Meaning
The mountain stays and the fire moves on: a brush fire crossing a slope, burning briefly and passing. 旅 means a traveller, a stranger lodging away from home, and the Judgment promises only small attainment, dependent on the traveller keeping firm and correct. Without tone marks its name, lǚ, collides with 履, hexagram 10, which is why we always print the character and the tones.
The Image draws from the passing fire a lesson for a judge: be clear and careful in penalties, and do not let cases drag on, as a fire should be brief. In our own reading, 旅 is the condition of being a guest: little standing, much depending on courtesy and on care with small things. It is the pair of 豐, fullness, turned upside down, abundance and its loss.
The lines
The first traveller is mean in mind and occupation and brings trouble on himself; the second has a lodging, his means and a loyal servant. The third burns his lodging and loses the servant; the fourth has a resting place and means, and still says, in Legge's English, "I am not at ease in my mind". The fifth shoots a pheasant, loses the arrow and in the end wins praise. At the top a bird burns its own nest, and the traveller laughs first and then cries out.
旅 is the transformed hexagram in the worked example of our research, where 離, hexagram 30, has its first line moving. Its pair is 豐, hexagram 55; within it lies 大過, hexagram 28, and every line flipped gives 節, hexagram 60.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 旅 when the year, month and day leave 3 on eight, which puts 離 fire 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 30 離 Lí, Brightness
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 50 鼎 Dǐng, The Cauldron
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 35 晉 Jìn, Advance
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 52 艮 Gèn, Stopping
- Line 5 (六五) moving: becomes 33 遯 Dùn, Retreat
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 62 小過 Xiǎo Guò, Small Excess
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 28 大過 Dà Guò, Great Excess. 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; 離 bright, attached above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- youngest son below, middle daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- hands and dog below; eyes and pheasant above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Earth below, Fire 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: 55 豐 Fēng, Fullness; every line flipped: 60 節 Jié, Measure sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 56, from 116.375° to 122° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- The Traveller: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 旅 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “If the stranger or traveller be firm and correct as he ought to be, there will be good fortune.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Fire on a mountain; the superior man is wise and cautious in using punishments and does not let lawsuits drag on.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 離 above when the year, month and day leave 3 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 56 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Fire on the mountain: a traveller passing through, with little standing; care with small things and a guest's courtesy keep the way open.
Claims about it
-
Gate 56 of Human Design, at 116.375° to 122° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 56.
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 旅 Lǚ 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.
