小過 → 咸
Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding → Hexagram 31: Influence
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 5).
Line 5
六五 密雲不雨。自我西郊。公弋取彼在穴。
Six in the fifth place means: Dense clouds, No rain from our western territory. The prince shoots and hits him who is in the cave.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
倉盈庾億,宜稼黍稷,年歲有息。
Grain piled like mountains — grinding never finishes. Fat chickens and stout geese fill the space between fences. Three jars of wine brewed, still seeming too few — borrowing bowls from the neighbor to send over fresh food.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder rumbles above the mountain, and the original verse speaks of overflowing granaries and billions in store — a season perfect for planting millet and grain, with harvests that yield surplus year after year. The granary metaphor is both literal abundance and social capital: when stores overflow, neighbors share across the fence, and community solidifies. From Small Exceeding to Influence, the mountain's thunder transforms into a lake resting atop the mountain — the image of mutual responsiveness, where what is above draws from below and what is below ascends to meet it. The verse's abundance is not hoarded but exchanged: grain piled high invites sharing, and sharing generates the emotional bonds that Influence represents. Prosperity circulates; it does not merely accumulate.
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