In love
leaning on a partner for support that isn't theirs to give, or trading on their care without doing your own work. Earn your emotional keep the proper way. Full love reading
Hexagram 27 · Line 2
Deviating for Nourishment
Hexagram 27 · Line 2 meaning
"Seeking nourishment from the summit, straying from the path to beg at the hill. Persisting so brings misfortune."
Parent hexagram
27
I is the hexagram of the open mouth — its very shape, two firm lips enclosing space — and it concerns everything that passes in and out of us: food, words, thoughts, influences. What we take in becomes what we are; what we give out nourishes or poisons those around us. The Judgment therefore offers its double diagnostic: to know anyone, watch what they feed on, and what they feed to others.
Direct answer
Hexagram 27 line 2 means you're reaching for support in the wrong direction — leaning where you have no right to lean, begging where you should be standing. Nourishment taken by deviation costs more than it feeds. Persisting brings misfortune. Return to earning what you need by the proper path, however much longer it takes.
The image explained
Line two sits at the inner centre, the place that should feed itself with quiet integrity. Instead it strays — seeking nourishment from "the summit" above and "the hill" beside, begging in two wrong directions at once. The picture is of someone too weak to hold their own ground, so they lean on protectors and shortcuts rather than doing the correcting work themselves. Every such deviation looks like a saving of effort. It is really a debt: what is taken off the path must be repaid, with interest, back on it.
What to do now
Do the honest, slower thing: earn your keep, correct your own weaknesses, ask for help only where it is rightly yours to ask. Don't trade on someone's protection while making no real effort of your own, and don't lean on a person or a shortcut because standing is hard today. The line's warning is against persistence — one deviation is a stumble; a habit of them becomes the misfortune. Get back on your own two feet.
Transformation
The change toward Hexagram 41
When this line moves, the situation travels toward Hexagram 41, Decrease. The deviation has to be given up, and giving up is exactly Decrease's medicine: curb the appetite, restrain the reaching, accept a leaner portion honestly held. Decrease teaches that two small bowls offered truly outweigh a feast begged for show — that outward less is inward more. Stop straying to the summit and the hill; take what is genuinely yours, sincerely, and the shame of the deviation falls away with the excess.
This line in context
In career
coasting on someone's protection, or begging influence sideways instead of building your own. Return to the honest path, however much longer it runs. Full career reading
For a decision
don't decide via the shortcut or the borrowed favour. A choice propped on deviation costs more than it feeds; choose what you can stand behind alone. Full timing reading
Reflection
Where am I begging for support I haven't earned or shouldn't need?
What would it take to feed myself by the proper path, even if it's slower?
Read this line well
Keep the line inside the full reading
A changing line becomes useful when you read it in the right order and keep it tied to the wider hexagram pattern.
1. Start with Hexagram 27
Read the parent hexagram first so Line 2 stays anchored in the actual situation rather than floating as a detached slogan.
2. Stay with Line 2
Let this line show where the pressure, correction, or opening is most active right now. It is usually the sharpest instruction in the cast.
3. Then read the direction of change
Only after that should you compare the transformed figure and decide what movement this changing line is pointing toward.
If you want the wider method behind this sequence, read how to consult the I Ching or go deeper with the changing-lines guide.
All six lines
Read the full line sequence
Line 1
Letting the Magic Tortoise Go
"You let your magic tortoise go, and eye me with drooping mouth. Misfortune."
Hexagram 27 line 1 means you've let go of your own inner sufficiency and turned to eye what someone else is being fed. The envy is the problem, not the portion. Misfortune follows the drooping mouth. Recover your equanimity, sit in stillness, and stop measuring your plate against your neighbour's.
Read line 1 in full
Line 2
Deviating for Nourishment
"Seeking nourishment from the summit, straying from the path to beg at the hill. Persisting so brings misfortune."
Hexagram 27 line 2 means you're reaching for support in the wrong direction — leaning where you have no right to lean, begging where you should be standing. Nourishment taken by deviation costs more than it feeds. Persisting brings misfortune. Return to earning what you need by the proper path, however much longer it takes.
Current line
Line 3
Nourishment That Does Not Nourish
"Turning away from true nourishment. Persistence in this brings misfortune. Ten years of it — nothing furthers."
Hexagram 27 line 3 means you're feeding on what cannot feed you — pleasure, sensation, recognition, emotional dependency, all promising fulfilment and delivering craving. The line is blunt: persist and a decade vanishes, nothing furthered. Stop chasing perfect security and easy gratification; take up the real challenge in front of you instead.
Read line 3 in full
Line 4
The Tiger's Watchfulness
"Turning to the summit for nourishment: good fortune. Watching with a tiger's sharp, unresting eyes. No blame."
Hexagram 27 line 4 means hunger turned noble: your whole appetite redirected upward, toward the highest source and toward mastering your own weaknesses. Wanting more was never the fault — wanting the wrong things was. Watch with a tiger's sharp, unresting focus, aim the ferocity high, and it becomes blameless, drawing the helpers your task needs.
Read line 4 in full
Line 5
Aware of What Is Lacking
"Turning from the accustomed path. Remaining steadfast brings good fortune. But do not cross the great water."
Hexagram 27 line 5 means you honestly lack the strength the task demands — and you're wise enough to know it. That awareness is itself good nourishment. Stay steadfast in the corrective work, seek counsel from those further along, root out the weak element first. But do not attempt anything great yet: the crossing waits until the vessel is sound.
Read line 5 in full
Line 6
The Source of Nourishment
"The source from which others are nourished. Awareness of the danger brings good fortune. It is favourable to cross the great water."
Hexagram 27 line 6 means you've become a source others feed from — a position of real influence and its real dangers. Stay aware of them: the provider's complacency, the forgetting of your own dependence on higher guidance. Held with humility and continued self-discipline, the position licenses the greatest undertakings. The great water now furthers, because what crosses it nourishes everyone beyond.
Read line 6 in full
Situation meanings
Read this hexagram in context
Love meaning
Watch what feeds this love — and what you feed it.
Open interpretation
Career meaning
Watch what feeds your work — and what your work feeds you.
Open interpretation
Business meaning
Watch what feeds the venture — and what the venture feeds others.
Open interpretation
Family meaning
Watch what feeds this family — and what you feed it.
Open interpretation
Money meaning
Watch what feeds your wealth — and what your money feeds.
Open interpretation
Personal growth meaning
Mind what you feed on — it becomes who you are.
Open interpretation
Learning meaning
Mind your mental diet — feed on real substance, not junk.
Open interpretation
Creativity meaning
Watch what feeds your work — and what your work feeds others.
Open interpretation
Decision and timing meaning
Feed the decision well before you make it.
Open interpretation
Spirituality meaning
Mind the mouth both ways: feed on stillness and truth, not junk.
Open interpretation
Friendship and community meaning
Watch what your circle feeds you — and what you feed it.
Open interpretation
Life transitions meaning
Mind what feeds you through the change — in both directions.
Open interpretation
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Return to steadiness
A quiet place to keep returning
Beyond a single reading: True Essence is a daily pause to steady the mind and return to clearer judgement — a seven-day return, free to begin, then a practice that continues day by day.
Begin the 7-day return →Oracle
Consult the I Ching with Hexagram 27 in mind
If Line 2 is active in your reading, use the oracle to revisit the full pattern and any additional changing lines in your live situation.