Hexagram 53
Gradual Progress
jiàn
Reading it as a decision
Gradual Progress puts a settled mountain beneath a moving wind — the motion is real, but it travels over something that doesn't shift underneath it. The classical judgment reaches for the image of a marriage arranged and carried out in proper sequence, each stage completed before the next begins, as its model for what good progress looks like here. Nothing about this hexagram rewards speed. It describes situations that develop in stages whether you like it or not, where skipping a stage doesn't save time so much as borrow against the ones still ahead.
The strategic read is to hold your position rather than force it further right now — this is already reasonably good ground, and the task is maintaining it carefully rather than pushing for more all at once. If you're weighing whether to advance on something, the signal doesn't say no; it says not yet, not like this. Classical line texts here split evenly between favorable and cautionary, which is consistent with a hexagram about pacing: the outcome depends less on whether you move than on whether you can sustain a steady rate instead of alternating between stalling and lurching forward.
The classical text
Judgment (卦辭)
漸，女歸吉，利貞。
Progress comes step by step, like a woman married in due order - fortunate, and fitting to persist.
The six lines (爻辭)
初六：鴻漸于干，小子厲。有言，無咎。
The wild goose advances slowly to the riverbank; the young are at risk, and there is criticism, yet no real fault.
六二：鴻漸于磐，飲食衎衎，吉。
The wild goose advances to a flat boulder, eating and drinking at ease - fortunate.
九三：鴻漸于陸，夫征不復，婦孕不育，凶。利御寇。
The wild goose advances onto dry land; the husband marches off and never returns, the wife's pregnancy fails - misfortune, though fit for guarding against raiders.
六四：鴻漸于木，或得其桷，無咎。
The wild goose advances into a tree and finds a flat branch to rest on - no fault.
九五：鴻漸于陵，婦三歲不孕，終莫之勝，吉。
The wild goose advances to the high hill ridge; the wife goes three years without conceiving, yet in the end nothing defeats her - fortunate.
上九：鴻漸于逵，其羽可用為儀，吉。
The wild goose advances into the open sky, its feathers fit for ceremonial plumes - fortunate.
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.
Ask your own question