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I-Ching Hexagram · 萃 · Cuì
45. Gathering Together
A group assembles under a clear center. Be that center — or commit wholeheartedly to one.
Keywords
Assembly · Leadership · Purpose
The field
Lake on earth — water collects where the ground bowls inward, and the gathering takes on a center. People assemble around something: a leader, a project, a shared grief, a ritual that holds them. The hexagram asks who or what is at the middle, and whether the center is honest. Wilhelm sees ceremony here — the agreed gestures that let many people act as one without losing themselves. If you are the center, the question is whether your hold is clean. If you are gathering toward a center, the question is whether you commit fully or hover at the edge taking the warmth without offering the weight. A real assembly is shared work, not an audience.
Stance
Decide where you are, then act like it. If you are the one others are gathering to, make the rules of the gathering plain — what is asked, what is given, what is decided together. If you are joining, give the work fully or step out cleanly. Hold the small ceremonies that hold the group: the meeting, the meal, the shared word that opens.
Shadow
The shadow gathers around an empty center. A leader who needs the audience more than the cause; a cause that has become a club. Or the gathering excludes by ritual rather than including by purpose. Watch for the moment the group spends more energy on belonging than on the thing it claims to be doing. That is when collective shape begins to consume collective work.
Changing lines
When lines move, the assembly takes its second form. The first gathering was the call; the second is the structure. Roles begin to settle, agreements get written down or quietly understood, and the group learns to act outside the original room. The ones who stay are those whose commitment matched the call. Build for the steady state, not for the founding day.
Line pattern
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