渙 → 井
Hexagram 59: Dispersion → Hexagram 48: The Well
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 6).
Line 3
六三 渙其躬。无悔。
Six in the third place means: He dissolves his self. No remorse.
Line 6
上九 渙其血。去逖出。无咎。
Nine at the top means: He dissolves his blood. Departing, keeping at a distance, going out, Is without blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
迷行失道，不得牛馬。百賈逃亡，市空无有。
Lost on the road, one loses the way, unable to find ox or horse. All merchants have fled and gone; the market stands empty, nothing remains.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind disperses over water, and here the entire infrastructure of livelihood vanishes. The traveler loses his way and his road; cattle and horses are gone. The hundred merchants flee, and the marketplace stands empty — a ghost town. This is total economic dispersion: not just personal misfortune but systemic collapse, where trade networks dissolve and communities evaporate. Water rising through wood creates the image of the Well — the reliable source that serves all who draw from it. From Dispersion to the Well, the verse is a bitter inversion: the well exists, but no one remains to draw water. The marketplace needs the well, and the well needs the marketplace; when dispersion empties one, the other becomes useless. Community is the precondition of sustenance.
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