Clinging to Summer Radiance, Hexagram 30

Hexagram 30 of the I Ching — Li, often translated as Clinging and Radiance — is the hexagram of FIRE, symbolized by twin flames stacked upon each other. Fire symbolizes beauty and illumination. It also symbolizes a mind that is too active, unstable, delirious and lost in search of external power.

Fire, when focused, is a beautiful and powerful tool. However, it is difficult to control. In Taoism, the element of Fire corresponds with our MIND. Do you see the connection?

For this article, in the spirit of summer, let’s explore how we can learn from Li about Clinging to Light and Radiating our Fire.

“This hexagram describes your situation in terms of expanding light, warmth and awareness. It emphasizes that joining with and depending on what spreads this light, the action of Radiance, is the adequate way to handle it” — gnostic book of changes

Summer Is For Friends

Like fire depends on wood, like consciousness depends on form, like clarity depends on restraint, Li represents the idea that light must cling to something. In other words, light cannot exist independently.

Radiance is not a self-sustaining force; it is relational, contextual, and dependent. The hexagram’s core idea is that clarity, awareness, or virtue must “cling” to something. Insight needs a foundation —virtue, relationship, practice, or discipline.

Radiance is relational. It reveals and warms through its engagement with the world, not in isolation.

The laughter of one heart echoes in another. Fire’s gift is connection — smiles shared, stories told, music played under the stars. Joy withers in isolation but thrives in relationship. This is the radiant warmth of Fire: not just personal happiness, but communion.

Clinging to Hope and Gratitude

Times are strange. To put it more truthfully, times are hard. As difficult as it might be, summer is a time for HOPE IN TRANSFORMATION.

The Tao constantly reminds us that the only thing constant is change — undertstanding how to flow with these changes is the entire purpose of the I Ching. In Li, we are reminded that we can — and must — cling to light itself: the inner brightness, the virtue that moves with the change, not against it. We don’t cling to stability. We cling to vision. To clarity. To what illuminates our path, even as the ground shifts beneath us.

Clinging is not grasping — it’s attending.

We stay close to what warms us. We tend to the spark. We recognize that hope, like fire, is something we feed. Not something we wait around for.

To cling to the light in a time of change is not to pretend things are okay. It’s to trust that even when things fall apart, the fire still knows how to rise. That radiance is not the absence of darkness, but a way of meeting it.

Radiating Light and Caring for Cows

In the ancient texts, the teachings of Li are often compared to taking care of cows…

“To care for the cow brings good fortune.”
The cow is docile, humble, and gentle.
So too must we become.

Caring for the cow means tending to what is vulnerable — within ourselves and in the world. It means nurturing the quiet, steady sources of warmth that make clarity possible. Not every fire must be wild. Some fires are hearths. They require gentle feeding and protection from the wind. They are held, not wielded.

Perhaps we are too far removed from husbandry to fully understand the “good luck” that comes from raising cows. Can you imagine why?

Hexagram 30 teaches that we become radiant not by seeking the spotlight, but by becoming a source of light for others.

To care for others is to feed the fire gently, faithfully.

To protect what is gentle in the world — especially when the world feels harsh — is not weakness. It is Radiance.

Sometimes clarity arises not from insight, but from service. From the simple act of showing up for something that depends on us. A child. A community. A dream. A fragile part of ourselves.

Tending to the cow is tending to what brings us back to the heart.

And when we do, good fortune follows — not because the universe rewards us, but because we become the kind of person who glows from within.

On Caring of Yourself…

Divine Nature of Subtle Integration

The mind and heart represent the fire energy in my body.

Only when mind and heart are harmonized with my body, the water energy, can the correct goal of fundamental cultivation, good health, be achieved.

— Taoist Invocation, Ni Family Lineage

Keep Glowing

And so, in this season of Radiance, may we cling not to certainty, but to warmth. May we tend the fires that nourish instead of scorch—within ourselves, in our relationships, in the fragile corners of the world. Let us remember that light, though fleeting, is never lost when shared. This summer, stay close to what matters. Feed the fire gently. And glow.