无妄 → 解
Hexagram 25: Innocence → Hexagram 40: Deliverance
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 无妄。往吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Innocent behavior brings good fortune.
Line 2
六二 不耕穫。不菑畬。則利有攸往。
Six in the second place means: If one does not count on the harvest while plowing, Nor on the use of the ground while clearing it, It furthers one to undertake something.
Line 5
九五 无妄之疾。勿藥有喜。
Nine in the fifth place means: Use no medicine in an illness Incurred through no fault of your own. It will pass of itself.
Line 6
上九 无妄。行有眚。无攸利。
Nine at the top means: Innocent action brings misfortune. Nothing furthers.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鶴鳴九皋，處子失時。載土販鹽，難為功巧。
A crane calls at the nine marshes; the maiden has missed her season. Hauling earth, peddling salt; hard to achieve any skill.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
The crane cries from the nine marshes — the Shijing ode 'He Ming' promises that hidden talent will make itself heard across the wild. Yet here the calling goes unanswered: the talented woman misses her season and remains unmarried. Hauling earth and peddling salt, one cannot achieve anything refined. From Innocence to Deliverance, the transformation turns on frustrated release. Jie's image of thunder and rain breaking free should signal liberation — obstacles dissolved, prisoners pardoned. But the verse presents the opposite: the crane's cry reaches no ear, and labor yields only coarseness. The release that Deliverance promises remains blocked so long as talent finds no proper channel, and mere toil cannot substitute for recognition.
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