Hexagram 42: Increase Changing to Hexagram 49: Revolution

I Ching casting meaning · Yi → Ge

Increase is molting — Revolution, where the growth you achieved is now demanding a complete transformation, not just a larger version of the old form. The old skin — the founding identity, the startup culture, the small-scale habits — has to come off entirely for the grown entity to survive. Fire and water in the same vessel; the person or organization you were and the one the growth requires can't coexist at this scale. Change when the need is undeniable to everyone involved, then commit totally. Half-revolutions after expansion are just the old problems with a bigger budget. Molt completely. The new skin, suited to the new size, holds for the next era. The old one was splitting at the seams.

A casting that moves from Increase into Revolution 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 3, 4 and 6 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 Revolution.

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 49, Revolution

The old form burns off. Change, timed right, earns belief.

The changed hexagram is the trajectory, not a verdict. As the moving lines settle, the energy of Increase gives way to Revolution (Ge) — Fire below Lake. The advice that belongs to this outcome: When the old form is clearly dead, change completely — timing and results decide.