Meaning
After 乾, six whole lines, the first broken line appears at the bottom: 姤 is the moment yin returns. The character means to meet, to come upon, and the Judgment states the encounter in the language of its time: a bold and strong woman whom it is not good to marry. The commentary Legge translates reads the line as the first small return of yin, harmless now and powerful if admitted. That is the society of the text speaking, and we give it as the text's.
The Image is wind under the whole sky, reaching every place, and the sovereign's commands carried to the four quarters. Among the Han calendar's twelve hexagrams 姤 is the fifth lunar month, the month of the summer solstice, where Shao Yong's circle also places it, opposite 復. In our own reading, 姤 is about meetings one did not plan, and about seeing early what a small beginning could become.
The lines
The first line, the newcomer, is to be held fast like a carriage tied to a brake, and the text compares it to a lean pig that will not stay quiet. The second has a fish in its wallet and is blameless, and is told not to let it go to the guests; the fourth has none, and trouble begins. The fifth is a medlar tree spreading over a gourd, keeping its brilliance hidden, and what is good comes "(as) from Heaven", in Legge's words. The top line meets others with its horns.
Within 姤 lies 乾, hexagram 1; its pair is 夬, hexagram 43, and every line flipped gives 復, hexagram 24.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 姤 when the year, month and day leave 1 on eight, which puts 乾 heaven above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 5, which puts 巽 wind 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 1 乾 Qián, Heaven's Strength
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 33 遯 Dùn, Retreat
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 6 訟 Sòng, Dispute
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 57 巽 Xùn, Entering Wind
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 50 鼎 Dǐng, The Cauldron
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 28 大過 Dà Guò, Great Excess
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 1 乾 Qián, Heaven's Strength. 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)
- 巽 entering, pervading below; 乾 strong, untiring above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- eldest daughter below, father above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- thighs and fowl below; head and horse above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Wood 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 fifth lunar month (午), with five yang lines sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 43 夬 Guài, Breakthrough; every line flipped: 24 復 Fù, Return sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 44, from 217.625° to 223.25° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Encounter: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 姤 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Kâu shows a female who is bold and strong. It will not be good to marry (such) a female.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Wind under the sky; the sovereign delivers his charges and announcements to the four quarters.
- The Han calendars (1st century BCE)
- The hexagram of the fifth lunar month, the month of 午: 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, 巽 below when the same total with the hour leaves 5.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 44 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Wind under heaven: an unexpected meeting with something small that will grow if it is let in; meet it with clear eyes, and let what is right be heard in every quarter.
Claims about it
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Gate 44 of Human Design, at 217.625° to 223.25° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 44.
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 姤 Gòu 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.
