Yi Jing · Chinese tarot
Small Accumulation
Hexagram 9 of the Yi Jing · 小畜 Xiǎo Chù
The figure
Wind above Heaven: a gentle force restraining a great impulse, the breath that bends without stopping. The image of small accumulation.
What this figure illuminates
Small Accumulation lights up the moments when you can't do everything, but where small repeated gestures prepare the ground. You don't advance in bursts, but by patient accumulation.
For a decision, the figure invites you to accept a modest scope for now: “what small step, taken regularly, builds what will make the larger move possible?”.
The classical text
The Judgment
The small holds back the great. There is progress — yet dense clouds gather from the west and still no rain. What matters cannot break through just yet.
The Image
Wind drives across the sky, moving only what is light. Seeing this, the noble person refines the outward grace of their character.
The Six Lines
- First line
You return to your own path. What fault could come of that? Good fortune.
- Second line
Drawn back to the right course alongside others. Good fortune.
- Third line
The cart loses its axle-strap; man and wife look away from each other. To force ahead now only divides.
- Fourth line
Held in sincerity, you avert the danger of blood and let your fear go. No mistake.
- Fifth line
Sincere and richly endowed, you bind others to you and share what you have. Strength drawn together.
- Sixth line
At last the rain falls, and the striving may rest. Do not press past the full — like the moon almost round, to go further now is dangerous.
Daoa's wording, written after the classical reference translations, now in the public domain: James Legge (1882) and Charles de Harlez (1889).
A question to keep
What small repeated gesture prepares what isn't ripe yet?
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