Hold/Release in the Trigrams

The idea (which I had a few days ago) is that the 8 trigrams come in pairs of the "Greek" elements Fire, Air, Water and Earth *such that* for each element one of the two trigrams holds/binds its element together, while the other trigram lets go of it, releases it.*

EARTH

- Mountain (male, 3rd son) holds Earth together ("resting", "keeping still"), like hard rock.
- Earth (female, mother) lets Earth go ("devoted/yielding", "receptive"), like soft loess or sand.

WATER

- Lake (female, 3rd daughter) holds Water together.
- Water (male, 2nd son) lets Water go, releases it (rain, stream).

AIR

- Heaven (male, father) holds Air together ("strong").
- Wind (female, 1st daughter) lets Air flow freely.

FIRE

- Fire (female, 2nd daughter) holds Fire together (flame, "clinging").
- Thunder (male, 1st son) lets Fire go, releases its energy (lightning).

Pretty obvious and fundamental once you look at it like this, I find. Or not? ;)

Not sure how to make this more publicly visible, though... (I think this is something that would probably interest many people interested in the I Ching...) Maybe I will just write a short article for the time being.

Alain Stalder

* Attribution to Greek elements is not new, but I think the bind/release duality is.