Gene Keys profile, key 32: 恆 Héng

Key 32 is 恆 Héng, thunder over wind, the hexagram of duration: two of the most restless trigrams joined, and yet lasting. Our three words for its bands come from the line that does not keep its character constant, the Image's standing firm, and thunder and wind as the image of what lasts.

Meaning

恆 is constancy, what lasts. Thunder, the eldest son, stands above wind, the eldest daughter: the strong above, the yielding below, each in its accustomed place, which the tradition reads as the lasting order of a household. The statement of the hexagram promises success, no error, advantage in firmness and in having somewhere to go. Duration here is not standing still; thunder and wind are always moving. Our gloss is constancy, lasting. The text is on the hexagram 32 page.

Key 32 pairs with key 31, the same figure turned over, and has key 42 as its opposite on the wheel.

The three bands

The Shadow band, Fickleness, is the third line, 不恆其德, 或承之羞: not keeping one's character constant, one meets disgrace. It is changing one's word with the weather. The Gift band, Steadiness, is the Image, 君子以立不易方: the noble person stands firm and does not change direction. The Siddhi band, Perpetuity, takes the Image's own pairing, 雷風恆: thunder and wind, the image of duration, which last by moving and renewing themselves.

So the key moves from inconstancy, through steadfastness, to a lasting that is itself a kind of motion.

In a profile

Key 32 belongs to no particular row. It stands in a profile wherever one of the thirteen bodies stood between 20°45′ Libra and 26°22′30″ Libra at birth or at the design moment, and so it can fill any of the thirteen rows or the three further tags.

The Sun passes through it each year from about 14 to 19 October. People born then have key 32 as their Life's Work and its opposite, key 42, as their Evolution, the Earth's place. For people born about three months later, from about 9 to 14 January, it is the Radiance, where the Sun stood at the design moment.

Each of its six lines is 56′15″ wide. A position from 20°45′ Libra is in line 1, read by our theme Foundation; one from 25°26′15″ Libra is in line 6, Overview. Every key's lines take the same six themes of ours, and the line of a fast body like the Moon depends on the birth time to the hour.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Hexagram and number: 恆 Héng, hexagram 32 in the received (King Wen) order of the Zhouyi; Legge (1882) writes the name Hăng sourced
Trigram images: Wind / wood below, Thunder above, as the Shuo Gua names them sourced
Our gloss: constancy, lasting: EsoTerrier's own, the same in our I Ching chart, not a translator's title our construction
Our words for the three bands: Fickleness, Steadiness and Perpetuity, written in October 2026 from the hexagram's own texts; none is one of Rudd's words our construction
Opposite on the wheel: Key 42, 180° round the wheel, with every line reversed; Rudd calls it the programming partner sourced
Pair in the received order: Key 31, 咸 Xián: the same six lines turned upside down, next to it in the received order sourced
Within and upside down: Lines 2 to 5 give 43 夬 Guài; the figure turned upside down gives 31 咸 Xián sourced
Codon ring (Rudd): Rudd groups this key in his Ring of Illusion, which he ties to aspartic acid: his grouping and his choice of amino acid, not a finding of genetics sourced
Place on the wheel: Gate 32 of Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987 to 1989), 20°45′ Libra to 26°22′30″ Libra (200.75° to 206.375° of tropical longitude): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced

How the schools read it

The Zhouyi, after Legge (1882): Successful progress and no error; advantage in being firm and correct; advantage in movement in any direction. The text in full is on the hexagram 32 page.
Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987 onward): Gate 32, in the Spleen centre. The parent system gives the gate its own name and reading, which are Jovian Archive's and which we do not give here.
Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys (2009): Key 32, read at three bands he calls the Shadow, the Gift and the Siddhi, each with a word of his own, under a chapter title of his own; we reproduce neither. He names key 42 its programming partner.
EsoTerrier: Constancy in change: it changes its word with the weather, keeps its direction while things move around it, and at its peak lasts by renewing itself, as thunder and wind do.

Claims about it

Key 32 is a code held in the genes, and contemplating it changes how they are expressed.
unverified

What the record shows: The central metaphor of Rudd's system, given by its author, not a finding. The profile is the positions of thirteen bodies at two moments, read on a 64-part wheel; no gene, codon or measurement of the body enters it.
Key 32 belongs to the Ring of Illusion, a chemical family in the body tied to aspartic acid.
unverified

What the record shows: Rudd's grouping. His ring sizes follow the real number of codons per amino acid in the genetic code, but which hexagram goes with which codon is his own choice, and nothing in genetics links a hexagram to an amino acid.
The place of key 32 on the zodiac, 20°45′ Libra to 26°22′30″ Libra, is an old I Ching teaching.
false

What the record shows: The wheel is Ra Uru Hu's, fixed between 1987 and 1989 by turning Shao Yong's 11th-century circle of the hexagrams so that hexagram 41 begins at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we know ties the hexagrams to degrees of the zodiac.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

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Key 32, 恆 Héng: wind and thunder that stay together

Facts