乾 → 歸妹
Hexagram 1: The Creative → Hexagram 54: The Marrying Maiden
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 5, 6).
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 5
九五 飛龍在天。利見大人。
Nine in the fifth place means: Flying dragon in the heavens. It furthers one to see the great man.
Line 6
上九 亢龍有悔。
Nine at the top means: Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
背北相憎，心意不同，如火與金。
Turning their backs in mutual loathing, hearts and minds at odds; like fire and metal.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Backs turned, facing opposite directions — hearts and minds at odds, like fire meeting metal. From Creative to the Marrying Maiden, thunder stirs above the lake in an arrangement fraught with tension. Gui Mei is the hexagram of the younger sister given in marriage — a union driven by circumstance rather than genuine affinity. The verse distills this dissonance to its essence: fundamental incompatibility, like fire that melts metal rather than complementing it. The brevity of the verse mirrors the brevity of the relationship's viability. When two natures truly oppose — one consuming what the other is made of — no ceremony can forge a lasting bond. The five-phase antagonism between fire and metal makes this permanent.
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