The Book of Changes · Jie

Hexagram 40: Deliverance

Thunder (the storm arriving) over Water (the gorge and the deep)

The storm breaking and the tension going with it. The tradition is specific about the two rules of a release: go back to ordinary life quickly, and if anything is still to be done, do it early.

The image

Thunder and rain. The reading is that a person forgives mistakes and deals gently with what was done wrong, because the season for severity has just ended.

Thunder, above

Shock, beginning, and movement that starts below.

Water, below

Danger, depth, and what has to be gone through.

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1Nothing to answer for. The release is clean.
2. Line 2Three foxes taken in the field. The reward is in the middle of the work, not after it.
3. Line 3Carrying a load on your back while riding in a carriage. Displaying it invites someone to take it.
4. Line 4Freeing yourself from the small attachment you did not think mattered. Then the right company arrives.
5. Line 5Freeing yourself is the proof. Nothing you say to the people around you does what this does.
6. Line 6The hawk taken off the high wall in one shot. The obstacle removed at the top.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 40 is Gate 40, Aloneness.