position, indicating that these persons have neither the strength nor the ability to correct the decay and corruption (ku) they see. Such persons are wise enough to discern difficulties and errors, and may bring them to the attention of others. They will talk about them freely, but cannot shoulder their own responsibility in connection with them. They are mentally, morally, and physically weak and lazy. They let things run their own course if others do not take action.
 
(Astrology of I Ching, page 173, Routledge Kegan & Paul 1976)

Sherrill ends by predicting "no major achievements" verging on the inability to handle any larger enterprise. Now, one may argue he did find a grain of truth just by reading line four's judgment literally (while in I Ching's original use as a guide to action the line was only meant to serve as a warning)! Mozart certainly suffered the inability to contain his farts, stop the excess use of foul verbiage and the many other strange manners. In talking about being weak and lazy, the author does touch upon a similar type of personality, one that could easily be described as simply immature and childish. If the theory about Tourette's syndrome is correct, Sherrill's reading a "fact" into the warning of the line judgment is really very good!

But the reading still fails since it does not notice the presence of genius, nor take into account that certain amount of success Mozart did after all enjoy in his own time. However ill at ease at the various courts where he performed, at least he got himself gigs. A strange but fully possible interpretation remains, namely that the father did not try to come to terms with Wolfgang's compulsive disorders when he has small, but rather nourished them by letting the child continue in his perfectionist mind-set, thereby allowing the growth of what became a very eccentric mind. Then the young man goes out into the world, naturally not caring to "correct what degeneracy the father allowed to creep in" since he was now accustomed to farting and nourishing unbridled fantasies. One might say that the survival of a creative genius into adult life is society's loss of a well-adjusted individual!

Thinking a bit more about this scenario - what does it say about the original judgments of I Ching? That they recommend each and every one to weed out unhealthy processes so that each and every one would be a socially well-adjusted person totally devoid of originality? If so, it's very typical of traditional China's de-emphasizing the individual's contribution and emphasizing the glory and normative power of the tradition. There raged fierce academic battles over how classic music should sound in ancient China and it is easy to imagine that Mozart's hexagram would in that time and circumstance have been looked upon as a "perverter of traditional values." But perhaps this is just excessive interpreting.

As for Mozart's constant traveling because of being bored and feeling choked by his employers so quickly, again notice the trigrams of wind (travel, movement, homecoming) being blocked by the mountain. It indicates an impediment in these matters. (And a major issue, because of being a permissible interpretation of the birth hexagram.) Mountain above, that is, in front of the trigram of "homecoming" may therefore be interpreted just as "not reaching the feeling of having brought it (or oneself) home." Here we see a possible representation of young Mozart's compulsive behavior, his need to repeat things over and over again just to get it right. We already noted this earlier in the guise of complex mental processes.

I know several non-famous cases with the same tendency of restlessly starting over again all over the place only to be thrown back because of some obstacle or physical and restricting factor ("the mountain") which interactively changed their way of approach. I am not saying any one of them were stupid but wind "attacking" the unassailable mountain surely indicates an almost scientific wish to experiment and try out one's ideas against the matter in hand (the mountain = the matter).

In "wind thrown back upon itself by the mountain" we thus see a mentality testing its ideas against the "perfect and accomplished form of the mountain!" The upper trigram indicates perfection and initially the wind is less than perfect - the trigram is constituted by having a single dark Yin line at the very bottom. Sun, the wind, is therefore connected with the act of refining but is in itself from the beginning unable to measure up to the paradigmatic "vision" or "role model" of the mountain. No wonder the trigram Kên, mountain, is so excessively common among actors; this profession certainly has to do with concentrating on a role (a still mountain, a paradigm) and bringing it to life!

Obviously the fourth line is no exception to the general symbolism of the hexagram. After all, following the bent of this passive Yin line to become roused and transformed into active Yang brings us to the royal courts of the world - just the place where we may enjoy banquets with great bronze vessels on display! (See hexagram 50, The Bronze Caldron). Mozart may very well be the world's most famous case of the fourth line of Ku, opening up to the Bronze Vessel and its magic transformative power. It is very fitting to see him arrive among the very privileged sitting around the Caldron, by means of the hexagram of a "spoiled rotten course served with worms creeping in the food!" (This is all thinking on a symbolic level.) Maybe the courts in Europe wanted this farting prankster and his music as one complete package of hilarious fun and amusement? Perhaps, after all those who theorize about this or that syndrome is taking their serious medical approach much too far; being a all too down-to-earth to see how Mozart perhaps made use of every trick in HIS book to stay on top as an entertainer?

Or, on a more serious note, it should be noted that before embarking on his new career as manager of his son's traveling one man show, Leopold was a court musician himself, earning a meager salary. In this sense there is a most literal aspect of Wolfgang's birth symbol Ku as it relates to the offspring taking over the affairs of the ageing (ku = decaying) father. Only in this case it appears the father's pride in his talented son went hand in hand with the idea of improving his own life and finances by means of the son.

Did this opportunity to manage the son and see the world for himself prevent him, as a father, from adapting his methods of upbringing as the "wonder kid" grew older? (Correspondence shows Wolfgang's mother did not attempt to correct her son's use of coarse language.) Did in fact the father stifle and block Wolfgang's further psychological development like the communicative wind in this hexagram is blocked by a mountain in front, a mountain that does in this case not point the young one to the further development available beyond itself (which is what a true eastern guru, also symbolized by the mountain, would have done)? From surviving letters it is known there were fierce power struggles between father and son, the son craving independence. The wind and the obstructing mountain again...

Whenever the trigram of the mountain appears, we are to expect some kind of formalism or something acting as a focal point, a guiding star, a vision towards which to strive. Did or did not Wolfgang outgrow his "spiritual advisor," his father and manager? Is the transformation of the weak Yin in the fourth place, leading to The Caldron, to be taken as affirmative of that? Is this Wolfgang's own progression in life or the wish-fulfillment of the father? Was Sherrill after all in the right? Is line four too weak to change his own destiny; is the bronze vessel (hexagram 50) rather the father's wish-fulfillment in moving from a simpler plate with crummy remnants of food (relative poverty as a permanent court musician) to a golden lifestyle? Then indeed Wolfgang was too weak to "stop the father's degeneracy" imputed to himself. Food for thought!

One way to solve the problem of whether or not to read the judgment texts of I Ching literally to obtain clues to the personality - as opposed to the obvious method of analyzing the trigrams involved and also what new hexagram lies in wait when or if the controlling line changes - one alternative way is to find other real-world cases to compare with. After having calculated a little more than 400 celebrities with birth dates published on serious astrology sites on the Internet - of course realizing that this does not guarantee the accuracy of the data - I have come up with only three names apart from Mozart's belonging to hexagram 18 and its fourth line.

As the method itself favors some hexagrams more than others (and will never produce numbers 30 and 58 as a birth pattern), this is in itself says nothing. And 400 cases is a much too small sample for establishing anything statistically significant. Still, those three other cases each do provide a means for comparison. Cases in point are the American actors James Spader, the late great Jack Lemmon and Anne Heche, whose claim to fame may ultimately have been because of figuring in one of the most publicized lesbian relationships in the US and her subsequent period of personal crisis, later commented upon and defended in the book "Call Me Crazy."

I find it at least mildly amusing that Spader hardly has been featured in any production (as far as I am aware of) that has not, as far as his part is concerned, involved a large amount of sexual overtones and/or general nastiness of a kind not dissimilar to Mozart's personality type! That is, a constant infringement of other persons demarcation lines. One only has to think of how much Spader seemed to enjoy playing the low-minded and lusty werewolf fatally attracted to Michelle Pfeiffer's character in "Wolf." I first noticed him in 1989's "Sex, Lies and Videotape" and every time he has come to my notice it has been when cast as a sex pervert, corrupt or insidious type! Lately, he's been immensely entertaining (I am a fan of his talents, make no mistake about that!) in the TV series "Boston Legal" as a sex-craving, totally amoral lawyer. What makes a person select his public persona in this way, via these types of part? As a sublimating outlet for some very real personal forces? Could this idea then be applied to Mozart too? And what is a Yin Yang horoscope about in any way? Is the inner the same as the manifested outside (like behavior or the chosen path in life)? As mentioned in many places, this system poses more questions than it answers and therefore is very good mental gymnastics!

Moving down the small list, Jack Lemmon - about whom I knew nothing prior to writing this - always seemed a nice enough person, often seen in very "clean" roles on the silver screen. In fact, he played "Mr. Everyman" over and over during his long and illustrious career. Again a case indicating that Sherrill wrote his predictions from his desk, not bothering to collect live data . Hexagram Ku is obviously not inimical to considerable worldly success. Checking out an obituary, I did notice the mention of his often doing "sardonic comedy" and perhaps there we have a point of resemblance to Spader, who is certainly sardonic in much of what he does professionally. Could this then be an expression, an extra spice provided by "worms breeding in the spoiled food?"

He did no less then ten films with trusted friend Walter Matthau and they were often bickering. Perhaps "Grumpy Old Men" are those worms breeding in food gone bad, but the link is rather tenuous and not altogether convincing. Or is it? After all, Lemmon surely acted out the "little man's harm" in so many of his films and there may be a connection here to the "poisoned mind" of Spader's characters, the "impotent wind" being thrown back upon itself every time it meets an obstacle (the mountain)... Also, fans seemed to favor him in his roles as a neurotic!

And as for the connection between a presumed "inner self" as opposed to an "outer act", we do gather from Lemmon's younger days that he suffered from nervousness and a stutter. The "mountain" blocking the "communicative wind" and throwing it back on itself could be construed to indicate that but I would not, however, go so far as to predict stutter in every case of this hexagram! And let us not forget the unsatisfactory situation of having to deal with second hand birth data gathered from the Internet. It is not advisable to push comparisons too far should the birth hexagrams in fact not be the correct ones.

His parents deteriorating marriage is of course spot on Ku's overall story of thing's grinding to a halt at home, but then again, who wasn't born in a faltering family without thereby receiving hexagram 18 as a birth symbol? (Of course, many of I Ching's hexagrams reveal fundamental flaws in the parental home or in their marriage, number 12 "Obstructedness" is just one obvious case in point.) No scandals from Lemmon's private life seems to have surfaced beyond a drinking problem followed by AA meetings - but this is almost considered part and parcel of the artistic occupations. It appears Lemmon, like Mozart, rather smoothly made the transition from the "degeneracy" of the birth time and entered into the position as the burning, fully functional caldron into which ingredients are poured and then transformed to something of fresh, cultural value. As mentioned earlier, one must in this astrology not forget to meditate upon the possible new situation waiting beyond the birth pattern! It seems to be just as important.

Lastly, we have the case of Anne Heche, which, if the time is correct, more than anyone ties in with Sherrill's general prediction and the image chosen by the original authors of the I Ching. This, indeed, seems to be a case of not successfully making good what the parent's did spoil, if reading the hexagram as indicative of personal shortcomings inherited from one or both parents needing attention. The worst case scenario thus becomes a carrier of Ku growing up and going out into life, bringing along traits inherited from the parents (biologically or psychologically), eventually having to face them in a personal, healing crisis.

It should, however, be noted that while Mozart, Spader and Lemmon were all born at the center of their respective Chinese hour, Heche was born at a juncture and therefore partakes of two themes. This complicates the picture quite a bit. She has, as her primary hexagram (and perhaps a tad more important) K'un, the second in I Ching and often translated as "The Receptive." Her ruling line is the top line where the earthy Yin principle is regarded as having gone too far. Reading the omen text here may hint at her opting for a homosexual life style and here it is a literal reading that gives the idea! The text speaks of two dragons fighting in the field, one bleeding yellowish and the other blackish blood (symbolizing yin and yang respectively). A female creature has thus cloaked itself in the guise of a dragon (a male animal) in the all-female hexagram - and this sensation becomes apparent only when the two dragons everybody thought were of the same sex clash in a fight.

As I found on the Internet, Heche was at the peak of her personal crisis temporarily "possessed" by an alien personality with a celestial name (the true, all-male dragon is the symbol of celestial Heaven.). The occurrence of homosexuality as a literal reading of an omen text is probably just a coincidence (as I have met several "straight" people born under this line), although the personality split in connection the mention of two warring animals is highly intriguing! Again I must point to the almost unforeseeable effects of being born under two hexagrams which perhaps differ widely in meaning or both pose a difficult problem. At any rate, the symbol of fighting dragons hints at considerable inner unrest and en unwillingness to play second fiddle (being, as this is, the hexagram of the devoted Servant). It may go a long way to explain the complicated case of Heche, compared to the other three males here reviewed and who all successfully brought their own form of "degeneration" (ku) into play as an ingredient to amuse the consumers of art and skill.

So what have we learnt? How safe is a literal reading of I Ching for the purpose of predicting a likely life or type of character? Not safe at all! In the case of Mozart, several aspects of hexagram Ku was literally "true," like the son taking over the father's business. But this very traditionalist way of continuing in the same line of work as one's parents need not hexagram 18 to manifest. It can bee seen with other hexagrams too, so clearly this is only incidental. (It would, however, be nice to gather hundreds of Ku people to see if a significant number of them were "traditionalists" in this sense.)

Most important to remember is that two birth symbols may lead to the one altering the other in completely unforeseen ways. Also, one person may make full use of even the shortcomings of childhood (as reflected in the birth hexagram) and transmute it and make use of it in a constructive manner, while another may become stuck with a load of problems which takes control and takes on a life of their own, dragging the person down in a destructive, downward spiral. I have seen a few such cases in connection to many hexagrams. At best, we may say a hexagram draws some ramifications but as long as we breathe, we have it in us to make figure out ways of solving problems and trying new approaches to the passing situations at hand.

To be frank, it is a lot easier to read one's life INTO these symbols than it is to extract anything reliable from them, and that may be the final word on this astrology... But WHEN for instance a tragedy is a fact (do calculate Kurt Cobain's horoscope if interested in sordid cases), more often than not destiny seems implied from the very outset (that is, very strange indications show up in the birth symbol itself).

Hopefully this short article has provided some examples of how to creatively use the inherent meanings ascribed to the trigrams and from that building plausible outcomes. At least I felt I came to understand Mozart a little better after this brief and incomplete study. Note that we have not even touched upon the matter of his later, "mature" hexagram (number 37 line 1) which replaced the birth pattern at approximately 45 years of age. As a matter of fact, the method again shows its spooky side since Mozart died in 1791, aged precisely 45. But again, no general conclusions may be drawn on the basis of just one case; Lemmon had a long and successful life and as for Spader and Heche - well, time will tell. It must be remembered that living standards on earth have improved in many countries since Mozart's time so in the health sense, Europe in the 18th Century may represent a worst case scenario! As opposed to Lemmon, Mozart died broke and was buried in a pauper's grave.

 

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