需 → 歸妹
Hexagram 5: Waiting → Hexagram 54: The Marrying Maiden
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5).
Line 3
九三 需于泥。致寇至。
Nine in the third place means: Waiting in the mud Brings about the arrival of the enemy.
Line 4
六四 需于血。出自穴。
Six in the fourth place means: Waiting in blood. Get out of the pit.
Line 5
九五 需于酒食。貞吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: Waiting at meat and drink. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
一巢九子，同公共母。柔順利貞，出入不殆，福祿所在。
One nest, nine chicks; sharing a father and mother. Gentle and obedient, upright and true; going out and coming in without peril. Blessings and fortune reside therein.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds above heaven yield to thunder over the lake — the Marrying Maiden's image of the younger sister given in marriage. One nest holds nine chicks, sharing the same father and mother. Gentle compliance brings benefit through constancy; going out and coming in without peril, blessings reside here. The image of a single brood, numerous and harmonious under shared parentage, is a vision of familial abundance at its simplest. Nine chicks in one nest suggest prolific fertility blessed by good order. From Waiting to Marrying Maiden, patient nourishment produces the next generation: thunder stirs the lake, the younger follows the elder, and the household's increase is secured through the natural order of family life — 'knowing what endures through what decays.'
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