I Ching · Hexagram 27 · Yi 頤 · Mountain over Thunder

Mouth Corners

Thunder below the mountain — nourishment held within.

Abstract editorial artwork for Hexagram 27

Nourish by what is rightMouth Corners

What you feed on is what you become.

Yi is two mouths, above and below, with emptiness between — every life depends on the rhythm of input and output. Nourishment here is not only food but everything that shapes you: information, relationships, habits, ideas. Fed wrong, effort itself becomes consumption; fed right, ordinary things grow strength. Yi also hints: the skill of closing the mouth is harder to learn than opening it.

The image says it plainly: be careful in speech, temperate in food and drink. One in, one out — hold both mouths and a person stands. Many labor to choose what goes in yet never choose what goes out — though the latter shapes you more.

Practice This week cut one input you know is draining you — a kind of content, a conversation, a show. Watch where your energy flows by week's end.
In the four domains

01Career & decisions

Watch what you say and what you consume for work. Nourish the project with real inputs — mentors, data, craft — not noise that flatters.

02Love & bonds

Words feed or starve. Speak to nourish your people this week — and notice who feeds you and who only takes bites.

03Wealth & resources

Audit the feeding: where money goes in — courses, tools, advice — and what strength comes out. Cut intake that produces no capacity.

04Body & mind

The body is the contract. Choose food and information like a gardener chooses seed — what you repeatedly swallow, you become.

Timing & action

Guard the mouth — both senses. One week of disciplined intake (food, speech, media) will show you how much strength mere noise was costing.

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