The Clinging (Fire)

Brightness Without Substance

Clarity that is hollow at the centre: brightness clings to what sustains it, and can consume it.

Li reads from the bottom up as whole, broken, whole. The empty line at the centre is the reason for the name: fire has no body of its own and clings to the wood it consumes, as brightness clings to what it illuminates. The Shuogua gives it the attribute of clinging, assigns it the eye among the parts of the body, and places it in the south in the Later Heaven arrangement. Its further images are the sun, lightning and clarity of sight. It is the middle daughter, the single yin line standing in the second place, and doubled it forms hexagram 30, which carries the same name.