Greater activity of our intuitive feeling enables us to find direction in the life force.

Yellow is an active colour (almost in the middle of our visible spectrum), applied to an arrow which indicates a chosen direction—we have chosen an active direction; this direction is between extremes, being given as “one” which is the whole or middle way of unchoosing. This direction ends the vacillation of choice which deprived us of identifying, in the same way a fox deprives man of his nourishment (three foxes because continual change of choice was the problem).

To obtain freedom of flow identity needs to act out without identifying itself in the movement. Here in the line we seem to be confused about this and expect the life force to carry us out of stress without our taking part at all.

We want to be carried yet we do not want to let go; not allowing activity is still controlling it.

The natural flow of the life force starts innerly with change that we cannot distinguish consciously, then we have awareness of it as feeling before it manifests outwardly. In this line there is inner activity soon to be distinguished and this is part of the harmonious manifestation of the tao, nature’s manifestation, not identity’s.

This line has very varied translations of which this appears to be the root meaning. There is worry when we think we are responsible for something that we cannot influence.

Feeling is our first and least specific awareness of the life force; in this tao our intuitive feeling is in the emerging pattern of Tui, the lake that has not yet quite overflowed to water the land, and in one of the most evocative of the Chinese images this is seen from the inner point of view, the life force offering to share with us.

The natural flow of this tao is halted if the giving out is withheld, the tao requires that we do not interfere with the life flow, we simply take part. When we do not take part there is some purpose, a desire to make something better or worse, and for these purposes we push reality this way and that.

The “other” that we meet creates polarity and the world of pendulum swinging from one pole to the other. When we do not remain centred but project our self into attitudes, this image symbolizes the experience we have.

Here our interest in outer activity diminishes as our outward-looking phase comes to an end.

This tao is carried by the two yin lines 3 and 4, one of which now goes yang; it was a team of activity and acceptance. Now inner energies are nearing their most effective phase (the full moon) and the identity is drawn away from outer participation; it is a natural effect and so no error.

Intuitive feeling is quiet in this tao as we quietly trust the life force, not separately feeling it. In this moving line we are involved in allowing the life force to carry us without distinguishing what we feel about it and so we become less separate (because line 2 is yang).

In this moving line the inner being accepts the experience of the tao into itself. This tao, however, is the experience of the way the whole flows of itself, which cannot be owned by any part of it.

The misfortune is that we take the whole to ourselves (which can only be a point of view of it) instead of giving ourselves up to it. We cannot reach whole by declaring ourselves, only by forgetting ourselves.

Here is new activity developing from the inside; we need to await its development so that we act outside in phase with it.

The general rule when going through transition is to keep going, but here we are just in “after completion” and there are still parts which have not completed the change, or the tail is still in the water in the image of crossing the great water. It is no error to slow down so that these parts can catch up with the change.

In a new situation, after transition, there may be feelings of insecurity which cause us to feel over-exposed and withdraw our feelings.

She feels vulnerable as we do at this time, but as the cycle completes itself (the seven days) the protection of confidence returns. This vulnerability is actually an advantage if we accept it as natural to our situation and not an error to be corrected, it gives us additional sensitivity which we need in new surroundings.

If we have outer activity increasing directly after completion it shows that we have not yet changed our external mode of being; transition does not occur through making changes out there in the world, it is by change in the way we ourselves are.

Three is the number of transition or change, so it is this that creates the success. A devil or evil one in a situation of change is the narrow view which will not change and allow enlargement, and this is also the inferior man—the opposite of the great man so often referred to.

Our outer state (line 3) is inactive in this tao and we need to preserve that inactivity if we are to change out of our mind-desire mode of being—the mode of trying to make something “better”.

Amongst our wide aspirations are narrow desires; all day is throughout conscious activity, and being always aware of them will itself change them.

Intuitive feeling is the basis of our knowing our circumstance and this line 5 is about the conscious interpretation of that feeling; when we become more involved here we consider how to use the life force.

The ox is the strength of outer activity and this is sacrificed at the beginning (the east where the sun rises).
The spring offering is the sacrifice of beginnings (a giving up before we start and so an offering, not a killing); this is made at the end of a cycle (the west).
So it is more beneficial to give up starting new things, which arises when the old are ended, than to kill off the outside activity after it has developed.

If our inner being does not accept the end of a cycle the transition cannot complete.

The head is the controller and here it is right in the liquifying process of change. For identity to emerge changed from transition it needs to flow in the momentum of being changed, not to get involved in controlling it.