What this change means
Fire above Heaven: the second, fourth and top lines move, and what lay buried in the ground climbs high into the sky. In the starting hexagram, integrity kept in secret was your only shelter among hostile company. The resulting hexagram, 14 Wealth, opens onto abundance, inner and outer, which lasts when you keep your character centered and cultivate good deeds and generosity. Weighed together, this is a striking reversal: what you protected in the dark becomes the base of your prosperity. The integrity you kept is what makes the wealth trustworthy. Share it freely, so that it reaches others too. Watch for forgetting the lessons of the hard time once things turn. Hard times pass, and so can good ones if character slips.
What to read, in order
Marked ● is what Zhu Xi's tradition puts at the center for this number of moving lines.
- The judgment of 36 Darkness
It's a dark time: circumstances force you to live alongside the wrong people. If you know how to protect yourself, hold on to your integrity, and go unnoticed, without openly showing your light and your talents, you'll stay safe until better times come. However hard they seem, hard times pass too.
Constancy in hardship is favorable.
- The judgment of 14 Wealth
A time of abundance and prosperity, both inner and outer. It's important to keep your character centered and to cultivate good deeds and generosity, so that this wealth lasts and reaches others.
Great success.
- Line 2 of 36 Darkness
Difficulties are growing and circumstances affect you directly, but your firm resolve, acting for a greater good, and contributing as you're able will lead you to victory.
The wounded light: wounded in the left thigh. Rescued with a strong horse. Good fortune.
- Line 4 of 36 Darkness
You'll be allowed to see the causes of the hard situations you're facing. This will help you act quickly and withdraw to safe ground before adversity takes complete control.
It enters the left side of the belly; it reaches the heart of the wounded light and goes out through the courtyard gate.
- Line 6 of 36 Darkness
If you keep persevering, quietly and without drawing attention, the bad situations and the people behind them will fall under their own weight.
No light, darkness. First it climbs to heaven; later it goes into the earth.
The trigrams
The way back
14 Wealth → 36 Darknesslines 2, 4, and 6
Other transformations of Darkness
- 7The Armylines 1, 2, and 3
- 32What Lastslines 1, 2, and 4
- 16Passionlines 1, 3, and 4
- 54A Subordinate Rolelines 2, 3, and 4
- 48Right Actionlines 1, 2, and 5
- 8Unionlines 1, 3, and 5
- 60Thriftlines 2, 3, and 5
- 31Attractionlines 1, 4, and 5
- 43Overflowinglines 2, 4, and 5
- 17Adaptinglines 3, 4, and 5
- 18Loss, Then Gainlines 1, 2, and 6
- 23The Falllines 1, 3, and 6
- 41Decreaselines 2, 3, and 6
- 56The Travelerlines 1, 4, and 6
- 21Bitinglines 3, 4, and 6
- 53Gradual Progresslines 1, 5, and 6
- 9Small Thingslines 2, 5, and 6
- 42Increaselines 3, 5, and 6
- 13Gathering with Equalslines 4, 5, and 6
Make your own cast
The answer changes with the question. Toss the coins and see which lines move for you.