節 → 萃
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 45: Gathering Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4).
Line 1
初九 不出戶庭。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: Not going out of the door and the courtyard Is without blame.
Line 2
九二 不出門庭。凶。
Nine in the second place means: Not going out of the gate and the courtyard Brings misfortune.
Line 4
六四 安節亨。
Six in the fourth place means: Contented limitation. Success.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
千歲槐根，利多斧瘢。樹維枯屈，枝葉不出。
The thousand-year locust root bears many axe scars. The tree remains bent and withered; neither branch nor leaf emerges.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake sustains living things within their proper time, but this verse confronts what lies beyond all sustaining. A thousand-year-old locust root, scarred with axe marks from those who sought its useful timber. The tree is bent and withered; no branches or leaves emerge. The image is of a thing exploited past exhaustion — its longevity counted not in years of growth but in accumulating wounds. From Limitation to Gathering, the transformation intensifies the pathos. The lake pools upon the earth, drawing all things together, yet what gathers here is emptiness: a community assembling around a depleted resource. Gathering's call to prepare weapons against the unforeseen arrives too late for the ancient tree. Limitation taken to extremes — a thousand years of extraction — leaves nothing for the gathering to draw upon.
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