小畜 → 復
Hexagram 9: Small Taming → Hexagram 24: Return
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5, 6).
Line 2
九二 牽復。吉。
Nine in the second place means: He allows himself to be drawn into returning. Good fortune.
Line 3
九三 輿說輻。夫妻反目。
Nine in the third place means: The spokes burst out of the wagon wheels. Man and wife roll their eyes.
Line 5
九五 有孚攣如。富以其鄰。
Nine in the fifth place means: If you are sincere and loyally attached, You are rich in your neighbor.
Line 6
上九 既雨既處。尚德載。婦貞厲。月幾望。君子征凶。
Nine at the top means: The rain comes, there is rest. This is due to the lasting effect of character. Perseverance brings the woman into danger. The moon is nearly full. If the superior man persists, Misfortune comes.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
三足無頭，不知所之；心狂精傷，莫使為明，不見日光。
Three feet and no head; not knowing where to go. The mind is crazed, the spirit wounded; none can make it see -- it cannot glimpse the sunlight.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind above heaven descends into thunder buried beneath the earth — the first stirring of return. A three-legged creature without a head wanders directionless. Mind crazed and spirit wounded, nothing provides clarity; daylight itself has vanished. The three-legged form evokes the solar crow, but headless and lost it becomes a grotesque inversion of its celestial role. From Small Taming to Return, the verse captures the darkest moment before revival. Fu's thunder lies dormant beneath the earth — the winter solstice when yang's first flicker reappears after maximum darkness. The headless wanderer has not yet found that turning point. Return promises recovery, but only after one fully inhabits the disorientation that precedes it.
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