Meaning
Water quenches fire and fire dries up water: put together, one of them has to give way. 革 is a hide, the skin of an animal, and the word for changing it, as animals moult; the tradition reads the hexagram as change of the deepest kind, the old exchanged for the new. The Judgment is cautious about it in a way the tradition admires: such a change is believed in only after it is done; then there is great progress, firmness pays, and regret disappears.
The Image ties change to the calendar: the superior man puts the reckoning of the seasons in order and makes the times clear. In our own reading, 革 is about change that is due rather than merely wished for, carried out after it has been tested and talked over, so that it is trusted. The line texts move from holding back to the great man changing "as the tiger" changes its stripes.
The lines
The first line is bound fast "with the skin of a yellow ox", in Legge's English, not yet ready to change; the second makes its change once its day has come. The third is warned against acting, and is believed once the change has been talked over three times; in the fourth, regret disappears and the change of orders is trusted. The fifth is the great man changing like a tiger, trusted before any divination; at the top the superior man changes like a leopard, and lesser people change their faces.
In the plum blossom story
The Plum Blossom book's first case lands on 革. Counting 5 for a 辰 year, 12 for the month, 17 for the day and 9 for the 申 hour, Shao Yong, it says, put 兌 above and 離 below, found the first line moving, and so came from 革 to 咸, hexagram 31. It is the book's legend about its own method, and the book is of the Ming period.
Its pair is 鼎, hexagram 50; within 革 lies 姤, hexagram 44, and every line flipped gives 蒙, hexagram 4.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 革 when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, which puts 兌 lake above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 3, which puts 離 fire 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 (初九) moving: becomes 31 咸 Xián, Mutual Influence
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 43 夬 Guài, Breakthrough
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 17 隨 Suí, Following
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 63 既濟 Jì Jì, Already Across
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 55 豐 Fēng, Fullness
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 13 同人 Tóng Rén, Fellowship
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)
- 離 bright, attached below; 兌 pleased, open above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- middle daughter below, youngest daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- eyes and pheasant below; mouth and sheep above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Fire 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
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 50 鼎 Dǐng, The Cauldron; every line flipped: 4 蒙 Méng, The Untaught Mind sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 49, from 318.875° to 324.5° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Changing the Hide: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 革 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “(What takes place as indicated by) Ko is believed in only after it has been accomplished.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Fire in the midst of a marsh; the superior man regulates the calendar and makes clear the seasons.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 兌 above when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, 離 below when the same total with the hour leaves 3.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 49 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Fire within the lake: a change whose day has come, trusted only when the time is right and others have been heard, and then showing in every marking, like a tiger's coat.
Claims about it
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Gate 49 of Human Design, at 318.875° to 324.5° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 49.
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 革 Gé 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.
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Shao Yong invented the time method on the day his cast gave 49 革 becoming 31 咸.
told as loreWhat the record shows: That cast is the Plum Blossom book's own opening story. The book was compiled in the Ming period under Shao Yong's name; no Song source tells the story.
