The Abysmal (Water)
Water in the Ravine
Kan, the trigram of water: one whole line shut between two broken ones, the image of a stream sunk in a gorge.
Kan reads from the bottom up as broken, whole, broken. The firm line is enclosed by two yielding ones, which the tradition reads as water in a ravine: soft on the outside, solid at the core, and moving through a place of danger. Its attribute in the Shuogua is danger, the pit into which a thing falls, and it is the middle son, because the single yang line stands in the second place. In the Later Heaven arrangement it holds the north. Doubled, it forms hexagram 29, which carries the same name and treats of danger repeated.
Light
Signifies depth, sincerity of heart, courage held steady in difficulty, and the persistence of water, which keeps its nature and flows on through every hollow.
Shadow
Can mean peril, entrapment, hardship that repeats itself, anxiety, and a situation in which movement continues but no ground is gained.
