井 → 屯
Hexagram 48: The Well → Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3).
Line 1
初六 井泥不食。舊井无禽。
Six at the beginning means: One does not drink the mud of the well. No animals come to an old well.
Line 2
九二 井谷射鮒。甕敝漏。
Nine in the second place means: At the wellhole one shoots fishes. The jug is broken and leaks.
Line 3
九三 井渫不食。為我心惻。可用汲。王明。並受其福。
Nine in the third place means: The well is cleaned, but no one drinks from it. This is my heart's sorrow, For one might draw from it. If the king were clear-minded, Good fortune might be enjoyed in common.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
螟䖝為賊，害我稼穡。盡禾殫麥，秋無所得。
Worms and grubs become thieves, harming my crops and harvest. The grain consumed, the wheat exhausted; in autumn there is nothing to reap.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water drawn up through wood, the well sustains the harvest — yet here pests devour it. Caterpillars and grubs become thieves, ravaging grain and millet, consuming every stalk of wheat until autumn yields nothing. The verse names the classical agricultural calamity: insect plagues that strip the fields bare. No human enemy is needed when nature's smallest creatures marshal against the harvest. From The Well to Difficulty at the Beginning, the well's nourishing waters meet the chaos of cloud and thunder. What should sustain growth instead feeds destruction, and the promise of the season collapses into the confusion of Zhun, where every attempt at order stumbles before it can take root.
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