萃 → 未濟
Hexagram 45: Gathering Together → Hexagram 64: Before Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 5, 6).
Line 2
六二 引吉无咎。孚乃利用禴。
Six in the second place means: Letting oneself be drawn Brings good fortune and remains blameless. If one is sincere, It furthers one to bring even a small offering.
Line 5
九五 萃有位。无咎匪孚。元永貞。悔亡。
Nine in the fifth place means: If in gathering together one has position, This brings no blame. If there are some who are not yet sincerely in the work, Sublime and enduring perseverance is needed. Then remorse disappears.
Line 6
上六 齎咨涕洟。无咎。
Six at the top means: Lamenting and sighing, floods of tears. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
愛子多材，起迹空虛。避害如神，水不能濡。
The beloved child, rich in talent, rises from humble beginnings. Avoiding harm as if guided by spirits; the water cannot wet him.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake upon earth gives way to fire above water, the unfinished potential of Before Completion. A beloved child, richly talented, rises from nothing and emptiness. Avoiding harm with spirit-like prescience, water itself cannot wet him. The verse describes a prodigy who seems to defy natural law: emerging from void, evading danger as if divinely guided, even water cannot touch him. This may allude to the mythic birth narratives of sages like Hou Ji, who was abandoned repeatedly yet survived every attempt to destroy him. From Gathering to Before Completion, the transformation is deliberately unfinished: the child's talents are vast but unrealized, his potential still becoming. Fire above water has not yet achieved the settled order of its reverse; everything remains in motion, and the gifted child navigates danger precisely because he has not yet solidified into a fixed position.
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