巽 · xùn · ☴
Wind
Wind enters. It is the thigh, the rooster, the eldest daughter; wood and the stretched cord, what goes forward and back.
- Quality
- Gentle entry
- Image
- wind
- In the family
- the eldest daughter
- Direction
- southeast
- Season
- late spring and early summer
In a reading
Xun brings gentle influence, patience and the ability to adapt. Keep moving steadily without forcing things, but don't let flexibility turn into indecision.
The image
One open line at the bottom, under two solid ones: something soft that slips in at the base and works its way through. This is wind, and also wood, whose roots push down into the soil. The Shuogua (說卦) gives it the quality 入, to enter: what gets in without breaking anything, by persistence rather than force.
Symbols
- Family: the eldest daughter, because the yin line sits in the first place.
- Body: the thighs (股).
- Animal: the rooster (雞), which calls in the day.
It's also linked to a stretched cord, the craftsperson, length and height, and the wavering of someone who steps forward and back without deciding.
Direction and season
In the Later Heaven arrangement, Xun sits in the southeast, from late spring into early summer. The Shuogua says 齊乎巽, all things are evened out in Xun: plants grow level and everything settles into order. In the Earlier Heaven arrangement, Xun sits in the southwest.
In a hexagram
As the lower trigram, Xun is a flexible disposition that listens and adapts. As the upper trigram, it's an influence that arrives slowly and spreads. Beneath thunder it makes hexagram 32, What Lasts; above earth, hexagram 20, Observing. Doubled, wind over wind is hexagram 57, Gentleness: a presence that reaches far because it never stops blowing.
To see all eight side by side, read the guide to the trigrams.