大過 → 萃
Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding → Hexagram 45: Gathering Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 3).
Line 2
九二 枯楊生稊。老夫得其女妻。无不利。
Nine in the second place means: A dry poplar sprouts at the root. An older man takes a young wife. Everything furthers.
Line 3
九三 棟橈。凶。
Nine in the third place means: The ridgepole sags to the breaking point. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鼻移在頭，枯葦復生。下朽上榮，家乃不寧。其金不成。
The nose moves to the head; withered reeds live again. Below rots, above flourishes; the household finds no peace. Its gold is never perfected.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake over wind descends into lake above earth — Gathering, the assembling of people and resources. The nose has moved to the top of the head; withered reeds grow again. Below they rot while above they flourish — the household is uneasy, and the metal does not set. The verse presents a world of grotesque inversion: a nose displaced to the skull, dead reeds reviving only at the crown while the roots decay. This is not renewal but monstrous distortion — life appearing where it should not, death persisting at the foundation. From Great Exceeding to Gathering, the sagging beam attempts to collect its broken pieces. But the gathering is malformed: what assembles is incoherent, with growth in the wrong places and decay at the base. The household's unease and failed metallurgy confirm that this assembly lacks the structural integrity to hold.
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