I Ching Reflections — Hexagram 3: The Sacred Chaos of Starting

Every beginning is messy.

Not because we are unprepared, not because we are unworthy, but because beginnings are, by nature, unformed. They are tangled, wild, confusing, and full of potential that has not yet found direction.
This is the energy of Hexagram 3 (Water over Thunder) —
Zhūn: Difficulty at the Beginning.

After Heaven and Earth first met themselves, Creating the 1st and 2nd Hexagrams, the wisemen noticed- the world was alive but chaotic.
Rivers had not found their beds. Roots tangled beneath the soil. New shoots strained toward the light, unsure of where to grow. Thunder rumbled. Rain fell. The ground shook awake.

This is the energy of first creation — raw, unstable, promising, and often, deeply uncomfortable.

We tend to romanticize beginnings. We imagine inspiration, clarity, momentum, and vision. But the truth is, the beginning of any real journey rarely looks like that. It feels more like walking through fog. The first steps are often hesitant. The path unclear. Things don’t work as quickly as we hoped. We feel lost, unprepared, unqualified.

But the I Ching tells us this is NOT a sign to turn back.

It is a sign that life is stirring.

The seed does not break open in comfort.
It breaks open in darkness.
Alone.
In the soil.
It is disoriented.
It does not yet know which direction is up.
It only knows it must keep moving, blindly, toward the unseen light.

That is Difficulty at the Beginning.

Beginnings test us not because we are on the wrong path—but because we are on the real one.

This hexagram reminds us that confusion, setbacks, and uncertainty are not signs of failure. They are signs of formation. Life is not resisting you—life is organizing itself around your next evolution. The chaos you feel is not personal. It is structural. It is how new life emerges.

But when we resist the natural chaos of beginnings, frustration takes root. We become impatient, discouraged. We push too hard, too soon. Or we retreat. We abandon the process before it has had a chance to show us what it wants to become. In Human Design terms, this is when we act on our Strategy - too much, without listening to our Authority.
Responding vastly, without listening to the Sacral- telling us to slow down.
An urge of Initiation that turns into relentless beginnings - trying to avoid the collective wave of emotions.
Sharing ourselves to increase visibility, without listening to the Spleen saying- it’s enough, invitation will come.

This hexagram reminds us: every forest begins as tangled roots beneath the soil. Every stable structure begins as scattered parts. Every great vision begins as uncertainty.

Without the mess- how can our gift of clarity shine?

That clarity isn’t wisdom because it’s easy. It is the wisdom of knowing when and how to respond to the chaos we are feeling. It is knowing how to stay in the uncertain, without escaping it, long enough for clarity to take shape.

Difficulty at the beginning is not failure.
It is the birth of something real.

Want to bring Hexagram 3 into your life?
Try reflecting on these questions:

1. Where in my life do I expect clarity before I’ve allowed space for things to form?

2. When have I interpreted early challenges as a sign to stop when I was simply beginning?

3. How do I respond to uncertainty—by pushing, rushing, retreating, or allowing space for formation?

4. What would it look like to organize my own energy instead of forcing order in my results?

5. If I imagined myself as a seed—what would this moment be teaching me about growth, patience, and timing?

---

Want to deepen your contemplations on the I Ching?

• Read my already published reflections on this Publication

• Download the FREE Intro to the I Ching- the 8 Trigrams PDF

• Get the FULL guide to the 64 Hexagrams of the I Ching

---

Personally, I do not have Gate 3 in my Bodygraph. It sits there, open, inside of my Open Sacral. I don’t even have Gate 60, it’s channeled companion.
But I feel this energy so deeply when i am swept away by a creative urge, and let me defined ego and my define root take hold of me- to the point of exhaustion.
I start, I know where to go, but it’s messy. I try so hard to organize it- but somehow it gets worse. I find myself sitting in a pool of sticky notes, crumpled paper, and 4 empty cups that once upon a time had coffee in them.
I forget to eat, to stretch… I become reactive to my Collective Emotional Wave.

I remember this feeling being at it’s peak about a decade ago.
I felt the high- and worked more aggressively. I felt the low- and closed a website I spent 5 days working on, just because clarity wasn’t there yet.
But with time, I learned to stop.
To look at the chaos I made, smile at it, and leave.
I left to make food, I left to take a nap, sometimes I even just left the house.
And when I came back- the mess wasn’t internal chaos anymore- because despite of the pieces being out of place- I KNEW where they belonged.

As always, would love to hear anything and everything that popped into your mind while reading these lines, even if your thoughts are rough, raw, or messy.