Hexagram 17 line 4: Following, yang in the fourth place

What changes when line 4 moves

Line 4 of Hexagram 17 is yang, a solid line. When it is cast as old yang (a 9) it flips, and the hexagram becomes Hexagram 3, Difficulty at the Beginning: A birth is hard: the situation is new, tangled and full of promise, and it needs helpers.

Read together, the reading moves from Following toward Difficulty at the Beginning. Following what is right, and being followed: influence that comes from adapting to the time. Thunder below, water above: a storm at the start of things, and a blade of grass pushing through packed earth. Difficulty at the Beginning describes the chaos of a genuine start, not a failure. The primary hexagram describes the situation; the changing line is the point of movement in it; the resulting hexagram is where that movement leads. Both hexagrams belong to the reading, and the changing line is the hinge between them.

Hexagram 17 changing to 3 →

Line 4 in context

Love & relationships

If people follow you, keep your motives transparent and serve the cause, not the following. In love and relationships, Hexagram 17 reads: Go along with the other person's rhythm for now, and choose carefully whom you follow. Devotion to someone worth it is strength; devotion to anyone who asks is the error the lines describe.

Career

If people follow you, keep your motives transparent and serve the cause, not the following. In career, Hexagram 17 reads: Adapt to the direction of the organisation or the leader, if the direction is sound. If you lead, you keep followers by being worth following, not by insisting. Rest when the day ends.

Money

If people follow you, keep your motives transparent and serve the cause, not the following. In money, Hexagram 17 reads: Follow the trend that is real rather than fighting it, and follow advice that is proven. The reading favours flexibility and warns against clinging to a position out of pride.

A decision

If people follow you, keep your motives transparent and serve the cause, not the following. In decisions, Hexagram 17 reads: Choose the option that adapts to the situation as it is. If it means following someone else's lead, do it wholeheartedly or not at all; half-following is the worst of both.