40–thunder over water: Deliverance

Translations of the Hexagram Title

• Legge: Deliverance
• Wing: Liberation
• Huang: Relief
• Pearson: Released (Untied)
• Hinton: Unbound

The Decision

Pearson: “Released. The Southwest works out. If you have no destination, your coming back is fortunate. If you have a destination, good fortune comes in the early morning.”

Hinton: “On southwest plains wild bounty is unbound because going there you abide with the people. Returning home brings good fortune because you inhabit the abiding center of all things. Set out toward a destination, and dawn brings good fortune indeed. Setting out is where great achievement begins.

Both Huang and Wilhelm comment on sequence. Wilhelm writes: “Here the movement goes out of the sphere of danger. The obstacle has been removed, the difficulties are being resolved. Deliverance is not yet achieved, it is just in its beginning, and the hexagram represents its various stages.”

The Image

Pearson: “Thunder and rain in action: the image of release. You should forgive mistakes and pardon crimes.”

Personal Reflection

What a relief to throw this hexagram after all the pain of Illumination Blackened! The words about going home and setting out seem to me like the ebb and flow on a shore. I love the words, about returning home “because you inhabit the abiding center of all things.”

But the admonition in Williams certainly holds, deliverance has not yet been achieved. We are in a long beginning.

But the admonition to pardon crimes falls on my deaf ears. The crimes we are witnessing today demand accountability.

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