Hexagram 48: The Well

井 (Jǐng)

Constant renewal and the source of life and wisdom.

Overview

You have already passed the stage of life when your energy was running out and most of your ideas could not be carried out, for one reason or another. Failure does not go on forever.

Most of the trouble is behind you and you can breathe more freely. Fate may be preparing many happy events for you.

The new situation looks far better than the ones before it. Difficulties are still to be expected, but you have the strength and the will to handle them. Do not ignore the advice of this sign.

Until now your will to act was held back by your own inertia and by the slowness of everything around you, which killed your impulses and drained your creative strength. The moment has come to get back what was lost and move forward.

Do not look for sympathy and help from other people, or you may meet the same resistance again. There is one way out: turn to your own reserves.

What you have spent so far is only a small part of the strength and energy you hold. Draw that strength first from the well inside you. In other words, find yourself in your own inner world.

People around you

How should you build your relationships now? Even when you need help and support, do not hurry. In a rush you risk losing more than you gain. Move step by step, do not chase the final result, and keep telling yourself that there is no need to hurry and that you will have time for everything. That is how you win and become free of other people and their plans.

Work

Take time to think carefully about what you want to do in your work. Do not grab the first thing in front of you. Take matters in order of urgency. In the past you lost a lot of time on things that were interesting but not necessary, and that needs to be put right quickly. Look at what is urgent for you today and give it most of your time and energy.

Your wish

Whether your wish comes true depends less on you than on one other person. You should be able to guess who that is. Do not force events. Play the role of a watchful but quiet observer. Then you will not miss the important moment, and you will not spoil everything by rushing.

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 48 is Water over Wind/Wood. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Fire over Lake. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Kǎn · Water Deep and dangerous
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Xùn · Wind/Wood Gentle and penetrating
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Lí · Fire Clinging and bright
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Duì · Lake Joyous and open