晉 → 旅
Hexagram 35: Progress → Hexagram 56: The Wanderer
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4).
Line 1
初六 晉如摧如。貞吉。罔孚。裕无咎。
Six at the beginning means: Progressing, but turned back. Perseverance brings good fortune. If one meets with no confidence, one should remain calm. No mistake.
Line 3
六三 眾允悔亡。
Six in the third place means: All are in accord. Remorse disappears.
Line 4
九四 晉如鼫鼠。貞厲。
Nine in the fourth place means: Progress like a hamster. Perseverance brings danger.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
東行西維，南北善迷，逐旅失群，亡我襦衣。
Heading east, veering west; north and south easily confused. Chasing the company, losing the group; my lined jacket and robe are lost.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire rises above the earth, but the traveler is hopelessly lost. Heading east yet veering west, going south yet confused with north — wandering without direction. Separated from the caravan, the group lost, even clothing is stripped away. The verse describes complete disorientation: not merely being lost but losing the very capacity to orient oneself. Without companions, without provisions, without even a coat, the wanderer is reduced to bare existence. From Progress to the Wanderer, the transformation doubles the displacement. Fire upon the mountain — the traveler's small flame flickering on a foreign peak. The Wanderer hexagram teaches careful, modest behavior in unfamiliar territory, but this figure has passed beyond even that: lost, alone, stripped bare. Progress that loses its compass becomes pure wandering.
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