Between Worlds: Discovering Echoes of Ancient Wisdom in Ifa and the Yi Qing
by Absolem Lee
There’s a quiet thrill that comes with uncovering a forgotten thread—one that weaves its way through cultures and time, tying distant worlds together. My journey into the mysteries of Ifa and the Yi Qing has been precisely that: an adventure through echoes of ancient wisdom, with each step revealing connections that feel at once startling and inevitable.
It all started with a curious observation. While studying the Meji Odus of Ifa—the 16 foundational signs revered in Yoruba divination—I noticed something striking. These signs, deeply rooted in archetypal energies, seemed to mirror aspects of the trigrams found in the Chinese Yi Qing. At first glance, they couldn’t be more different: Ifa’s sacred verses brimming with tales of Orisha, and the Yi Qing’s hexagrams flowing with the language of cosmic balance. Yet the patterns felt familiar, as if both systems were pieces of the same ancient puzzle.
Take Ogbe, the first Odu, where light, creation, and the energy of beginnings reside. In the Yi Qing, the trigram Qian speaks the same language—pure yang, representing heaven and unrelenting creative force. Similarly, Oyeku, Ifa’s sign of mysteries and endings, reflects the yin essence of Kun, the earth and receptivity. These weren’t coincidences. They were reflections, like two mirrors angled toward the same source.
Curiosity drove me deeper. Collaborating with a Babalao, I began aligning Yi Qing hexagrams with the wisdom of the Odduns. Casting a hexagram became a dance between the Yi Qing’s dynamic lines and Ifa’s rich stories. When a changing line transformed Kun over Qian into Qian over Kun, I saw not just an abstract shift, but a living narrative of balance tipping and recalibrating—a story I’d read before in Ifa’s tales of Oyeku and Ogbe.
The more we explored, the more the connections came alive. The two systems complemented each other, like voices in harmony. The Yi Qing offered a structured framework for interpreting shifts in energy, while Ifa brought vivid storytelling and spiritual depth. Together, they painted a fuller picture—a reminder that understanding life’s patterns often requires more than one perspective.
And yet, the most exhilarating part wasn’t the connections themselves. It was the questions they raised. Could these systems have influenced each other? Was there an ancient crossroads where African and Asian traditions exchanged ideas, or were they independently drawing from a deeper, shared well of human insight? The historian in me wanted answers, but the mystic in me reveled in the mystery.
What struck me most was the simplicity of it all. The Odduns and trigrams don’t try to complicate life; they distill it. They capture universal truths—creation and destruction, light and shadow, action and stillness—that resonate across time and culture. Whether it’s the sharp lines of a hexagram or the sacred verses of Ifa, these systems remind us that life’s complexity often rests on fundamental, unchanging principles.
Of course, this is just the beginning. There’s so much more to uncover, connections to map, and wisdom to bring into practice. I imagine a future where someone casts a Yi Qing hexagram and pairs it with the corresponding Oddun, gaining insight from two traditions at once. Not as a blending or a fusion, but as a recognition of how beautifully aligned the world's wisdoms can be.
For now, I sit with the small revelations—those moments when a piece of the puzzle slides into place. Like when I realized that the Yi Qing’s method of “changing lines” parallels Ifa’s dual-cast system, where two Odduns come together to tell a story. Or when I saw how the Yi Qing’s hexagram 11, T’ai (Kun over Qian), speaks of harmony restored, just as Ifa’s Oyeku Ogbe does. These moments feel like whispers from something greater, urging us to listen, to look closer, and to remember that the wisdom of the world is often written between its lines.
I’m not here to prove anything, nor to claim that one system completes the other. Instead, I’m here to marvel at their synchronicity, to share the wonder of watching patterns emerge where none seemed to exist before. If you’ve ever stood at the edge of understanding, peering into something vast and unknown, you know what I mean.
The journey continues. The echoes grow louder. And as they do, they remind me of one thing: the answers we seek are not locked in the vaults of any one culture or tradition. They are scattered across the stars, buried in the earth, and whispered through the winds. All we have to do is follow the thread.
