Trigram
☳ Thunder
震Zhèn · The Arousing
- Quality
- inciting movement
- Family
- the eldest son
- Animal
- dragon
- Body
- foot
- Direction
- east
- Season
- spring
Thunder is the trigram of beginnings. One solid line at the bottom, two broken lines above it. Wilhelm calls it The Arousing: what startles, wakes you up and sets things in motion.
Strength rising from below
The image from nature is thunder, above all the first thunderstorm of spring. After a long winter everything seems still, until suddenly a crash rolls through the sky and life begins to stir again. Thunder gives no warning. It is simply there, and afterwards nothing is quite the same.
The lines show where that shock comes from. The yang line is at the bottom, beneath two soft yin lines. A strong force sits underneath and pushes up against what lies above it. Because the lines above give way, that force breaks out with a jolt. That is the quality of the trigram: inciting movement. It is not steady growth, but a beginning that bursts out.
How Thunder shows up
Thunder is the phone call that turns your day upside down. The news that forces you to act now instead of later. But it is also your own impulse: the decision you have been putting off for months that is suddenly settled one morning. People with a lot of Thunder love to start things, get enthusiastic quickly and bring energy into a group that had gone quiet.
The I Ching also sees an opportunity in the shock. Whoever is startled looks again. Whoever loses their balance for a moment notices where they actually stand. The danger of Thunder is that the movement gets stuck in the noise: much begun, little finished. The art is to use the fright as a push, and then to carry on calmly.
The eldest son and the dragon
In the family, Thunder is the eldest son. Wilhelm explains how this works. Each of the three sons has one yang line alongside two yin lines, and that one line that differs determines his character. Where that line stands determines the order: the bottom is the first place, so this is the eldest. Thunder is the first time the father's strength makes itself felt in the mother. The eldest son takes the initiative and carries on what the father began.
The animal is the dragon, in China not a monster but a creature that rises from the depths in spring along with the storm. In the body Thunder is the foot: the part that takes the first step. In the arrangement of King Wen, the later heaven Wilhelm describes, Thunder stands in the east, where the sun rises, and belongs to spring. It is the point in the cycle of the year where everything begins again.
Thunder below, Thunder above
When Thunder is at the bottom of your hexagram, the movement is in you. Something is stirring, a new beginning that is still small but can no longer be stopped. In hexagram 24, Return, Thunder lies beneath Earth. It is the first yang line coming back after a long dark period, like the light after the shortest day. Nothing needs to happen yet, but the direction has turned. Rest and patience belong with it: the new needs time to gain strength.
When Thunder is at the top, the movement comes outward, as something that touches others and carries them along. In hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, Thunder stands above Earth: the storm breaks loose from the ground and rolls across the land. It is the image of enthusiasm that spreads, of someone who gets others moving because he connects with what already lives in them.
When Thunder doubles itself, in hexagram 51, The Arousing, shock follows shock. The lesson there is not to avoid the fright, but to stay calm inside while it passes.
Hexagrams with Thunder below
- 3
Difficulty at the Beginning - 17
Following - 21
Biting Through - 24
Return - 25
Innocence - 27
The Corners of the Mouth - 42
Increase - 51
The Arousing
Hexagrams with Thunder above
- 16
Enthusiasm - 32
Duration - 34
The Power of the Great - 40
Deliverance - 51
The Arousing - 54
The Marrying Maiden - 55
Abundance - 62
Preponderance of the Small