Upper trigram
☲
Fire · Li
Clarity and attachment.
FamilyMiddle daughter
ElementFire
Hexagram 30 of 64
☲☲ The Clinging
Hexagram 30 of the 64, The Clinging, is fire above, fire below — read as fire doubled — brightness that depends on fuel. Its six lines are 101101, counted from the bottom up, where a broken line is yielding and a solid one firm.
Lower trigram
☲
Fire · Li
Clarity and attachment.
FamilyMiddle daughter
ElementFire
From the Book of Changes itself
The Judgement and the Image
The Judgement
The clinging. Perseverance furthers. Care of the cow brings good fortune.
The Image
Brightness rises twice. The great person perpetuates this brightness and illuminates the four quarters of the world.
These two texts are the hexagram. Everything else — the trigram analysis, the line positions, the modern keyword — is commentary built on top of them. The Judgement states the situation and its outlook; the Image draws the practical conclusion, and by convention begins with what the trigrams show in nature.
Rendered in plain English from the canonical text rather than copied from any one translation. If you want a specific scholarly version, Wilhelm-Baynes and Lynn are the two usually recommended.
The six lines
Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yang yin yang yang yin yang — what each position means.
| Line | This hexagram | What the position means |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | ▬▬▬▬▬ yang | the situation past its peak — completion, or overreach |
| 5 | ▬▬ ▬▬ yin | the ruling position, usually the most favourable in the hexagram |
| 4 | ▬▬▬▬▬ yang | entering the outer sphere — proximity to authority, exposure |
| 3 | ▬▬▬▬▬ yang | the transition point, and the most dangerous position in the figure |
| 2 | ▬▬ ▬▬ yin | the inner sphere — home, private life, what you are among your own |
| 1 | ▬▬▬▬▬ yang | the beginning of the situation, still hidden and barely formed |
What the two trigrams do to each other
Inner and outer
The lower trigram is the inner situation — Fire, clarity and attachment. This is what is happening in you, or in the private side of the matter.
The upper trigram is the outer situation — Fire, clarity and attachment. This is the world the inner position meets.
The five-element relation
Both trigrams are Fire, so nothing in the figure pulls against anything else. That makes the reading unusually single-minded — and unusually short of internal correction.
Read as a family
Read as family, this is Middle daughter above and Middle daughter below. The same figure doubled — the purest form of what the trigram describes.
The eight trigrams are traditionally assigned family roles — Heaven is the father, Earth the mother, and the remaining six are three sons and three daughters. Which one sits above which is part of how a hexagram is read.
Calculated from the lines
Hexagrams connected to this one
Nuclear hexagram
61 · Inner Truth
Built from lines 2-3-4 and 3-4-5 of this figure — the hexagram hidden inside it. Read as what is happening beneath the surface of the situation.
Opposite hexagram
29 · The Abysmal
Every line flipped. The same situation turned inside out — useful for seeing what you are not currently considering.
Inverse hexagram
Symmetrical
This hexagram reads the same upside down. Only eight of the sixty-four do — a small, distinctive group.
None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.
The image
Fire above, Fire below.
Fire over Fire: clarity and attachment meeting clarity and attachment.
That combination is the whole meaning of hexagram 30. Nothing about it is arbitrary — change either trigram and you get a different hexagram with a different reading, which is why the 64 form a system rather than a list.