The Book of Changes · Ge

Hexagram 49: Revolution

Lake (still water held in a hollow) over Fire (flame and the sun)

Molting: the skin coming off because the animal has outgrown it. The tradition is strict about timing, saying belief only arrives on the day it is actually done, and that a change made early is not believed at all.

The image

Fire in the lake. The reading is that a person sets the calendar in order and makes the seasons clear, because a revolution that nobody can date is a rumour.

Lake, above

Openness, pleasure, and what is said out loud.

Fire, below

Clarity, attachment, and what depends on its fuel.

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1Wrapped and bound, and not yet the moment. Everything here is waiting.
2. Line 2When your own day comes, then change it. Setting out now is right and no fault.
3. Line 3Setting out is a mistake and constancy is dangerous. When the talk has gone round three times, commit.
4. Line 4The regret lifts, and people believe it. Changing the form of the thing is what works.
5. Line 5Changing like a tiger: unmistakable, and believed before anyone asks for proof.
6. Line 6The person of character changes deeply; the small person only changes expression. Stay with it rather than setting out.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 49 is Gate 49, Principles.