Da Chu :: Great Store

Auspicious:: Auspicious for eating far from home and crossing the great river

大畜

䷙

6 :: first

Danger. It is advised to stop.

You are not yet in a position to give. Stop and wait. The potential of great benefit has not taken root yet.

9 :: second

Broken chariot axle.

When a relationship is severed, joint endeavors make no progress. The axle that holds two wheels together is broken.

6 :: third

Fine horses are ready. Drill with chariots daily. Well-practiced defenses succeed.

Strength is created and maintained by cultivating clarity and discipline. Teamwork (horse and chariot) and routine practice (drilling) turn raw energy (men and horses) into usable power (cavalry). You prosper through discipline and reputation.

9 :: fourth

Young ox wears a horn board.¹ It is most auspicious.

You possess prosperity and freedom. You have reached your goals. The young male ox is the highest form of sacrificial offering made at Zhou ancestral ritu-als. Your success calls for a thanksgiving celebration.

9 :: fifth

A gelded² boar is tethered. Auspicious.

You have gone beyond victory and have secured good fortune and continued success. The boar is a standard sacrificial offering made at a Zhou ancestral shrine. The stability of the situation calls for a standard celebration.

6 :: top

Be like the Celestial Highway.³ Great offerings.

Achieving great store offers a truly rare and powerful opportunity to fairly redistribute wealth and power. A great sacrificial offering includes the cementing of alliances with rewards and gifts. You are in a position to be like the Celestial Highway that rains benefit on the entire world. Be generous.

Image

Da Chu represents acquisition, accumulation and abundance. The term is associated with the domestication and husbandry of herd animals and the transformation of the untamed wilderness (feudal states/war) into agricultural prosperity (central government/peace). It is the river silt that becomes rich farmland.

"Eating far from home" means attending a great sacrificial offering made by your clan or a thanksgiving celebration attended by family/ friends. "Crossing the great river" refers to making great and timely progress in worldly affairs.

Auspices

Though, with an uneven start, Da Chu is a time of great success. Routine work brings about unexpected results. At the highest level of success is an opportunity to be extraordinarily generous.

Good for marriage, acquiring property, education, research, increased savings, and gift giving.

Bad for travel (especially in wilderness) and being undisciplined.

Comment

Great Store is about the reward that comes from responsible and disciplined self-cultivation. This hexagram indicates that with ingenuity, patience and perseverance we can mine abundance and security from an uneven life/fate. When truly civilized leaders acquire this level of abundance and security they are not prideful or wasteful. They express their success through reasonable conserva-tion, generous sharing and celebration of culture and art.

Other Correspondences

Business: Mergers, routine work, giving bonuses, and profit sharing.

Disharmonies: Senility, spleen and lung deficiency, and edema.

Prognosis: Very Good. It is a particularly good omen for the recovery of older patients.