yin · yang — tetragrams 28–36 — 22 April to 2 June
Full strength, and something already moving underneath it.
The first line breaks for the first time. The region has changed: for twenty-seven figures heaven held the highest position, and now it does not. Yet the province beneath is unbroken, which is why this province feels like power rather than loss. Strength here is real and usable. It is simply no longer the whole of the story.
The season runs from the grain rain to the eve of summer, with the beginning of summer falling at Resolve. The breath takes flight, shifts its force, changes its shape. It grows hard without and strong within until it can cut and decide; it dares; it stretches out what it intends. Then, at the height of the work, a faint yin takes the ground below and the figure packs, meaning to go. The rest is abundance held level — the ten thousand things spread out bright and many, swelling full with no gap in them, at peace with their own kind — while a faint yin quietly gathers something in. The province closes in pure hardness, tireless, everything a strong beam.
This province answers questions about capacity, and it almost always answers yes. That is the difficulty. You can do the thing; you are being told so plainly. What the Mystery adds, and what the querent in a strong season is least willing to hear, is that the ground is already changing under a work that has not yet finished. Do not spend a favourable reading here on getting more. Spend it on noticing what has begun to be withdrawn while you were succeeding — the small yin at the foot of the figure, gathering in. Strength is not the warning. Strength that has stopped watching the floor is the warning.