The I Ching gives advice on how to face any life situation, requiring the seeker to cast yarrowsticks or coins to arrive at an "answer." This edition offers yet another "casting" option, the Button Oracle (online only, at www.bandannabooks.com/iching/button.php); and, if that answer's not enough, use the refresh button. Whether you are a believer or not, the I Ching, perhaps the world's oldest book, stands as a remarkable document of human psychology. However, one translation problem has plagued most Western editions, which typically speak of the "exceptional man" or "he" throughout. To translate assuming that the male pronoun serves for everybody is misleading, however. Why? The language it was written in-Chinese-was, like English, nearly devoid of linguistic gender markers for its pronouns (modern Chinese has added some modifications to clarify gender). While academics tussle over, or ignore, the "correct third-person-singular-of-unspecified-gender pronoun" for the English language, this Mudborn Press/Bandanna Books edition offers eight gendered versions of this text for a modern audience. No, there are not eight genders. But the way that you perceive the human condition may differ from others' views-and your own may change over time. How to choose? Answer these questions to find the version you are most comfortable with: Are you all man (using he, him, his), or all woman (she, her, hers)? Or somewhere in between (s/he, him/her, hers/his)? Do you feel like a split personality arguing with yourself (he or she, him or her, his or hers)? - or you feel plural (they, their, theirs)? Or maybe you don't feel strongly one way or the other (asexual: one, one, one's). Or strongly both, as in the shamanic or two-spirit tradition (he-she, her-him, his-hers). Or just as a human (hu, hum, hus). Try more than one version until you reach your comfort zone; you'll learn about yourself as well as about the I Ching. A REMINDER: This "HE" version uses the traditional or old-fashioned "universal he" pronoun for third-person human reference where sex is not specified, or not known. The I Ching frequently speaks of a hypothetical person, the exceptional or uncommon person; it is used here quite often.
Sasha "Birdie" Newborn is an editor, writer, translator-and publisher of Bandanna Books (imprints Mudborn Press and Beta Books, with an Inklings bilingual series). Besides two novels, Newborn has translated works from Russian, Greek, and Spanish. Besides publishing, Newborn has been doing book production of academic journals for university groups for thirty years. Many of the Bandanna Books titles have been geared for the college market, with brief ventures into foreign language "wordbooks," featuring Italian opera, French food terms, Yiddish words and expressions. A midlife transgender, her interests in the I Ching have led to experiments with the third person singular unknown or hypothetical person in the English language. The classics and language are the overriding themes in Bandanna Books.
