Preponderance of the Small (Hexagram 62)

What this is

Thunder on the mountain, the sound rising but not far, a small movement above a great stillness: the figure of the small in excess. Xiao Guo is Preponderance of the Small, Small Exceeding, the figure of the time when only small things are favoured and great ambitions must be set aside, when extraordinary modesty in little matters succeeds while reaching for the great fails. Hexagram 62, 小過 (Xiǎo Guò): the upper trigram Zhen (Thunder, ☳) over the lower trigram Gen (Mountain, ☶); its six lines, read from the bottom upward, give the figure ䷽.

What it governs

It governs the time of small things, the season for modest, careful attention to detail rather than great undertakings. In the Oracle it presides over the day when the small is favoured and the great is not, when success lies in extraordinary care over little matters and in conscientiousness, conscience, and economy beyond the ordinary.

Its properties

Its image is thunder on the mountain, sound that does not carry far, the bird that should fly low rather than high; the wise give preponderance to reverence in conduct, to grief in mourning, to thrift in spending. The virtue is the extraordinary attention to small duties and the modesty that does not overreach when only the small is favoured; its element thunder above the still mountain, its emblem the bird that brings good fortune by descending rather than soaring. The shadow is the ambition that reaches for the great when only the small will prosper, the bird that flies too high and is caught, or the smallness that loses all sense of proportion.

Where else it appears

The favouring of the small and humble is named wherever the modest course is the wise one. Xiao Guo is the faithfulness in little things that the Gospel says qualifies for much, the bird that the text warns should not fly toward the sun, the alchemical attention to the smallest measure on which the whole work turns. Thunder that does not carry far on the mountain is the season when the modest, careful, downward-flying course succeeds, and the high-reaching one comes to grief.

Where you meet it on the Oracle

It appears as the day's I Ching hexagram. Drawing Small Exceeding tells you the day favours the small and not the great: set aside large ambitions, give extraordinary care to small duties and details, and practise conscientiousness and economy. Read it as the bird's counsel, fly low today, for the one who reaches too high will be caught. The Oracle's own note on this figure: “Thunder beneath Mountain — small preponderance; the little bird does not fly high.”

Why it matters

Small Exceeding matters because there are seasons when great undertakings simply will not prosper and the wise turn their full attention to doing small things extraordinarily well. It asks you to read the season rightly, to set aside ambition when only the modest course is favoured, and to find in the careful tending of small duties the success that overreaching would forfeit.

Correspondences

element

Wood

number

62