Week of Jane Day 4: Our I Ching Door #ThursdayDoors

Jane and I, as I said, were fanatical Dark Shadows fans. We each had multiple translations of the I Ching, entirely because of our devotion to Dark Shadows.

Episode 700, the Dark Shadows Wiki tells me, was the introduction of the I Ching into the storyline. The ancient Chinese book of divination is consulted through wands or coins or such. These determine each line and each line’s relationship to the others. Extremely complicated, although we Westerners have streamlined it for our Magic 8 Ball approach to communing with the ineffable.

ANYWAY, on DS, Barnabas cast the wands and came up with the 49th hexagram, the hexagram of change. He sat in deep meditation, envisioning a door with that hexagram on it. When the door opened, his astral spirit left his body, walked through the door, and went into the year 1897.

Well, Jane and Beth and I were rooming together in a HUGE dorm room that had been the dorm mother’s apartment until they made her a nicer one. We even had a private bath, but that’s beside the point. The point is — and I do have one — there was a door which probably led to the dorm lobby but which was sealed shut.

Wait for it. Yes, Jane (pretty sure, Jane) made a hexagram of change out of painted cardboard and we put that on the sealed door. It might have been Beth, because she’s a trip, too. Our door looked kinda sorta like this.

Only, you know, not.

What larks.

When the semester ended, we had to remove our Portal to the Unknown. Alas.

[UPDATE: I forgot to say that Thursday Doors is brought to you courtesy of Norm Frampton, photographer extraordinaire. Go to his blog, peruse his photos, and click on the blue frog link to view doors from around the world.]

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Follow that link to the Online I Ching and ask a question about your work in progress. It’s a great block-breaker!

MA

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About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Week of Jane Day 4: Our I Ching Door #ThursdayDoors

  1. janet

    October 20, 2017 at 8:47am

    I remember “Dark Shadows”. What fun! Vampires now are not the same.

    janet

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