Hexagram 38 – K’uei – Opposition

Hexagram-38-KueiThe trigram above – Li – the Clinging, Flame
The trigram below – Tui – the Joyous, Lake

General: Reconciliation must be a key priority if there is disunity.

Love: Be as tactful as necessary to overcome a potentially divisive issue.

Business: You may find that lack of communication, or refusal to communicate, is causing a period of stagnation. You will need to remedy this before further progress is possible.

Personal: It will be necessary to learn to respect your enemy to resolve any crisis you are currently in.

This hexagram is composed of the trigram Li above, i.e., flame, which burns upward, and Tui, below, i.e., the lake, which seeps downward. These two movements are in direct contrast. Furthermore, Li is the second daughter and Tui the youngest daughter, and although they live in the same house they belong to different men; hence their wills are not the same but are divergently directed.

When people live in opposition and estrangement they cannot carry out a great undertaking in common; their points of view diverge too widely. In such circumstances one should above all not proceed brusquely, for that would only increase the existing opposition; instead, one should limit oneself to producing gradual effects in small matters. Here success can still be expected, because the situation is such that the opposition does not preclude all agreement.

In general, opposition appears as an obstruction, but when it represents polarity within a comprehensive whole, it has also its useful and important functions. The oppositions of heaven and earth, spirit and nature, man and woman, when reconciled, bring about the creation and reproduction of life. In the world of visible things, the principle of opposites makes possible the differentiation by categories through which order is brought into the world.

Astredamus

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