The Corners of the Mouth (Hexagram 27)

What this is

The mountain above, thunder below, the shape of an open mouth with teeth: the figure of feeding and being fed. Yi is the Corners of the Mouth, Nourishment, the question of what you take in and what you give out, the care of the body and the cultivation of the spirit. Hexagram 27, 頤 (Yí): the upper trigram Gen (Mountain, ☶) over the lower trigram Zhen (Thunder, ☳); its six lines, read from the bottom upward, give the figure ䷚.

What it governs

It governs nourishment of every kind, food, words, and the cultivation of self and others. In the Oracle it presides over the day for attending to what you consume and what you provide, for keeping your speech and your sustenance clean.

Its properties

Its image is the open mouth, still above and moving below, like jaws; the wise watch their words and are temperate in eating and drinking. The virtue is the discernment to nourish rightly, oneself and others, in body and in spirit; its number the framing strong lines holding the empty middle. The shadow is gluttony of body or speech, the seeking of nourishment from low sources, or the failure to feed those one is responsible for.

Where else it appears

The care of true nourishment is named wherever sustenance is held sacred. Yi is the daily bread of the prayer, the discipline of fasting and right speech, the Taoist temperance, the alchemist's feeding of the fire with measured fuel. The open mouth is the gate through which both body and soul are fed, and what passes it shapes the whole.

Where you meet it on the Oracle

It surfaces as the day's I Ching hexagram. Drawing Nourishment tells you the day asks you to mind what you take in and put out: be temperate in food and speech, seek sustenance from worthy sources, and feed those who depend on you. Read it as a counsel of mindful intake and clean output. The Oracle's own note on this figure: “Thunder beneath Mountain — the mouth; what you take in becomes you.”

Why it matters

Nourishment matters because you become what you take in and you shape others by what you give them. It asks you to be deliberate about your sources of food and thought, to guard your speech, and to nourish the right things in yourself and in those you tend.

Correspondences

element

Earth

number

27