Where new energy is becoming available we may look for nourishment in some new experience from the life force rather than that available in our present circumstances.

Tortoise shells were used for divination, and divination is the link between the outer and inner knowing; without the link we lose the thread of what experience is about—nourishing the inner self from outer experience. What is needed is in our experience now.

Intuitive feeling is necessary for us to know our circumstances and if we cannot feel our circumstances we seek nourishment elsewhere.

Both below and above identity in the hexagram we come to the inner, and this hexagram is about nourishing the inner through outer experience; so to seek the emerging life force is to look to nourishment coming to identity in the future, which is not correct or proper, not existing. To look to the inner being for nourishment is to look to what is already formed so it is narrowing or evil.

Outer activity in the world is an essential part of this tao from which we gain nourishment; we do not, however, benefit from owning that activity and so nourishing our separate ego-being. Here in this line we diminish our owning of outer activity and so can participate more because with less desire we have a wider view.

A hunter which has perfected the art of being alert; the tiger. Looking down he has a wide view. On the mountain we also have a wide view which comes from a vantage point of disinvolvement.

We normally accept ourselves to be as we feel ourselves to be (which is the interpretation line 5 puts upon line 2). Here we are less aware.

Without a feeling of ourselves in our circumstances action becomes hazardous so it is inadvisable to instigate changes.

The inner activity shown here draws our motivation inwards and the outer energy is depleted.

Motivated parts of our identity, the people, do not like the situation, but the wide view is that one must go with the cycle and experience all its aspects.

Here we feel the life force less and have some confusion, so we ride life, we ride on the acceptance in this tao which enables us to act without owning the action.

The left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain where immediate, whole action dominates; the thigh gives power to the knee joint as we run and leap. These together with injury show that our ability to move instinctively in our circumstances is impaired. We are helped by allowing ourselves to be carried.

In this tao the light, the identification, becomes inner so the Chinese image speaks of the increasing outer activity of this line as a rebel.

The hunt is for identification and the south stands for the high noon of activity, so we have this rebel identification in the outer place; what leads this is the desire to be in control of circumstances and the tao does not support this. If, however, we take outer activity itself as the evil this is excessive.

Our outer world is inactive. We withhold our identification even from this inactivity and experience something that is most inner.

Entering the centre of the instinctive there is no sense at all (no light of reason). Reason in the mind is the contained reality that we leave here; it is not that we become unreasonable but we enter a reality undefined, unfenced, outside the gate and courtyard.

Here we become less involved because the feeling is too painful. This tao has a transitory nature because outer expression cannot be held for a long time without stress developing from the essential need to manifest, and if this is blocked we must feel less or break through the blockage. This moving line indicates that we cannot easily experience the silence any longer but we have this way of withstanding it by withdrawing attention.

Prince Chi lived at a time of outer despotism and he hid his convictions in order to preserve them. Here we do likewise. When wounded we are unable to give battle.

This tao of inner experience is supported largely by this line 6 accepting the quietness of the emerging life force in line 1. Here this acceptance goes and inner reality is inaccessible to us, the beauty is not seen and the tao takes on its aspect of a blockage to progress.

When our inner being fails to accept the implications of wholeness, which include the sacrifice of identifying, we go back to the identified state to start a new cycle of growth, like a seed falling from a flower into the earth. We still need that experience.

The life force itself is going into a quiet phase and this will become more evident to us as its manifestation grows outwards. We need to accommodate this, to accept it in this tao of the receptive.

Cold is symbolic of inactivity, so this is to say that inactivity will become more manifest.

In this tao, change occurs whether we are feeling it or not—if we feel it, we are aware of our involvement and may even think that we cause the activity, but it is not so except in a very narrow sense; the great tao moves us and accomplishes itself.

There is no choice of ways so our way is straight, awareness is not limited so it is wide (has a lot of scope) and it is the great tao that is purposeless, yet it achieves (manifests) in everything.

In this tao which is all activity there is no chosen coming and going—it encompasses all coming and going. The activity is seen rather as a flow of energy from one part to another—a wider view of many cycles operating. The outer reality expressed by line 3 is our outer world, however, and here in this line the activity is felt as being withdrawn; withdrawn from us and continued elsewhere. We are receptive in this tao, so we are not concerned so much with our part as the activity of the whole.

Possibilities, or our own personal aims which we may exercise in the world, are not relevant here in this tao where all are equally received—in other circumstances we can attend to these and bring them to manifestation, but not now when we can experience without choice.

Cycles of free manifestation flow in phases of activity and tranquility. Our identity does this also and in this tao it does not indicate any manipulation on our part.

There is no praise or blame because it is the natural state of affairs for cycles to have closed phases.

Here everything is seen carried in the great tao. We remove our attention from our feelings and they continue to affect the way we are but, as we say, unconsciously.

Yellow is active (being near the middle of our visible range of light frequencies) and the undergarment is our unseen clothing or unconscious form; this is what carries us here, so we flow naturally without conscious effort.

Line 6 is about our inner acceptance of experience, and in this moving line we separate from the great flowing tao and identity believes that it creates and destroys. We have here a birth into identity in some way and we choose and take sides and enter mind reality with our being. We move into the contest between being active or passive and must choose.

Black is the colour of night and inactivity, while yellow is our most noticeable and so active colour, so this is the nature of the contest.