Ge · Revolution

The meaning

What the name means Ge is change, shedding the old skin.

The picture Fire in the middle of a lake, fire and water working against each other, so there must be a change.

The sense of the whole The whole hexagram is about the time when change is due. A change must win trust and choose its moment and must not be hasty. Change is not change for its own sake; it is for something better.

In plain words: what this hexagram says

The time to change has come. Move when timing and trust are both in place, and change with measure so that others can keep up.

The upper trigram is Lake and the lower is Fire: Lake above, Fire below. When you read it, first picture the two together as a scene, then set it against the original below. The plain words speak only of stance and do not foretell.

The judgement

己日乃孚，元亨利貞，悔亡。

The image

澤中有火，革；君子以治歷明時。

The six lines

From the bottom up, the first line is the lowest. When you cast this hexagram and a line is changing, read the matching one. The original is classical Chinese.

1. 初九鞏用黃牛之革。
2. 六二己日乃革之，徵吉，無咎。
3. 九三徵兇，貞厲，革言三就，有孚。
4. 九四悔亡，有孚改命，吉。
5. 九五大人虎變，未佔有孚。
6. 上六君子豹變，小人革面，徵兇，居貞吉。

To learn how to read a hexagram, see "How to read a hexagram"; for changing lines, see "Changing lines and the resulting hexagram".