Meaning
The mountain rises towards the sky, and the sky withdraws before it. 遯 means to retire or to slip away, and the figure shows why: two broken lines have entered at the bottom of six, and in the Han reading of the year yin is beginning its return. The Judgment is not gloomy. It still promises progress, and allows firmness "to a small extent", in Legge's words: a retreat made in good time is a kind of success.
The Image gives the manner of it: the superior man keeps petty people at a distance by his own dignity, not by showing hatred. Among the twelve calendar hexagrams 遯 is the sixth lunar month, the height of summer, with yin two lines deep. In our own reading, the hexagram is about withdrawal as a skill, stepping back while stepping back is still possible, and without bitterness.
The lines
The lines show retreats of different quality. The first is "a retiring tail", the part left behind, in a dangerous place and told not to move; the second holds its purpose fast as if with a thong of yellow ox hide that cannot be broken. The third retires and is held back by ties it has not cut; the fourth retires in spite of what it likes, which the superior man can do and the small man cannot. The fifth retires admirably, and the top line in a noble way, "advantageous in every respect".
Its pair is 大壯, hexagram 34, the same figure upside down; within it lies 姤, hexagram 44, and every line flipped gives 臨, hexagram 19.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 遯 when the year, month and day leave 1 on eight, which puts 乾 heaven above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 7, which puts 艮 mountain below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初六) moving: becomes 13 同人 Tóng Rén, Fellowship
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 44 姤 Gòu, Encounter
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 12 否 Pǐ, Blockage
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 53 漸 Jiàn, Step by Step
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 56 旅 Lǚ, The Traveller
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 31 咸 Xián, Mutual Influence
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 44 姤 Gòu, Encounter. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
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.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 艮 stopping, at rest below; 乾 strong, untiring above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- youngest son below, father above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- hands and dog below; head and horse above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Earth below, Metal above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Month in the Han calendars (sovereign hexagram)
- The sixth lunar month (未), with four yang lines sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 34 大壯 Dà Zhuàng, Great Power; every line flipped: 19 臨 Lín, Drawing Near sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 33, from 127.625° to 133.25° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Retreat: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 遯 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “To a small extent it will (still) be advantageous to be firm and correct.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- The sky with a mountain below it; the superior man keeps small men at a distance by his own dignified gravity, not by showing hatred.
- The Han calendars (1st century BCE)
- The hexagram of the sixth lunar month, the month of 未: yin growing from below.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 乾 above when the year, month and day leave 1 on eight, 艮 below when the same total with the hour leaves 7.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 33 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Heaven above the mountain, drawing away: a time to step back while stepping back is still possible; distance kept without hatred keeps the strength whole.
Claims about it
-
Gate 33 of Human Design, at 127.625° to 133.25° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 33.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
-
Being born under 遯 Dùn fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
