Act 2
The Hexagram Skeleton
This act has one job: construct every hexagram field that later lessons depend on. You will identify the palace, install the line labels, mark structural positions, and build the changed side. You will not decide what the chart means yet.
Keep a six-row worksheet with line 1 at the bottom and line 6 at the top. Each lesson adds one checked field.
The seven construction tasks
| Step | Add to the worksheet | Checkpoint |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | Palace and palace position | The hexagram appears once in the 8 × 8 lookup. |
| 2.2 | Palace element | The element comes from the palace, not from either visible trigram. |
| 2.3 | Najia stem and branch | Lower-trigram assignments fill lines 1–3; upper-trigram assignments fill lines 4–6. |
| 2.4 | Five line roles | Every role can be recomputed from line element versus palace element. |
| 2.5 | World and Response | The two positions come from palace position and remain three lines apart. |
| 2.6 | Changed chart and transformed rows | Only marked moving lines flip; every moving row has one changed-side partner. |
| 2.7 | Six Spirits | The day stem selects the line-1 start, then the labels rotate upward. |
The cumulative construction case is documented Case 00035: Hexagram 3 changes to Hexagram 19 at lines 2 and 5. The source asks only whether that day’s sky would be clear or cloudy. Here it supplies chart inputs, not a present-day forecast and not evidence that interpretation works.
What to hold back
Do not choose a target line, rank strength, assign an outcome, or explain what a Spirit “means.” Those jobs depend on the calendar and the question. If an interpretation enters your worksheet during this act, move it to a separate notes column and leave it unscored.
Your Act 2 checkpoint is mechanical: another learner should be able to start from the same hexagram, moving lines, and day stem and reproduce your labels without hearing your interpretation.
Source note
This directory states the course sequence. Each claim-bearing lesson publishes the table or procedure needed to reproduce its chart fields. Historical attribution and predictive validity are outside this act.
Next: Continue to The Eight Palaces and enter the first two fields on your worksheet.