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So basically, a couple of years back, I decided to buy a tarot deck. I usually don't bother with such things, since my belief is that while tools are a good way of focusing my will, they are both unnecessary and in the end weighs down my mind. (But hey, that's just me, I'm well aware it workds differently for others.) So I went to the local shop for those kinds of things (sadly that store is no more), and took a look at thedecks. Most of them were really beautiful, real pieces of art, but none of them really spoke to me. Then my eye caught a deck that really wasn't that special. To be quite honest, it really looked boring, but I picked it up anyways and looked trough the cards. Boring as it was, it really spoke to me. Basically, we belonged together. Happy that I had found the perfect deck, I bought it and went home. I then hurried home, elated, and decided to take it for a spin. And that was when dissapointment struck. I just couldn't figure it out. Altough it really did speak to me, and we really did fit together, I just couldn't figure out what it was trying to say, and I got the feeling it didn't understand me either. Dissapointed, I put the cards in a drawer, taking them out every now and then to look at them and trying to figure out what had gone wrong (and yes, to reassure myself that I hadn't just imagined that we belonged together).

Then a couple of months ago, at the part time job I had at a library, I was sorting books and putting them back on the shelves, when I got a feeling that there was a book I had to read amongst the ones I sorted. I opened a random page, and there it was: I Ching. I finally found out why the cards wouldn't work for me. They weren't Tarot-cards at all! They were I Ching-cards, basically just a handy translator, so that what the coins revealed was quick and easy to interpret. It was no mystery that the cards had seemed to be talking a different language that I didn't, they really were! And I had been asking them questions, when all they had tried to explain was that they didn't have the answers, they were just for helping me understand them. Boy did I feel sheepish. We get along much better now, though I haven't tried them out quite yet, I want to make sure I get the system first.

But anyway, what does people here know about I Ching? And since I've dragged up that old anecdote, and since I'm a curious person, has anything like this happened to you?

I have heard of the I-Ching, but never used it. I don't suppose you could point me towards a good beginner's resource, either online or a good book? I just have no idea where to start. The only forms of divination I use are runes, and I'm still at the beginner stage with those.

At this point it might be helpful to give a short explanation of what I-Ching is, for the readers, like myself, who have never heard of it.