Huàn · Dispersion
Upper trigram: ☴ Wind · lower trigram: ☵ Water
What was rigid dissolves; the wind over the water disperses. Reunite what is scattered through a great common purpose.
The ancient character depicts a destructive river flood carrying away the wooden fences of the fields, joined to the sign of living water dissolving the blocks of ice in spring. "Huan" symbolises the dispersal of blockages, the dissolution of the ego's rigidities, and the necessity of holding fast to fundamental spiritual values so as not to be swept away by the breakup.
The dissolution of structures and the great cleansing
This hexagram describes a phase of crisis in which the old forms, certainties or boundaries collapse under the pressure of the elements (a major restructuring, a couple's crisis where the unsaid bursts out, the dissolution of an association). Selfishness and individual rigidities are swept away. The situation is unstable, but it offers a unique chance of reconstruction.
Gather around the sacred centre and recreate the union
The strategy in the face of this breakup consists in not panicking, and in seeking an absolute pole of anchorage: "The king approaches his sacred temple: opening". The Accomplished Being uses this fluidity to dissolve hatreds and gather people around a great common cause. It is by showing immense generosity and eliminating partisan barriers that one manages to "cross the great rivers" and rebuild on solid ground.
Structurally, the figure places the trigram of the Ravine/Water (Kan, trouble, the inner flow) below, beneath the trigram of Wind (Xun, outward dispersal) above. The Wind blows over the Water, scattering the foam and dissolving the ice. Analysis of the nuclear hexagram reveals the presence of The Family (hexagram 37), recalling that it is at the heart of the storm that one must rediscover one's true solidarities.
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.