咸 → 隨
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 17: Following
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 3).
Line 1
初六 咸其拇。
Six at the beginning means: The influence shows itself in the big toe.
Line 3
九三 咸其股。執其隨。往吝。
Nine in the third place means: The influence shows itself in the thighs. Holds to that which follows it. To continue is humiliating.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鸇鳩徙巢，西至平州，遭逢雷電，破我葦蘆，室家飢寒，思吾故初。
Hawk and dove move their nest; westward to Pingzhou. They meet with thunder and lightning; it shatters our reed shelter. Household cold and hungry; longing for how things began.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake upon a mountain, but the nest must be abandoned. A sparrowhawk and a dove relocate their nest westward to Pingzhou, only to encounter thunder and lightning that shatter their shelter of reeds and rushes. The household shivers in cold and hunger, yearning for how things were in the beginning. The paired birds — predator and prey sharing a nest — evoke an uneasy domestic arrangement, and their forced migration ends in catastrophe. 'Thinking of our original state' (思吾故初) is the lament of refugees who discover that following new circumstances brings only ruin. From Influence to Following, the mountain's open receptivity becomes thunder resting within the lake. Following should mean adaptive movement, but here the birds follow their instinct to relocate and find only destruction. Not all movements deserve to be followed.
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