小畜 → 萃
Hexagram 9: Small Taming → Hexagram 45: Gathering Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 復自道。何其咎。吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Return to the way. How could there be blame in this? Good fortune.
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 4
六四 有孚。血去惕出。无咎。
Six in the fourth place means: If you are sincere, blood vanishes and fear gives way. No blame.
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
旦生夕死，名曰嬰鬼，不可得視。
Born at dawn, dead by dusk; it is called an infant ghost -- it cannot be seen.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind above heaven meets the lake gathering upon earth — Gathering's assembly of life. Yet this gathering is spectral: born at dawn, dead by dusk, named an 'infant ghost,' invisible and beyond sight. The creature that lives only a single day embodies the most extreme form of transience — a mayfly existence that gathers into being only to dissolve before it can be perceived. From Small Taming to Gathering, the verse subverts Cui's promise of collective strength. Gathering implies convergence, marshaling, preparation. But what gathers here disperses before it coalesces. The infant ghost is congregation without substance: the assembled dissolve even as they convene.
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