Hexagram 44: Coming to Meet Changing to Hexagram 42: Increase

I Ching casting meaning · Gou → Yi

Coming to Meet is entering genuine expansion — Increase, where the encounter that started as a small arrival is growing into something substantial. Wind and thunder feeding each other: the magnetic person is becoming a real partner; the seductive idea is scaling; the tempting opportunity is producing returns. This is the best-case scenario for an encounter — it wasn't just charming, it was a seed. Now it's growing, and the growth needs management: see what's working and amplify it; see what's weak and strengthen it. Increase after an encounter that earns it is one of the great arcs. Just remember: not everything that grows from an encounter should. Prune the branches that are just the original charm repeating itself at larger scale.

A casting that moves from Coming to Meet into Increase 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 1, 2, 3 and 4 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 Coming to Meet into Increase.

The situation: Hexagram 44, Coming to Meet

A bold encounter. Small and seductive can take over.

One soft line entering beneath five strong ones — something small, charming, and persistent has just walked into your situation, and it has ambitions. This is the encounter hexagram, and its counsel is wariness without paranoia. Not every intriguing newcomer is a threat — but the ones that are arrive exactly like this: easy, flattering, asking for just a little. Don't hand over keys to what you haven't vetted. The bold person, the tempting offer, the slippery habit: meet them, enjoy them, learn from them — and keep them out of the driver's seat. Small footholds become control faster than strong people expect.

Structurally, Coming to Meet is Wind below Heaven — the inner state meeting the outer condition. That pairing is the lens for everything above.

Where it's heading: Hexagram 42, Increase

True increase. Wind and thunder multiply each other.

The changed hexagram is the trajectory, not a verdict. As the moving lines settle, the energy of Coming to Meet gives way to Increase (Yi) — Thunder below Wind. The advice that belongs to this outcome: Use the surplus boldly: invest in what matters and fix one fault fast.