I CHING (The Book of Changes)

I CHING, the book of changes, postulates that "Change is Inevitable." I Ching observes that the only constant in the universe is change. I Ching helps anticipate change and provides a window into future actions. Its basis for discussion is the casting of sticks or coins that result in hexagrams that are beautifully descriptive of human conditions and states of being.

There are some thoughtful iterations of I Ching on the Internet such as I Ching Online. This is a wonderfully concise site that provides an excellent intoduction to I Ching:

I Ching Basics Fu Hsi (pronounced foo shee), the great Chinese sage to whom the I Ching system is attributed, constructed his answers in the form of sixty-four figures, the six linear lines stacked one above the other, either undivided, or divided, called kua. The top three lines and the bottom three lines of each of the kua are called trigrams. Following the law of eternal change, the lines are always in motion, always moving upward. As a new line enters from the bottom, it pushes the five lines above it upward, thereby displacing the line at the top. The movement is always in time to the rhythm of the universal heartbeat, always mirroring the universe itself. Taken together, the kua and their lines represent every conceivable condition in heaven and on earth with all their states of change. Each of the sixty-four kua, with their combined total of 384 lines, represents a situation or condition. Each situation or condition contains the six stages of its own evolution: About to come into being Beginning Expanding Approaching maximum potential Peaking Passing its peak and turning toward its opposite condition. The kua, therefore, not only represent every conceivable situation and condition possible, but also include all their states of change.( I Ching Online)

I Ching is extremely elegant in design and concept, but might be very difficult to truly implement as a theme, unless one simply applied the hexagrams almost as a score, the way John Cage did for a number of his works inspired by I Ching.