觀 → 家人
Hexagram 20: Contemplation → Hexagram 37: The Family
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 3).
Line 1
初六 童觀。小人无咎。君子吝。
Six at the beginning means: Boy like contemplation. For an inferior man, no blame. For a superior man, humiliation.
Line 3
六三 觀我生進退。
Six in the third place means: Contemplation of my life Decides the choice Between advance and retreat.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
冬葉枯槁,當風於道;蒙被塵埃,左右勞苦。
Winter leaves, withered and dry, stand in the wind upon the road; blanketed in dust and grime -- toil and hardship on every side.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind over earth strips winter's desolation bare. Dead leaves, dried and brittle, stand exposed on the road against the wind. Covered in dust and grime, one labors left and right without respite. The verse captures exhaustion at its most elemental — no narrative, no historical figure, only a body worn down by wind and dust like the season's last withered foliage. Wind from fire forms the Family, where warmth radiates outward as domestic order. From Contemplation to the Family, the contrast is sharp: the hexagram of household warmth meets someone cast into the cold road. The winter leaf on the highway is the opposite of the hearthside — rootless, wind-battered, with no family shelter to return to.
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