Ask once, slowly.
Hold the question in plain words before you begin. The oracle answers what was actually asked.
Phrasing it
- Ask about your own positionThe strongest questions are about your own next move in a situation you are actually in. Not "will she change", but "what is my right conduct while this stands unresolved".
- Prefer how and what to whetherA yes or no question wastes the instrument. The hexagrams are pictures of times, and a picture answers "how does one move in this" far better than "should I".
- Plain words, held steadilySay it as you would to a trusted friend, and settle on the words before you begin. A question that shifts mid-cast tends to answer neither version.
Not: predictions with dates on them, the same question asked again because the first answer displeased, or anything you have no intention of acting on.
How to ask, in fullThe count itself is the yarrow method kept honest: forty-nine stalks, eighteen divisions, six lines from the ground up. It takes as long as it takes, and the waiting is the part that does the work.How the oracle is cast sets out the whole of it.
Your question stays in your browser. If you later choose the machine reading, it is sent only then — never logged, stored, analysed, or used to train anything.
49 stalks
The count