The Book of Changes · Gu

Hexagram 18: Work on What Has Been Spoiled

Mountain (the peak) over Wind (wind, and wood growing)

Something has decayed through neglect rather than through an event, often over a generation. The tradition is unusually practical: it can be repaired, the repair takes a set amount of time, and the days before and after matter.

The image

Wind at the foot of the mountain, stopped and stirring. The reading is that a person rouses people and strengthens what is in them, which is the only durable repair.

Mountain, above

Stillness, limit, and the place where a thing stops.

Wind, below

Penetration, patience, and what works by not stopping.

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1Repairing what a parent let rot. There is risk in touching it and it comes right.
2. Line 2Repairing what a mother let rot. Do not be rigid about it; this asks for a gentler hand.
3. Line 3Repairing it too vigorously, and regretting the manner rather than the act. The work stands.
4. Line 4Tolerating the decay. Carry on this way and you will be ashamed of it later.
5. Line 5The repair is made and it is recognised. Credit for the work nobody else wanted.
6. Line 6Serving no king and no prince. Stepping out of the arrangement to work on something larger.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 18 is Gate 18, Correction.