27. The Corners of the Mouth
Judgment
The Corners of the Mouth — pay attention to what nourishes you. Watch your words and what enters your mouth. Seek nourishment with right awareness.
Image
Thunder below the mountain — the superior person is careful in speech and moderate in eating and drinking.
Changing Lines
Letting your magic tortoise go — watching others eat with longing. Self-neglect brings misfortune.
Foraging for nourishment — seeking from below. Not sustainable over time.
Turning away from nourishment — misfortune. Refusing what sustains you without reason.
Turning to nourishment from above — good fortune. Watching prey like a tiger, poised and alert.
Turning away from the path — remain firm. Unwise choices in nourishment bring problems.
Source of nourishment — awareness of danger brings good fortune. Crossing the great water is favorable.
Reading The Corners of the Mouth today
When The Corners of the Mouth (頤) appears in a modern casting, it's rarely about ancient kings or dragons in any literal sense. The hexagram speaks in metaphor about a shape your situation is taking right now. The lower arousing thunder sits beneath the upper keeping still mountain, pairing shock, awakening, sudden movement with stillness, boundary, refusing to move. Read this as the inside meeting the outside: how you carry yourself underneath versus how the situation arrives on top.
The hexagram's recurring themes — nourishment, care, nurturing — usually surface in real life around decisions where the question is less "what should I do" and more "what does this moment actually want from me." Read the Legge judgment above slowly, then sit with the changing lines if any showed up in your cast: the lines are where the hexagram's advice becomes specific to your question, not the situation in general.
Questions The Corners of the Mouth answers well
- Who or what is asking to be nurtured?
- What does this hexagram say about my current situation?
- Should I act, wait, or step back from this?
- Where is the real change happening underneath the surface?
Curious how this would read against your own question? Cast The Corners of the Mouth as a live reading in Hexora →