Hexagrams – you probably know this – come in pairs: 1 with 2, 3 with 4, and so on, through to 63 with 64. Sometimes it’s obvious why a pair of hexagrams belong together, sometimes less so. It only really sank in for me recently why Hexagram 43, Deciding, would be paired with 44, Coupling:
‘Breaking through must mean meeting, and so Coupling follows: Coupling means meeting.’
Hexagram 44, the Sequence
What you must necessarily meet in the drama of Deciding is the messenger.
‘Deciding, tell it in the king’s chambers.
Hexagram 43, the Oracle
With truth, call out, there is danger.
Notify your own town.
Fruitless to take up arms;
Fruitful to have somewhere to go.’
The Oracle of Hexagram 43 speaks to a messenger: someone who stands up in the king’s court and brings his message. He calls out (the outer trigram is dui, the lake, opening and communicating) with truth (it’s deepened and powered by the inner trigram qian, the irreducible truth of heaven). The ripples of change spread outward with the message, from the chambers to the town and beyond. Receiving Hexagram 43, we imagine this as the yang energy of decision rising through the five solid lines, pushing out the last trace of openness/ indecision in line 6.
Only… what would the experience of Deciding have been like for those who received the message? I can imagine that they were quite happy and secure before the messenger arrived. The message irrupts into the peaceful, ordered heart of the king’s court, creating openings, breaking through barriers. (43 is also ‘breaking through’ and the breaching of a dam.)
And this starts to sound a lot like the experience of Hexagram 44. The message tears through things like a whirlwind (Hexagram 44’s trigram picture) and life will never be the same again. You need to pass the message along, let it travel out from the royal chambers without making a fight of it…
‘Below heaven is the wind. Coupling.
Hexagram 44, the Image
The prince sends out mandates and commands to the four corners of the earth.’
What you will not want to do is set up house with the messenger.
‘Coupling, the woman is powerful.
Hexagram 44, the Oracle
Do not take this woman.’
Someone who brings messages like this is not going to fit in as a regular integrated part of your court. This is strictly a one-off.
In other words… broken and solid lines, yin and yang, are always relative. What feels like rising yang in 43 when it corresponds to your own decision, is going to feel like the arrival of yin when it’s undermining your status quo. There’s a single energetic situation here, the arrival/arising of a force bringing change, but it’s seen from two perspectives and hence described in two different metaphors.
How many other pairs work like this – a single energetic ‘shape’, seen from two different perspectives?
It would be very satisfying to be able to answer confidently, ‘All of them!’ and introduce a single, grand concept that would help to explain the whole book. And it surely ought to work like that for every inverse pair of hexagrams, since they are all quite literally a single shape seen from two different perspectives. (You can say that Hexagram 44 is Hexagram 43 upside-down – but I prefer to say that it’s what you see if you walk round 43 and look at it from the other direction.)
So we can look at each pair and ask,
‘Could both of these be true at once? Is there a place to stand where I’d see this one as that one?’
And disappointingly, I can’t always find one – or at all events, not without seriously torturing some hexagram meanings. Sometimes other concepts – like call-and-response – are just more useful to understand a pair. It’s a good way to think about them, though.
Think of Hexagrams 37 and 38, for instance.
‘Opposing means outside. People in the Home means inside.’
Hexagrams 37/38, the Zagua
Homes have an inside and also an outside. One home, two perspectives.
Or Hexagrams 19 and 20 –
‘The meaning of Nearing and Seeing: someone reaches out, someone seeks.’
Hexagrams 19/20, the Zagua
R.J. Lynn translates,
‘The concepts underlying Lin (Overseeing) and Guan (Viewing, Hexagram 20) in some cases mean “provide” and in others “seek”.’
and adds a footnote:
‘Han Kangbo comments: “If one stirs oneself to oversee others, this is referred to as ‘provide,’ but if others come to view oneself, this is referred to as ‘seek’.’
So this could be a single encounter.
Or how about 41/42, or 47/48, or even 35/36, which of course are as different as night and day…?
Thank you Hilary – I am glad to see you brought up this discussion.
In evolution of my personal journey with I Ching it was becoming increasingly clear to me that there is something very important beyond the conventional words and texts – something like other side of the moon in I Ching. Being a PhD in Computer Engineering I started digging into structural analysis of hexagrams and their relationships with each other and, not surprisingly, I have found there tons of food for thoughts.
Speaking about Hexagrams #43 and #44 specifically.
1. Both hexagrams have the same nuclear hexagram !!!
It is Hex #1 – Creative (Other Names: Initiating; Cause; Heaven; Emperor).
Why Nuclear Hexagrams are important?
In a nutshell, every nuclear hexagram describes the hidden meaning of its Primary Hexagram and symbolizes the inner power and a kernel of situation described by it.
It is important to understand, that when primary hexagram represents the already formed, present situation, then nuclear hexagram highlights the point of incubation and the hidden beginning, the origination stage of primary situation – it should never be ignored! With hat said, bot Hex #43 and #44 are close relatives and steam from the same start point!
For those who is new to hexagram transformation technology and wants to know more about it, feel free to visit “Hexagrams” and “Gua Transformations” pages in “I Ching Basics” menu section of IChing360.com
2. Hex #44 is the Reverse Opposite and also a Monogram-Rotated version of Hexagram #43 !
If original timeline in every hexagram goes from the bottom line to the top line (i.e. from the present time to the future), then Reverse Transformation changes the time line in opposite direction (in reversed order), going now from the future to the past.
What can this be in real life? Going-back transformations in our personal lives, in the groups, companies or society, for example. I am sure you will find a lot of touch points there with your personal experience.
3. Digram-flip and Trigram-flip transformations of Hex #43 produce the same Hex #44 !
Why these transformations are important? In symbolic language of I Ching, the top-, middle- and bottom- digrams (bigrams) of each hexagram represent Heaven, Mankind and the Earth respectively with Mankind playing an important role in the middle building the bridge, connecting Heaven to Earth. So, what happens when Heaven and Earth flip but the qualities of the Mankind (human) in the middle remain the same? The answer is yours.
4. Hex #44 is a Digram-evolutional version of Hex #43 !
Monogram Evolutional (or Evolutionary) hexagram is an innovative modern approach first proposed by Mondo Secter in 1975. In his original book he writes:
“It was inspired by references in original I Ching text and commentary such as: All movements are completed in six stages, and the seventh brings return. This theory is also … implied in an historical diagram of 12 hexagrams called “seasonal cycle,” used in ancient China for expressing and understanding the principles of medicine and agriculture, among other things.”
Applying this transformation concept to the digrams level we will get digram-evolutional transformation of #43 to #44.
That is another tie between hexagrams $43 and #44. And there could be many more.
So, what is the most important take-away for me from this discussion? Similar to principle “tell me who is your friend and will tell you who are you” – to better understand any real situation presented by our casted hexagram we need to understand paired hexagrams and their mutual relations with primary hexagram and potential transformations to each other.
Happy casting !