Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward

升 (Shēng)

Gradual advancement and steady growth toward success.

Overview

In early spring, trees wake from their winter sleep and reach for the sun with all their strength. Take the advice of this sign in the same spirit.

Let everything you do be like that waking tree. Only then will your actions lead somewhere. Otherwise they will stay in your memory as passing impressions and nothing more.

Make a plan of action for the near future. Build on what you already have. Take the time to listen to advice from friends, above all when they want nothing for themselves.

Try to find someone with influence who can help you in what you are starting. Even that does not guarantee success by itself.

People around you

Look carefully at the people around you. Many of them can offer you support or practical advice. Do not forget to help people. Do not wait for them to ask, go to them first.

Work

At work, take on serious projects, the ones that will send up good "shoots". Do not spend your time on everyday problems, because sooner or later they usually sort themselves out easily.

Take your good luck while it is here. There is no telling when fate will be so kind to you again.

Go through your plans once more and decide what matters most right now. Perhaps you have already tried to carry out one large project. This is the perfect chance to finish it.

Your wish

Are you worried about whether your wish will come true? The picture has two sides right now. Fate points you toward quick success, and at the same time this sign says that nothing can be finished yet.

Be ready: something important may happen soon, large enough to change your plans for the future completely. The final answer will have to wait.

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 46 is Earth over Wind/Wood. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Thunder over Lake. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Kūn · Earth Receptive and devoted
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Xùn · Wind/Wood Gentle and penetrating
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Zhèn · Thunder Arousing and moving
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Duì · Lake Joyous and open