Modern Interpretation: Basic trust; intuition; ancestral energy
Kan represents our basic trust and our unconscious resources, a distillate of our own – and sometimes third party – experiences and information that lie beyond our daily consciousness. Impulses and inspirations emerge from Kan and may trigger decisions or initiate actions. If we follow this gut feeling our actions will have a special quality: they feel a particular way “right”.
In no2DOtrigramKan, the water, is associated with the functional circuit kidney (KI), which is the seat of our spiritual heritage and origin of our will, determination, vitality and strength. The kidneys store the basic principles, the essential, the energy of our ancestors and the essence that creates new life. They represent a rich and concentrated source of energy and contain the reserves we can draw on in times of greatest need.
“King Wen Later Heaven” is one of the many ways how to attribute trigrams to phenomena of nature, the seasons, character traits, family relations, geographical directions etc.
However, this system is not fully compatible with the five elements theory, because King Wen’s Later Heaven only considers the classical four seasons, and ignores late autumn as the fifth season with its corresponding fifth phase element earth. After careful consideration, I have made a few changes to the order of King Wen’s Later Heaven which I explain in detail here: Trigrams, Elements, Functional Circuits
Chinese philosopher and politician, ca. 551 BC–479 BC, often referred to as Confucius. His philosophy, also known as Confucianism, emphasizes personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity.
Modern Interpretation: Accepting that what is here and now; peace, stability, resting within oneself, feeling supported and maintained; to make good use of things; relationship and commitment; self-esteem; compassion
The following image is often chosen to describe Kun: soil in which a seedling is growing. Soil is unstructured matter: in soil a seedling finds everything it needs to grow; dead plants decay to soil. Kun‘s meaning, however, goes beyond unstructured matter (such as soil): Kun is unstructured potential, including tangible and non-tangible matter.
