乾 → 坎
Hexagram 1: The Creative → Hexagram 29: The Abysmal Water
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 潛龍勿用。
Nine at the beginning means: Hidden dragon. Do not act.
Line 3
九三 君子終日乾乾。夕惕若厲。无咎。
Nine in the third place means: All day long the superior man is creatively active. At nightfall his mind is still beset with cares. Danger. No blame.
Line 4
九四 或躍在淵。无咎。
Nine in the fourth place means: Wavering flight over the depths. No blame.
Line 6
上九 亢龍有悔。
Nine at the top means: Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
黃鳥采菉，既嫁不荅。念我父兄，思復邦國。
The yellow bird gathers green herbs; once married, she receives no answer. Thinking of her father and brothers, she longs to return to her homeland.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
The yellow bird gathers greens — a bride married off to a distant land who receives no response from her husband. She thinks of her father and brothers and longs to return to her home state. This draws on the Shijing 'Xiao Ya: Huang Niao,' the exile's lament: a stranger unwelcome in a foreign land. From Creative to The Abysmal, water upon water — doubled peril with no solid ground. The bride's isolation mirrors the abyss: surrounded by danger on all sides, cut off from family, with no reciprocity in her new household. Heaven's creative energy has plunged into the deepest water, and the longing for home is the single thread of constancy practiced amid repeated peril.
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