Hexagram 42: Increase Changing to Hexagram 14: Possession in Great Measure

I Ching casting meaning · Yi → Da You

Increase is converting into Possession in Great Measure — the growth has paid out in actual holdings: resources, influence, results you can point at and count. This is the harvest moment of the expansion arc. Now you own something substantial, and ownership asks a different skill set than growth. Great measure attracts both opportunity and envy, so the assignment is stewardship: be generous where it matters, transparent about what you have, and disciplined about what it funds. Decide this week what the abundance is for — one purpose bigger than accumulation. Possession without purpose after increase is just a bigger pile. Aim the harvest at something that justifies the growth.

A casting that moves from Increase into Possession in Great Measure means the situation you asked about is not static — it begins as one pattern and resolves into another. The first hexagram describes where you stand; the second describes where events are carrying you.

Highlighted in red: lines 2, 3, 4 and 5 are moving — counted from the bottom. A moving line is where the change is actually happening: it flips from yang to yin or back, and that flip is what turns Increase into Possession in Great Measure.

The situation: Hexagram 42, Increase

True increase. Wind and thunder multiply each other.

Wind and thunder feeding each other — energy that multiplies instead of canceling out. This is one of the great draws: genuine increase, the kind where resources, opportunities, and momentum all rise together. The classic instruction has a spine to it, though: increase flows to people who use it well. See good, copy it fast. See your own faults, cut them faster. This is also the season to do something significant with the surplus — invest in people, take the meaningful risk, fund the thing that matters. Increase hoarded curdles; increase circulated compounds. You're being given more because the universe expects you to move it.

Structurally, Increase is Thunder below Wind — the inner state meeting the outer condition. That pairing is the lens for everything above.

Where it's heading: Hexagram 14, Possession in Great Measure

Abundance with responsibility. Much is yours — handle it well.

The changed hexagram is the trajectory, not a verdict. As the moving lines settle, the energy of Increase gives way to Possession in Great Measure (Da You) — Heaven below Fire. The advice that belongs to this outcome: Use your abundance generously and stay sharp. Plenty is a character test.