The Seba library treats Return in 9 passages, across 7 authors (including Liu I-ming, Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, Wang Bi, Richard John Lynn).
to return it, restore it, it is necessary to take advantage of times when this living potential appears and set about quickly gathering it — only then can it be one’s own.
Liu I-ming argues that Return is not a willed act but an opportunistic recognition of the spontaneous resurgence of original yang nature within yin conditioning, requiring swift cultivation at the moment of its appearance.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
surely return gradually, from a single yang, until six yangs are pure and complete. What can compare to the growth and fruition of that return?
Cleary and Yiming present Return as a graduated alchemical process beginning with the first stirring of true yang and culminating in complete restoration of original nature, described through the line-by-line exegesis of Hexagram 24.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
when they reach all the way to the top, they then return to the bottom. This is why Bo is followed by Fu [Return]. Fu [Return] signifies a coming back.
Wang Bi grounds Return in the structural logic of the hexagram sequence: exhaustion (Bo/Peeling) necessarily generates reversal, so Return names the cosmological law of cyclical renewal at the moment of nadir.
, The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi, 1994thesis
If we miss the moment of return, our accumulated good work will certainly be undone. This obstinate attitude is perhaps the greatest danger we must face during self-development.
Carol K. Anthony translates the I Ching’s Return hexagram into a psychological counsel about the danger of missing the critical moment of self-correction, framing obstinacy as the primary obstacle to genuine inner renewal.
, A Guide to the I Ching, 1988supporting
His mother came outside and said, ‘Mrile, return, my child!’ She said this six times. But Mrile answered, ‘I don’t return. I don’t return, mother.’
Von Franz cites the repeated refusal to return as an archetypal motif in which the hero’s irreversible departure toward the Other World — the Moon King — constitutes a mythic threshold-crossing that supersedes filial and tribal obligation.
, Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales, 1997supporting
a number needed to treat for preventing return to any drinking of 18 and a number needed to treat to prevent return to heavy drinking of 11.
McPheeters employs ‘return’ as a clinical relapse metric, quantifying it via number-needed-to-treat statistics for naltrexone, positioning pharmacological prevention of return as the primary efficacy criterion in alcohol use disorder research.
, Pharmacotherapy for Adults With Alcohol Use Disorder in Outpatient Settings: Systematic Review, 2023supporting
Return to any drinking 16 2,347 RR, 0.93 0.87 to 1.00 … Return to heavy drinking 23 3,149 RR, 0.81 0.72 to 0.90
The meta-analytic data table distinguishes ‘return to any drinking’ from ‘return to heavy drinking’ as two separable outcome categories, illustrating the clinical literature’s granular, quantitative operationalization of relapse.
, Pharmacotherapy for Adults With Alcohol Use Disorder in Outpatient Settings: Systematic Review, 2023supporting
Naltrexone had moderate strength of evidence for reducing return to any drinking, return to heavy drinking, percent drinking days, and percent heavy drinking days at the 50 mg oral dose.
The systematic review establishes ‘return to drinking’ as a composite of distinct behavioral endpoints against which pharmacotherapy is evaluated, with naltrexone showing the strongest evidence base.
, Pharmacotherapy for Adults With Alcohol Use Disorder in Outpatient Settings: Systematic Review, 2023supporting
he could smell her all through it. And as he hugged the sealskin to his face and inhaled her scent, her soul slammed through him like a sudden summer wind.
Estés renders the child’s recovery of his mother’s sealskin as a mythic return of soul — the instinctual wild nature summoned back through sensory contact — implicitly aligned with the theme of recovering lost original nature.
, Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild, 2017aside