The Book of Changes · Dun

Hexagram 33: Retreat

Heaven (the sky) over Mountain (the peak)

Withdrawing while withdrawal is still a choice. The tradition rates this as strength rather than flight: a retreat made in time keeps everything that a retreat made late loses.

The image

The mountain rises and heaven withdraws upward. The reading is that a person keeps small-minded people at a distance without hostility, by being unmistakably dignified.

Heaven, above

Force, and the initiative that does not wait to be asked.

Mountain, below

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

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1At the tail of the retreat, and exposed. Do not start anything now.
2. Line 2A grip nobody is going to loosen. Held, and held deliberately.
3. Line 3A retreat that stalls, and it is distressing. Keep people near you for the ordinary work.
4. Line 4Retreating by choice. Straightforward for someone who can; a stumbling block for someone who cannot.
5. Line 5Retreating on good terms. Constancy is what makes this one land well.
6. Line 6Retreating cheerfully. Nothing left behind that is still holding on.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 33 is Gate 33, Privacy.