Dà Guò · Preponderance of the Great
Upper trigram: ☱ Lake · lower trigram: ☴ Wind
The ridgepole sags; an excessive load on fragile ends. An extraordinary time: act alone if you must.
The archaic graph shows the ridge-beam of a building bending and threatening to break under too heavy a load, or a flood submerging the trees of a forest. It symbolises a situation of extreme overload, a major structural imbalance in which the forces at play far exceed ordinary norms and demand exceptional action.
Extreme tension and structural crisis
This hexagram describes a moment of imminent rupture. You are carrying a burden too heavy (responsibilities, stress, commitments) for your current structures. The situation is exceptional, solitary and potentially dangerous; ordinary rules no longer apply. If you do nothing, the edifice collapses; if you panic, you hasten the fall.
Act with heroic courage and accept solitude
The survival strategy rests on absolute determination and a radical letting-go. The Accomplished Being must take a clean-cutting decision, "advance alone without fearing solitude" and be ready to give up everything if necessary in order to save the essential. It is through this extraordinary courage that one manages to right the situation or to create a positive way out in the midst of the cataclysm.
In its structure, the figure places the trigram of Wind/Wood (Xun, suppleness) below, beneath the trigram of Mist/Marsh (Dui, the liquid mass) above. The four central Yang lines are imprisoned by two Yin lines at the extremities, powerless to contain their strength. The arrangement is unstable. The challenge is to lean on your deepest resources in order to weather the storm.
Each line is read only if it is changing in your cast. A changing line transforms the figure: the link under each text shows which hexagram it leads to.
Three-coin or yarrow-stalk cast, changing lines, outlook figure — computed on your device, no account.