THE IMAGE of two trigrams: Thunder above and Wind below. Thunder represents the eldest of the three sons. Wind represents the eldest daughter. Whereas the previous chapter describes the attraction between two young people, the hexagram of this chapter depicts the mature relationship between two older people.
This piece of wood – was it part of a root or a branch? – belonged to a sequoia. I picked it up thirty years ago in a redwood forest in California, and it has moved with me time and time again ever since.
A human life is measured in weeks, months and years. When the exceptionally strong reach the age of 100, it is reason for the local newspaper to report it and the mayor honours the birthday boy or girl with a visit. For the forest giants in the sequoia forest, a human life is but a sigh, a single sentence. After a hundred years, these trees are barely out of infancy. Eventually reaching a hundred metres in height, after a thousand years their lives are just beginning.
During those first thousand years, that tree has been through a lot. Torrential rain, heavy loads of snow and drought: it remains unperturbed. Lightning strikes: it doesn’t care about one direct hit more or less. Forest fires, raging storms: bring it on.
The trigrams of Wind and Thunder constitute the image of long lasting.
The image in the previous chapter depicted infatuation: the mutual crush between the youthful trigrams of Mountain and Lake. Turn the hexagram upside down, and we see how those same two people are still together after a weathered life with occasional thunderstorms.
To be continued …