Hexagram 24: Return

復 (Fù)

Revival, new beginning, and the return of positive energy.

Overview

This sign means that you have come through a series of trials and returned to the point where the way up begins. You can move toward new heights again, but now with experience and with the ability to act in hard circumstances.

Looking back, you may see that there is nothing to regret in what you went through. Without those difficulties you would never have found your new abilities, and you would never have known what a reserve of strength and hope you carry. Thank fate for the lesson and for the best qualities it gave you, and turn to your plans with fresh energy.

The meaning of this sign is that you are back on the road of creative growth, but the weight of the past still slows you down. Do not try to do everything at once. Take your time. Act calmly and with sense.

People around you

Be sure to look again at your relationships with the people around you. Do not let restless, hurried action spoil what should be kept. Act in your own interests. Is everything in your present relationships as you want it? Do you give other people's opinions too much weight, or too little? Weigh your own strength and abilities so that you do not lose your way.

Work

The hard period you came through has affected your work too. Perhaps you are full of gloom now and do not want to move on. You have decided that your goals are unreal and out of reach, so you have given up and let the current carry you.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get to work on correcting past mistakes. Throw out everything that irritates you. Find the strength to take up things that are interesting and full of promise.

Do not be afraid to take risks. A reasonable risk makes sense now.

Your wish

Your wish is still unlikely to come true soon. But move toward the goal you have chosen step by step, without forgetting the other matters. After a while what you want may be within reach.

This Overview is one traditional reading of the figure, offered as a prompt for reflection and perspective rather than a prediction of a fixed future. Where this material comes from.

New to the sequence? See how lines, trigrams and changing lines work, or cast your own reading with the three-coin method.

Structure

Read from the bottom upward, hexagram 24 is Earth over Thunder. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Earth over Earth. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Kūn · Earth Receptive and devoted
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Zhèn · Thunder Arousing and moving
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Kūn · Earth Receptive and devoted
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Kūn · Earth Receptive and devoted