Lí · The Clinging (Fire)
Upper trigram: ☲ Fire · lower trigram: ☲ Fire
Doubled brightness; fire clings to what it burns. To cling to what is right gives light.
The ancient ideogram shows a rare bird of resplendent plumage (the oriole or the phoenix) caught in the meshes of a supple net, or the drawing of a bushfire spreading by clinging to dry vegetation. It symbolises the clarity of consciousness, intellectual lucidity, but also the principle of interdependence: light can only shine if it remains attached to a solid fuel.
Awareness and dependence on the real
This hexagram describes a phase of great clarity of mind, of discernment and visibility. Doubts dissipate under the effect of a sudden illumination. It is the moment to understand that your freedom is not an abstract independence, but a perfect fit with the constraints of the real. Your lucidity must lead you to accept your legitimate attachments.
Cultivate gentleness and maintain inner clarity
The strategy consists in using this clarity to enlighten those around you without blinding or consuming them with a destructive passion. The text counsels adopting the "docility of the cow", symbol of nourishing gentleness and attachment to the earth. The Great Being connects to this inner light to clarify their vision and act in harmony with the four regions of the world.
Structurally, the hexagram is formed by the doubling of the trigram Li (Light, Fire). The outer Yang lines frame a Yin space at the centre, indicating that outer clarity must rest on an inner receptivity and gentleness. The challenge is to avoid intellectual arrogance by anchoring one's thoughts in the concrete reality of the situation.
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.