解 → 坤
Hexagram 40: Deliverance → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 4).
Line 2
九二 田獲三狐。得黃矢。貞吉。
Nine in the second place means: One kills three foxes in the field And receives a yellow arrow. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 4
九四 解而拇。朋至斯孚。
Nine in the fourth place means: Deliver yourself from your great toe. Then the companion comes, And him you can trust.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
膠著木連,不出牢關。家室相安。
Glued fast, wood joined to wood; one does not leave the barred gate. The household rests in peace.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder over water stills into the deep receptivity of doubled earth. Glue binds wood together, and nothing passes the prison gate — yet the household rests in peace. The verse plays on confinement as stability: what cannot escape also cannot be disturbed. The adhesive that locks the joints is not a trap but a seal of domestic security. From Deliverance to the Receptive, the transformation reveals how release paradoxically finds its fulfillment in willing constraint. The thunderstorm subsides and the earth holds steady. Freedom is not flight but the choice to remain where bonds are strong and the family endures undisturbed.
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