頤 → 否
Hexagram 27: Nourishment → Hexagram 12: Standstill
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5).
Line 1
初九 舍爾靈龜。觀我朶頤。凶。
Nine at the beginning means: You let your magic tortoise go, And look at me with the corners of your mouth drooping. Misfortune.
Line 4
六四 顛頤。吉。虎視眈眈。其欲逐逐。无咎。
Six in the fourth place means: Turning to the summit For provision of nourishment Brings good fortune. Spying about with sharp eyes Like a tiger with insatiable craving. No blame.
Line 5
六五 拂經。居貞吉。不可涉大川。
Six in the fifth place means: Turning away from the path. To remain persevering brings good fortune. One should not cross the great water.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
雹梅零墮，心思情憤，亂我魂氣。
Hail batters the plum blossoms, scattering them to the ground. Heart brooding, passions raging; my very soul is thrown into turmoil.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain over thunder, the nourishing stillness, collapses into heaven and earth refusing to meet — Standstill. Hail batters the plum blossoms and they fall. The heart seethes with grief and indignation, scattering the soul's vital energy. The image is compact and devastating: premature frost destroying what should have been nourished into fruit. Plum blossoms, among the earliest to bloom, are most vulnerable to late cold. From Nourishment to Standstill, the transformation is stark. When heaven and earth cease their interchange, nourishment itself is frozen. What the mountain once sheltered, the blocked cosmos now assaults, turning care into chaos and vitality into despair.
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