革
GUA 49 · GE
SEASONAL CHANGE
Overall Image (大象)
There is fire in the lake
Seasonal change
The noble young one, accordingly,
organizes the calendar and clarifies the time▼
Overall Image (大象)
There is fire in the lake
Seasonal change
The noble young one, accordingly,
organizes the calendar and clarifies the time
The noonday flame of the summer solstice sun penetrates deep in the lake, warming the water and setting the changes in motion. The next season comes upon us, just as we have begun to adapt to the last one. Time turns this world around, in continuous revolution, but succession proceeds in discernible stages. The turning of planets and stars will come first. Seasons lag six weeks behind, as the mass of this earth warms up and cools off more slowly. This might leave the unknowing always behind the times and looking for clues as to why things are changing so strangely. Clarification of time can help us to get ahead of ourselves, and sometimes caught up to the world.
Main Judgment (Seasonal Change) (卦辞)
Complete the day and then be sure
Supreme fulfillment is worth persistence
Regrets pass▼
Main Judgment (Seasonal Change) (卦辞)
Complete the day and then be sure
Supreme fulfillment is worth persistence
Regrets pass
It begins to grow uncomfortably warm inside last winter’s coat. The old is finished with its day: last season’s pelts, callused old hides, cocoons and even great nations. Security in changing times is to know how securely time changes, knowing where the world has gone by learning how to read the signs. The clockworks of heaven is no toy to play with. We imagine it as our timepiece but cannot decide if it moves too slow or too fast. Just when we figure this out, and make our stable adjustments, the world moves into next season. We confuse the fresh with the antiquated. Sometimes we’re seen destroying ourselves when insecurity threatens. To move change along among ourselves needs both tact and timing: belief only follows achievements, and human denial is a powerful thing. The old will not learn to yield to a process soon to replace it. A government will not be open enough to experiment with new forms. Every new generation owes itself one revolution, to break contracts it never made. The old hides are thrown off, we let our insides out, and the light bathes and cleans our feelings. A complete human being airs out the house, runs naked into the lake.
Key Words (关键词)
Strip, shed skin or fur, lay bare, molt, cast off, unveil, disburden; summer clothes▼
Key Words (关键词)
Strip, shed skin or fur, lay bare, molt, cast off, unveil, disburden; summer clothes
Rawhide, leather, encrustations, shells; protective coverings, restraints, precedents Protective membranes dated, outmoded, no longer needed; calluses & callousness Obsolescence, anachronism, aging institutions; things resisting change superseded Change, renewal, overthrow, overturn, turnaround, revolution; reform, unburden Divestment, revisions, re-envisionings, renovations, metamorphosis, outgrowing
Structure & Connections
Structure Class
Kan-Li Family
This classification indicates the hexagram's role in the 12 Sovereign Cycle (Earthly Branches) or its structural family.
Astrology
note:Fourth House, Cardinal Fire, Cancer
element:Fire
Tarot
card:The Chariot
suit:Trump
Qabalah
note:Hheth; Path between Yesod and Tipareth (Trad: Gb-Bn)
The Lines
11st • YangWrapped with golden rawhide▼
1
1st • YangWrapped with golden rawhide
49.1x Wrapped with golden rawhide:
Not suited to taking action
Like nearly everyone else, he still wears his golden ruminant suit and conforms to the ways of his herd, bound to earlier times, restrained by collective uncertainties. He tries to be docile, and grazes wherever he’s led. But the summer sun rises high in the sky. His hide begins to feel wrong and the skin starts to tighten. He might still conform on the outside; inside he sweats and grows itchy, far too annoyed to sit and chew cud in the shade, furious at those who set fashions and trends. Like the time, he is getting ripe under there. To divest himself of this ill-suited nonsense is not a pleasant choice either, though even the slowest of cattle are starting to rub the fence. His hidebound behavior and morals are set against reform, without room to wiggle, as rawhide will harden into its shape. Meanwhile the rebels all get to wear loincloths.
22nd • YangComplete the day and then change arrives
To expedite is promising
Not a mistake▼
2
2nd • YangComplete the day and then change arrives
To expedite is promising
Not a mistake
49.2x Complete the day (and) change arrives:
Taking steps earns due reward
Belief will follow attainment, as the summer will follow the solstice. People take time in catching up to the present. One who might be a star-gazer, or calendar maker at heart, will find it a little too easy to come back to earth three hundred years too soon. Visions of the better tomorrows are not shared by many today. So why stand on the corner now to share the good news with the people, or march boldly into the streets to be swept along with one’s comrades in earnest and timely rebellion? Visionaries have lonelier lives than this, until they can refocus themselves to attend to the great beginnings, and hundreds of lifetimes of patience. The stones will grow legs and go dancing about before humans will welcome the changes. Thus we wait until we can point to the day when the old starts falling apart: it’s time for alertness, not certainty.
33rd • YangTo expedite has pitfalls
Commitment is difficult
When talk of change has circled three times
Then be sure▼
3
3rd • YangTo expedite has pitfalls
Commitment is difficult
When talk of change has circled three times
Then be sure
49.3x (When) change (is) discussed three times all around:
Given that, where is this?*
It is not a bad thing that our cultures resist the latest hypotheses. To prove means to put to the test. If this new thing to come along were unmistakably true, it might not be so new - or the one to conceive it, so special. Theorized plans for global events will not find ready support until tested in village and province. The sage might have a plan, but he nurses the thing a while longer, collecting early data, filling in blanks and holes in the theory, waiting for critical mass, even for two more prodigies to also invent the idea. And then he might step up just to ask for a place in the background, to watch how the plan works for leaders. The world’s pulse is taken first, and then action is timed to be resonant. Let someone else begin it: their echoes will tell of the timing. Then these ideas and plans grow like life, first from their roots and seeds.
44th • YangRegrets pass
Stay confident
Change the mandate
Promising▼
4
4th • YangRegrets pass
Stay confident
Change the mandate
Promising
49.4x Changing the mandate holds promise:
Believe in the purpose
He offers up an unheard of proposal and suddenly nobody's laughing. Being in the right place and time now, the decadent past is nearly revolting enough to them all. The truly great revolutions are the earth around its axis, and all this around the sun. All the best coups are bloodless. They’ll call for the inevitable, the moment it comes due. The critical masses are ready, they’ll cheer and pledge their support. Now all of those uncounted hands start to nudge the details into their places. The school, or the church, or the state which has outlived its useful lifetime is ripe for its reinvention. One creates with the least resistance now, while the world wants to turn in this way. But there may be reasons to make this more sweeping, to get more changes made. By next year things will be settled again: more change might again be much feared.
55th • YangA mature human being’s tiger transformation
Even before divining, be sure▼
5
5th • YangA mature human being’s tiger transformation
Even before divining, be sure
49.5x The mature human being’s tiger transformation:
This one’s style (is) evident
The tiger molts boldly. His colors and stripes will leap straight into your mind, like sunlight and night, not needing any translation. The tiger does not need to seek out the oracle to ask about his timing, or run to find the shaman to read him the omens and signs. He does not need to worry if others will believe him. His gold and black will speak to the dimmest of wits. Strength is in evidence, explicit, lucid and ordered. The mandate is only a thousand words long now, new laws and guidelines are still crisp and clear: lawyers have not got to them yet, so they serve no hidden agendas. Changes are made by their author, and so they are made with authority. Our highest standards and clearest guiding principles are not pushed to the forefront of change by the masses. A cogent, commanding presence, even a hero, must carry them there.
6Top • YangA noble young one’s leopard transformation
Ordinary people merely change masks
To expedite has pitfalls
To abide in persistence is promising▼
6
Top • YangA noble young one’s leopard transformation
Ordinary people merely change masks
To expedite has pitfalls
To abide in persistence is promising
49.6x The noble young one’s leopard transformation:
This one’s style (is rich in) subtlety
* Ordinary people (merely) change masks:
Submitting in order to follow a noble
The leopard molts slowly and softly, his spots changing nuance by nuance, with a delicate sort of grace. But under this beauty is substance, not glamour: his changes go all the way through. Behind the soft smile are those sharp and dangerous teeth. This is beauty which speaks of a long line of big cats who did well enough in the toughest of times. This cat can just purr through these changes. Nobility shows to those who have need to see it and lesser beasts are content to just molt in the face, or approach wearing masks, averting their eyes, and trying not to make startled or jumpy movements. His inferiors will maneuver for whatever privilege and position remains, changing in loyalties and allegiances, according to where they would settle. The alphas of the group are still subject to change, only they’ll make better subjects.
Reference in Original Text & Resources
This content is derived from Bradford Hatcher's THE BOOK OF CHANGES: Yijing, Word By Word.
Original text for Hexagram 49 begins on Page 354-362.
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