Hexagram 58, The Joyous

Lake doubled. Two solid lines at the base of each trigram with a broken line resting on top, so each half of the figure is firm underneath and open at the surface.

The figure

Lake is the trigram of the youngest daughter, joyous and open. Its lines, from the bottom, are solid, solid, broken, and the picture is of still water with the sky showing in it. Strength below, an open face above. The old books link Lake to the mouth, to speech, to singing and to pleasure in company.

Here it is doubled, Lake below and Lake above, two lakes side by side, each one reflecting the other. The inner state and the outer state match. What you feel is what people see, and what people see makes them feel it too.

My picture for this one is two old friends laughing at a table long after the plates have been cleared. Nothing is being achieved. Nobody cares.

Its pair is Hexagram 57, The Gentle, the doubled wind, the two softest trigrams of the eight standing side by side at the end of the doubled figures.

When it comes up in a reading

When The Joyous comes up for a question, the moment is lighter than you think it is. Something in the situation wants to be enjoyed, shared and spoken about, and the heaviness you brought to the question may be the only heavy thing in the room.

The sense of the hexagram is that joy spreads when it is shared and when it has something solid under it. The two firm lines at the bottom of each lake matter. Pleasure with nothing underneath it is just noise, and the book is quite clear that it does not last. Pleasure that rests on something real, a friendship with history in it, work you believe in, a table you set yourself, that kind keeps giving.

The second thing it says is to talk. Lake is the mouth. If the question is about a stuck relationship or a room where nobody is saying anything, this hexagram is telling you that conversation is the way through, and that an open, warm word will do more than a clever one.

As a birth hexagram

If this is your birth hexagram, or if it keeps coming back to you, you carry a natural gladness in being alive. Forced cheer is a different animal and most people can smell it. You actually like people, you actually enjoy the small good moments, and it shows, and it is catching.

Your voice is your instrument. Speaking, singing, writing, teaching, telling the story at the barbecue, whichever form it takes, your words carry your pleasure in life out to the people around you. Rooms get better when you walk into them, and you are usually the last to notice because you were not trying.

The gift is joyful connection, and I want to say clearly that this is a substantial gift. We live in a culture that confuses stimulation with joy, and someone who can remind a room of the difference is doing real work.

The shadow is performed joy covering real feeling. If you are always the bright one, your sadness, your anger and your worry have nowhere to go, and they do not disappear just because you smiled over them. The second shadow is pleasantness that avoids the hard conversation. The mature Joyous can be sad in company, can be angry when anger is accurate, and is still the person everyone wants at the table, because the warmth was real the whole time.

The work of a life here is to make sure the joy serves something. Lightness with depth under it is the whole figure. Lightness alone is half of it.

If a line moves

The I Ching counts lines from the bottom, so line 1 is the lowest. When one of the lower lines is moving, the matter is at its beginning and the counsel is about whether the pleasure you are entering has something solid under it. A moving middle line puts the question at its heart, the point where you decide what you will let in and what you will keep out. A moving upper line speaks to the end of the matter, and here it carries the sense of joy gone too far, the party that should have ended an hour ago and the person who has lost the thread of what they came for. Whichever line moves, change it to its opposite and you have a second hexagram, the direction the situation is heading. The How to Cast a Hexagram page walks through that step by step.

Across the traditions

The Eight Trigrams page gives Lake on its own, with its lines, its place in the family as the youngest daughter and the pictures the tradition hangs on it. The Chinese Astrology section has a page on Yin and Yang, and the lake is a good figure to read beside it, two yang lines carrying one yin at the surface. My own association in the tarot is the Three of Cups, three friends with their cups raised, and I hold that as my picture and nothing stronger.

When did you last laugh until it hurt, and who was with you?

If you would like this read against your own chart, my readings are here.