6. Horse as Fire, The Clinging

Description

Why these 8 paintings of horses?

Each idealized horse image
in this series of paintings
represents one of the 8
energy elements inherent
in Taoist symbolism.

In addition to the 4 elements
of western civilization,
Fire, Earth, Air, and Water,
Taoism includes Thunder, Wind,
Mountain, and Lake,
and substitutes Heaven
in the place of Air.

The I Ching Book of Changes,
an ancient Chinese divination tome
in wide use even today
assigns Trigram symbols
to each of these 8 elements.
Using solid Yang lines
or broken Yin lines
and stacking them 3 high
results in 8 variations —
one trigram set
for each element.

In Taoist study,
a wealth of information,
applicable to all aspects of life,
is contained within each
Trigram symbol.
But Taoism takes this farther
by stacking one Trigram
over another to create
a 6 line symbol, the Hexagram.

You will see other paintings today
that illustrate the energy
of Hexagram symbols.