旅 → 睽
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 38: Opposition
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4).
Line 2
六二 旅即次。懷其資。得童僕貞。
Six in the second place means: The wanderer comes to an inn. He has his property with him. He wins the steadfastness of a young servant.
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 4
九四 旅于處。得其資斧。我心不快。
Nine in the fourth place means: The wanderer rests in a shelter. He obtains his property and an ax. My heart is not glad.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
負牛上山，力劣行難。烈風雨雪，遮遏我前。中道復還。
Shouldering a stone stele up a sheer cliff — knees buckling, waist bent, sweat like mud. Blizzard seals the path, three steps backward for each one. Abandoning the stele, descending — the person is already spent.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain, and a man drives an ox up a steep slope. The original verse — 'Shouldering an ox up the mountain, strength fails and travel grows hard; fierce wind and driving snow block the way ahead; midway, he turns back' — paints a picture of doomed overexertion. The traveler attempts the impossible, loading himself with a burden too great for the terrain, and nature itself intervenes to force retreat. From The Wanderer to Opposition, fire and lake pull in contrary directions, each evaporating the other. The verse embodies Opposition's irreconcilable tension: the upward effort meets the downward pull, and the blizzard seals the impasse. Sometimes the wisest opposition is to oppose one's own stubbornness and turn around.
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