離 · lí · ☲
Fire
Fire attaches. It is the eye, the pheasant, the middle daughter; the sun and the lightning, hard outside and empty within.
- Quality
- Brightness that clings to its source
- Image
- fire
- In the family
- the middle daughter
- Direction
- south
- Season
- summer
In a reading
Li brings clarity, insight and the need for something solid to hold on to. Understand before you act, and choose carefully what or whom you attach yourself to, since that decides how brightly you shine.
The image
One open line between two solid ones: an empty center wrapped in light. This is fire, and also the sun and lightning. The Shuogua (說卦) gives it the quality 麗, to attach: fire never exists alone. It lives on what it burns, and light shows itself in what it lights up.
Symbols
- Family: the middle daughter, because the yin line sits in the center.
- Body: the eyes (目), which see by light.
- Animal: the pheasant (雉), with its bright plumage.
Because its shape is hard outside and hollow inside, the Shuogua also ties it to armor and helmets, and to shelled creatures such as the turtle and the crab.
Direction and season
In the Later Heaven arrangement, Li holds the south and summer, the time of most light. The Shuogua says 相見乎離, in Li all things see one another: everything stands in plain view. In the Earlier Heaven arrangement, Li sits in the east, facing Kan in the west.
In a hexagram
As the lower trigram, Li brings inner clarity and understanding. As the upper trigram, it's something that shines and becomes visible. Beneath water it makes hexagram 63, After the End; above water, hexagram 64, Transition. Doubled, fire over fire is hexagram 30, The Flame: a light that lasts because it always has something to feed on.
To see all eight side by side, read the guide to the trigrams.