旅 → 觀
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 20: Contemplation
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 5).
Line 1
初六 旅瑣瑣。斯其所取災。
Six at the beginning means: If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things, He draws down misfortune upon himself.
Line 3
九三 旅焚其次。喪其童僕。貞厲。
Nine in the third place means: The wanderer's inn burns down. He loses the steadfastness of his young servant. Danger.
Line 5
六五 射雉。一矢亡。終以譽命。
Six in the fifth place means: He shoots a pheasant. It drops with the first arrow. In the end this brings both praise and office.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
牽頭繫尾，屈折幾死。周世无人，不知所歸。
Pulled by the head, bound at the tail; bent and broken, near death. The age of Zhou has no one left; there is nowhere to return.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain, but the traveler is bound head and tail, twisted nearly to death. 'In the world of Zhou there is no one left' — the age has emptied of righteous people, and the wanderer does not know where to return. The verse describes a captive dragged along by force, bent and broken, with neither protector nor destination. The 'world of Zhou' bereft of worthy men suggests an era when the old order has collapsed and its virtues are extinct. From The Wanderer to Contemplation, wind sweeps over the earth, observing all. Yet there is nothing to observe but desolation. The wanderer who once surveyed the landscape for opportunity now sees only emptiness — contemplation without an object, vision without hope.
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