Hexagram 40
Deliverance
解Xiè
☳ Thunder above, ☵ Water below
Above the water rolls the thunder: the storm has discharged itself, rain and threat move off, and in the cleared air lives the relief of deliverance.
The JudgmentDeliverance: the southwest brings reward. If there is nowhere one still must go, return brings good fortune; if there is still something to be done, haste brings good fortune. The tension is broken; what counts now is how you close: settle what remains briskly, and back to the ordinary without delay.
The ImageThunder and rain break loose: the image of deliverance. Thus the noble one forgives mistakes and overlooks misdeeds. The storm purifies the air: what had built up has been discharged. After the discharge, what fits is not a reckoning but clean air; forgiveness here is not weakness but the weather report of the new era.
InterpretationThe crisis breaks: the conflict is settled, the diagnosis made, the storm past. Deliverance, but with instructions for use. First: finish what still needs finishing, briskly and without dragging; half-cleared crises grow back. Then: return to ordinary life as soon as you can; do not linger in endless evaluating, reliving and after-blame, for those who keep inhabiting the crisis prolong it. And third, the hardest: forgive. Others' mistakes, the going-along, your own share: let the storm carry it away. The air has cleared; load it again with old scores and you summon the next storm yourself.
Place in the sequenceObstructions cannot last forever; therefore deliverance follows 39, Obstruction. What was long stuck comes loose once the tension is past its peak. It forms a pair with 39 · Obstruction.
Nuclear hexagram
The nuclear hexagram of Deliverance is 63 · After Completion: After completion: everything stands in its place, and precisely now the hardest part begins: preserving the order, guarding the details, tending the fire. It is formed from the inner lines and shows the hidden core of the situation.
The six lines
These texts belong to changing lines in a reading, from the bottom up.
Six at the beginning
Without blame. The first line of deliverance is the shortest in the whole book, and that is the message itself: there is nothing more to say. The tension has only just broken; say little, recover quietly, breathe. After a heavy period the temptation is great to interpret and discuss everything at once; let the silence do its work first. Silence without blame: sometimes that is the whole oracle, and exactly enough.
Nine in the second placeruling line
In the field one kills three foxes and receives a yellow arrow:
perseverance brings good fortune. The crisis is over, but the foxes still roam: the flatterers, the schemers, the skulkers who lived off the confusion. Clear them out (three of them, says the image: be thorough) and do it like a yellow arrow: straight through the middle, pure in motive. Cleaning up after deliverance also means seeing through the people who played their games in the chaos. Without that cleanup, the skulking simply begins again.
Six in the third place
If someone with a burden on his back still rides in the carriage, he attracts robbers:
perseverance leads to shame. Freshly delivered, and immediately assuming a status that does not match your carrying capacity: the burden on the back belongs to a walker, the carriage to one who has earned it, and the mixture draws robbers the way honey draws flies. Living beyond your recovery after a crisis (spending, flaunting, claiming) is a personal invitation to the old danger. Remain for now the walker you were; the carriage comes when it is truly yours.
Nine in the fourth place
Free yourself from your big toe:
then the companion arrives, and you can trust him. In the hard time all sorts of things attached themselves to you: easy hangers-on, habits, dependencies that came along because they could. The true companion keeps his distance as long as that company hangs around you. Detach yourself from what does not belong to you (the big toe: it clings low and walks along everywhere), and see who only then comes closer. Quality waits until quantity has left.
Six in the fifth placeruling line
If only the noble one can free himself, that brings good fortune:
then he shows the small-minded that he truly means it. Deliverance is ultimately an inner act: as long as you are still attached to the old within (the resentment, the game, the need for their approval), the wrong people sense it unerringly and keep sticking. Truly let go inside, and the small withdraws by itself: not through what you say but through what you radiate. Only earnestness that can be felt convinces; feigned distance convinces no one, yourself least of all.
Six at the top
The prince shoots at a hawk on the high wall:
he hits it; everything is favorable. One stubborn blockage remains, high up and beyond the reach of kind words: the hawk on the wall, the evil genius, the obstacle that does not yield to half measures. For that, the law of the hunt applies: do not shoot until you are sure, and then shoot to hit. Prepare it, await the moment, and act decisively in one stroke. Some problems are not solved in small steps but with one well-aimed decision; know which ones, and take aim calmly.