復 → 升
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3).
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 2
六二 休復。吉。
Six in the second place means: Quiet return. Good fortune.
Line 3
六三 頻復。厲。无咎。
Six in the third place means: Repeated return. Danger. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
長子入獄，婦饋母哭。霜降愈甚，鄉晦伏法。
The eldest son enters prison; the wife brings food, the mother weeps. As frost falls ever harder; in the village darkness, he submits to the law.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but the eldest son enters prison while his wife brings food and his mother weeps. As frost descends and deepens, the execution season arrives, and at dusk the sentence is carried out. The ancient custom of executing criminals during the autumn and winter frost season — when nature's destructive energy aligns with the act of taking life — gives this verse its terrible rhythm. The eldest son, pillar of the household, is condemned precisely when the cosmos sanctions killing. From Return to Pushing Upward, wood grows within the earth, rising gradually. The transformation is bitterly inverted: what should push upward in steady growth is instead pushed down into the ground by the weight of law and seasonal fate.
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