I Ching Diary:: Growing Through Change in the Age of Corona.

By Kirk Chernansky

When the pandemic hit the country in February 2020, Kirk Chernansky opened a book she had often turned to for guidance when faced with overwhelming challenges. The I Ching or Book of Changes: A Guide to Life’s Turning Points by Brian Browne Walker became just the antidote. She began writing about her experiences in the radically changing world of COVID and the sage advice she was receiving. With the hope that sharing this ancient Chinese wisdom might help others as well, it became a weekly blog and now this book.

By including her art with her writing, Kirk’s book becomes a metaphorical storyboard of change. The image of an apple striving to become a tree merges with the miming of Marcel Marceau whose facial expressions and body language are incorporated into each illustration. Together, the images and writings capture the humble, steadfast approach to change inherent in the writings of the I Ching.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669816317

Kirk Chernansky

Kirk Chernansky is an alumna of the University of Kansas School of Design. Following graduation, she worked for fifteen years in advertising art direction that took her to New York where she honed conceptual and design skills at the School of Visual Arts. In 1995, she left the for-profit business world and made the leap to social work, acquiring a master of arts degree from the University of Chicago and in 2007 began taking courses at Northwestern in art therapy to bridge the two paths. Kirk’s artwork is an important component of her writing. The result is a combination of her two careers using the skills and tools of a commercial artist in her visuals that accompany her writing to enhance a narrative story. Themes often reflect a synthesis of opposites that is inspired by her previous work as a dialectical behavior therapist and personal experience of coping with change.

Book preview

I CHING

DIARY

2020

Growing through Change in the Age of Corona.

Kirk Chernansky

Copyright © 2022 by Kirk Chernansky. 839299

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic

or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by

any information storage and retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and

incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination

or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual

persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely

coincidental.

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

Rev. date: 03/28/2022

CONTENTS

Introduction

K’un/Oppression

Ken / Keeping Still, Mountain

P’i / Standstill (Stagnation)

Sung/Conflict

Sun/Decrease

Sui/Following

Ku / Work On What Has Decayed

Ming I / Darkening Of The Light

Huan/Dispersion (Dissolution)

K’an / The Abysmal (Water)

Chen / The Arousing (Shock)

Chun / Difficulty At The Beginning

Shih Ho / Biting Through

Kuai/Breakthrough (Resoluteness)

Chieh/Limitation

Chung Fu / Inner Truth

Ching / The Well

Ch’ien / The Creative

Hsu/Waiting (Nourishment)

Heng/Duration

Pi / Holding Together (Union)

Shih / The Army

Yu/Enthusiasm

Kuan/Contemplation

Chia Jen / The Family (The Clan)

Pi/Grace

Ting / The Caldron

Sun / The Gentle

Ming I / The Darkening Of The Light

Tun/Retreat

Ta Yu / Possession In Great Measure

K’un / The Receptive

Sun/Decrease

Chun / Difficulty At The Beginning

Meng / Youthful Folly

Po / Splitting Apart

Fu/Return

Pi / Holding Together (Union)

T’ung Jen / Fellowship With Others

K’ung / The Receptive

Sun/Decrease

Fu/Return

Lin/Approach

Fu/Return

Epilogue

"To every thing there is a season, and a

time for every purpose under heaven"

Ecclesiastes 3

INTRODUCTION

It is not uncommon that the antidote to something unpleasant exists within reach, if we only knew where to look. Jewelweed, after all, often grows near poison ivy and has the ability to neutralize its sting. For me, the I Ching has proved to be the antidote for the emotional toll of social distancing during the pandemic. Perhaps it is no coincidence that China, where the virus first took hold, is also the birthplace of this book of wisdom for coping with change.

The Art of Change

I began creating art based on I Ching hexagrams over twenty-five years ago using the image of an apple for inspiration. My family has a tradition of venturing every fall to a favorite apple orchard, and over the years, I had come to appreciate the apple as a symbol of regeneration and life. The little apple tree images seemed to work well with the hexagrams from Brian Browne Walker’s I Ching or Book of Changes: A Guide to Life’s Turning Points that I had begun to study at the time.

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The writing of my blog was a response to events as they unfolded during 2020 using the I Ching as a guide for coping. The images of an apple tree’s struggle to overcome the obstacles to growth served as an artistic device