復 → 萃
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 45: Gathering Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5).
Line 1
初九 不遠復。无祗悔。元吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Return from a short distance. No need for remorse. Great good fortune.
Line 4
六四 中行獨復。
Six in the fourth place means: Walking in the midst of others, One returns alone.
Line 5
六五 敦復。无悔。
Six in the fifth place means: Noblehearted return. No remorse.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
蜱蜉戴盆，不能上山。腳推跛蹶，頓傷其顏。
A mayfly carrying a basin; it cannot climb the hill. Feet slip, legs stumble; falling headlong, bruising its face.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but the creature attempting the ascent is laughably mismatched to the task. A mayfly balances a basin on its back and tries to climb a mountain — the legs buckle, the insect stumbles and sprawls, smashing its face. The image is both comic and cruel: ambition absurdly exceeding capacity, the small creature crushed by the very weight it chose to carry. From Return to Gathering, lake upon earth, where things naturally congregate. The transformation suggests that gathering requires knowing one's proper place within the assembly. The mayfly's error is not ambition itself but solitary overreach — what is too heavy for one may be carried easily when shared among many gathered together.
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