大壯 → 頤
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 27: Nourishment
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 6).
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
霜降閉戶，蟄虫隱處，不見日月，與死為伍。
The bear enters its cave, dry leaves for bedding. Snow seals the cave mouth — no sound from outside enters.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven yields to the mountain's nourishing stillness. The original verse reads: 'At Frost Descent the doors close, hibernating creatures hide away, seeing neither sun nor moon, keeping company with death.' This is the radical withdrawal of winter dormancy — not death itself but death's neighbor, the suspension of all activity until conditions permit renewal. The creatures do not fight the season; they surrender to it completely. From Great Power to Nourishment, mountain rests above thunder in Yi: careful attention to what enters and exits, guarding the mouth. The transformation maps exactly onto hibernation's logic. Power that once thundered across heaven now contracts into absolute stillness, sustaining life through self-imposed restriction, nourishing through refusal to consume.
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