Hexagram 9: Small Taming風天小畜 · Xiǎo Xù

• Upper trigram　Xùn, Wind: gentleness, penetration and steady influence.
• Lower trigram　Qián, Heaven: strength, creation and the drive to move forward.

The Judgment

Success. Dense clouds, no rain, from our western lands.

亨。密雲不雨，自我西郊。

Our plain English rendering, with the Zhouyi original

Reading

The clouds have gathered but no rain has come: some accumulation, not yet ripe. Today suits continuing to store up bit by bit, without rushing to see big results.

Something to do today

• Save one small step toward a long-term goal: read a few pages or organise one document.

How a hexagram is cast

The three-coin method: toss three coins together, counting heads as 3 and tails as 2. The total, 6, 7, 8 or 9, gives one line; six tosses, recorded from the bottom up, make a hexagram. A 6 (old yin) or 9 (old yang) is a changing line, which turns this hexagram into another and shows where things are heading.