The Old Well Has Deep Water

古井深水

Original (Kanbun)

古井百年人忘記 / 然有深水未曾乾 / 時時汲取方知有 / 不汲非為無水源

Literal Translation

The old well, forgotten for a hundred years / Yet it holds deep water, never having dried / Only by drawing from it, time after time, do you know it is there / Not drawing does not mean the source is gone

Modern Reading

Something inside you that you have not used in a long time is still there — a skill, a strength, a relationship, a kind of attention. The fact that you have not drawn from it does not mean it has dried. The fortune of this sign is to remember what you used to know how to do, and to discover that you still know. **Drop the bucket. The water is still there.**

Interpretation

Overall

Fortune in rediscovering latent capacity. A part of yourself that you stopped using is more available than you assume. You do not need to rebuild from scratch; you need to remember.

Love

An aspect of how you used to love — playfulness, attention, romance — is still in you. Bring it back without explaining.

Career

A skill from earlier in your career that you set aside is the right tool for a current problem. Reach for it.

Health

A practice you used to do — sport, art, meditation — will return faster than you expect. The body remembers.

Wish

Will be granted by reactivating a capacity you forgot you had.

Travel

Auspicious for returning to places you used to go, doing things you used to do there. The continuity is in you.

Lost Item

Will be found in a place you used to go but stopped going to.

Guidance

When this sign is drawn, do not believe the story that you have lost what you have not used recently. Skills, strengths, depths — they wait. **Most of what you call 'gone' is just dormant. Drop the bucket.**

Cultural Anchor

The old well (古井, ko-i) is a recurring image in East Asian poetry signifying preserved depth. It appears in the I Ching's hexagram 48 (Jing, the Well, ~10th century BCE) and in classical Japanese poetry as a meditation on enduring resources. The Ganzan Daishi tradition uses this image for fortune in latent capacity — what classical commentators called 復起の吉 (fukki no kichi), 'the fortune of returning power.'