大壯 → 剝
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 壯于趾。征凶有孚。
Nine at the beginning means: Power in the toes. Continuing brings misfortune. This is certainly true.
Line 2
九二 貞吉。
Nine in the second place means: Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 3
九三 小人用壯。君子用罔。貞厲。羝羊觸藩。羸其角。
Nine in the third place means: The inferior man works through power. The superior man does not act thus. To continue is dangerous. A goat butts against a hedge And gets its horns entangled.
Line 4
九四 貞吉。悔亡。藩決不羸。壯于大輿之輹。
Nine in the fourth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse disappears. The hedge opens; there is no entanglement. Power depends upon the axle of a big cart.
Line 6
上六 羝羊觸藩。不能退。不能遂。无攸利。艱則吉。
Six at the top means: A goat butts against a hedge. It cannot go backward, it cannot go forward. Nothing serves to further. If one notes the difficulty, this brings good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
乘風雨橋，與鳥飛俱，一舉千里，見吾愛母。
Riding the wind on a rain bridge, soaring alongside the birds. One leap, a thousand li; I behold my beloved mother.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven lifts the traveler into the sky: riding wind and rain across a bridge of clouds, flying alongside birds, covering a thousand li in a single leap to see one's beloved mother. The imagery is exhilarating — a fantasy of transcendence driven by filial longing. The emotional engine is not ambition but love, and the power that carries the traveler is not military but elemental. From Great Power to Splitting Apart, the mountain rests upon the earth in Bo, its base slowly eroding. The paradox cuts deep: this ecstatic flight ends at a hexagram of disintegration. Perhaps the mother is ill, the household crumbling; the urgency of the flight reveals the decay that awaits at the destination. Great power serves greatest need.
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