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Hexagram 27

Right Nourishment

Trigrams:Upper Mountain · stopsLower Thunder · moves

Reading it as a decision

The image is a jaw in motion — mountain still above, movement below — the mechanics of eating, feeding, taking something in to sustain what comes next. Read as a situation, it points to questions of what you're actually feeding: a project, a relationship, your own capacity. The judgment ties good fortune directly to correctness, and adds a pointed instruction to watch the jaws and seek your own nourishment — pay attention not just to what's being consumed but to who or what is actually sourcing it.

The move here is maintenance rather than expansion: keep the inputs — the people, habits, capital, information — that are actually sustaining the thing steady, rather than swapping them out for something faster. Half the line texts read favorably, consistent with a hexagram about steady upkeep rather than dramatic turns. The practical question it hands back is simple: is what you're currently feeding this decision actually nourishing it, or just filling space? Get that right and staying the course is the strongest move available.

The classical text

Judgment (卦辭)

頤,貞吉。觀頤,自求口實。

Nourishment brings good fortune through constancy; watch how a being is fed, and seek out one's own food.

The six lines (爻辭)

  • 初九:舍爾靈龜,觀我朵頤,凶。

    Leaving aside your own sacred tortoise to gaze enviously at my full jaws — misfortune.

  • 六二:顛頤,拂經,于丘頤,征凶。

    Seeking food downward against the proper order, then again up on the hill — going forward brings misfortune.

  • 六三:拂頤,貞凶,十年勿用,無攸利。

    Turning against proper nourishment; persisting brings misfortune, and for ten years none of it can be used.

  • 六四:顛頤吉,虎視眈眈,其欲逐逐,無咎。

    Feeding from below is fortunate here, watching keenly like a tiger, craving pressed eagerly, yet no blame.

  • 六五:拂經,居貞吉,不可涉大川。

    Departing from the normal way, but staying settled and constant brings good fortune; not fit to cross the great river.

  • 上九:由頤,厲,吉,利涉大川。

    The source from which others are fed; danger, yet good fortune, and favorable to cross the great river.

This is a general reference, not a live reading — it doesn't know your situation. iYarrow casts a fresh hexagram for the actual question you're weighing.

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