Meaning
Thunder above water: the storm that had gathered breaks, the rain comes down, and the air clears. 解 means to loosen, to untie, to set free, and the hexagram is 蹇 turned over, the obstruction released. The Judgment again favours the south-west, the easy ground, and gives a rule of timing: if nothing more needs doing, go back to how things were; if something does, do it early.
The Image draws from the clearing storm the lesson of pardon: the superior man forgives errors and deals gently with offences. In our own reading, 解 is about letting go at the right moment, of the tension, of the grievance, and of the effort that is no longer needed.
The lines
The first line is blameless, and the text says no more. The second catches three foxes on the hunt and gains "the yellow ( = golden) arrows", in Legge's English. The third carries a load on its back while riding in a carriage, an invitation to robbers; the fourth is told to free itself from its big toe, the weak line that clings to it, so that friends can come. The fifth is the superior man releasing what binds him, and the top line shoots a hawk from a high wall and brings it down.
Within 解 lies 既濟, hexagram 63; its pair is 蹇, hexagram 39, and every line flipped gives 家人, hexagram 37.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 解 when the year, month and day leave 4 on eight, which puts 震 thunder above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 6, which puts 坎 water 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 54 歸妹 Guī Mèi, The Younger Sister Weds
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 16 豫 Yù, Readiness
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 32 恆 Héng, Constancy
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 7 師 Shī, The Army
- Line 5 (六五) moving: becomes 47 困 Kùn, Confinement
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 64 未濟 Wèi Jì, Not Yet Across
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 63 既濟 Jì Jì, Already Across. 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)
- 坎 sinking, perilous below; 震 moving, startling above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- middle son below, eldest son above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- ears and pig below; feet and dragon above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Water below, Wood above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 39 蹇 Jiǎn, Obstruction; every line flipped: 37 家人 Jiā Rén, The Household sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 40, from 155.75° to 161.375° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Release: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 解 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “If no (further) operations be called for, there will be good fortune in coming back (to the old conditions).”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Thunder and rain in action; the superior man forgives errors and deals gently with crimes.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 震 above when the year, month and day leave 4 on eight, 坎 below when the same total with the hour leaves 6.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 40 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Thunder and rain: the knot comes loose and the tension lifts; let mistakes go and return to ordinary life quickly, without carrying the old load.
Claims about it
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Gate 40 of Human Design, at 155.75° to 161.375° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 40.
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.
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Being born under 解 Xiè 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.
