旅 → 中孚
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 61: Inner Truth
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5).
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 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
長夜短日，陰為陽賊。萬物空枯，藏在北陸。
Long nights, short days; yin plunders yang. The ten thousand things are emptied and withered, hidden away in the northern land.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain, yet the season is deep winter. Long nights and short days; yin assaults yang like a thief in the dark. All living things wither and empty; life retreats to storage in the northern quarter. The verse captures the nadir of the annual cycle: maximum darkness, minimum vitality, nature's treasury sealed against the cold. From The Wanderer to Inner Truth, wind blows above the lake, and the hollow center of the hexagram embodies sincerity without pretension. Yet the verse presents truth stripped to its bleakest form: winter's honesty is that nothing grows, nothing flourishes, and survival requires withdrawal into the innermost chamber. The wanderer's inner truth is the bare acknowledgment of his own desolation.
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