The tao is about allowing the inner forces to flow as they will, and here the greater activity of the life force may cause us to think we can move (there is some pressure for personal activity).

The danger comes from our not being aware of the wider nature of our circumstances (lines 2 and 6 being yang).

When intuitive feeling reacts to the life force it is interpreting it and so stands between the whole reality and identity; in identity’s terms it is a link but as reality is whole it is also a barrier.

Identity is our carriage which is part of whole reality except for its self-identification, when feeling does not interpret, the inner and outer are undivided, here feeling becomes active and so divides the outer from the inner. The image is a statement, not a judgement.

Outer activity is part of the flow in the whole, provided we allow it to flow as it will.

There is some danger in urging the life force onwards, it is the beginning of manipulating, so we need to be mindful of the tao. Martial arts are practised to enhance alertness and alertness to the circumstances we are in allows freedom of movement.

Here we are becoming less involved in, less worried by, the outer inactivity and this has a quietening effect on us.

A headboard over the horns was used to restrain and quieten the bull’s too-high spirits. The image sees this as an advantage to the whole.

The less we interpret the life force the freer is the flow of the whole, for interpretation restricts possibilities; the less we interpret the more we accept.

The tusk is not changed when the boar is castrated but the drive that makes it dangerous is removed; this neatly pictures our personalization of activity, the way we own it.

This line is our contact with the greater reality that surrounds us, our personal part in it, so this present involvement of our inner being with the greater undistinguished reality is a culmination of the tao.

This is an acceptance of the great tao, it does not invest identity with some power or other but we are open to the inner silence (of the lower half of the hexagram, Ch’ien). In experience this may involve a deep discovery which brings us into deep peace with ourselves, or it may be that we simply feel more in tune.

Here the life force comes to a state of rest, so activities that we are just beginning may run into difficulties as their energy peters out. If we do not push forward we may seem weak to those who do not recognize the situation but we do best to go at the pace that circumstances allow.

The wild goose approaches land and so a place to rest; renewal, however, (the son) has difficulties, young or new efforts are not supported by the life force. The lack of progress towards any completion leads to criticism but it is not our fault, it is time for gradually finishing a journey, not starting a new one.

Here our feelings become stilled by the tao and we can relax efforts towards activity. There is no need and no profit to be gained from pushing forward towards what we desire, there is enough nourishment here in our present situation to rest and renew us.

Rock is what underlies the surface and so is symbolic of underlying truth. The truth of our situation is that we can relax and enjoy what nourishment our circumstances provide—there is no need to continue the journey at present.

In a tao that has so little flow it is not an advantage to set out on new activity because it is not supported by the life energy and will not reach completion. Identity’s need for activity tempts us to move, activity is its food, but here it will lead us astray.

The goose has gone too far, its natural habitat is near water and here it approaches dry land; we identify too far into a defined world where values are fixed, dry so unflowing, so the defining element in us (the man) is projected into our circumstances and is lost there. The flowing and feeling element in us could give birth to new experience but cannot bring it forth because we identify our outer self as the source of action and ignore the womb where growth occurs “of itself”. The evil is this narrow attitude.

In this line we are less interested in holding off activity, we allow it to be what comes, so we may find that there is a way, in which case we can take advantage of it, or we may find that there is not and we must be prepared to carry on. Persisting in this mode of being we ride life, allowing it to take us on its way, and we learn lessons about our desire for security.

Geese do not live in trees; identity may visit identified places but they are not its home either. This visiting is not an error but neither is it a home-coming.

As our intuitive state is active (line 2) this recognition of it restores the flow of feeling to our conscious self.

For a goose the crest of a hill does not mean home, it is something to rise over. This images an effort and then success and the three years the woman waits for her child is a period of change, change to new feeling which allows the natural processes to complete themselves.

By accepting the tao in our inner being we give up trying to force the pace and so we become part of this phase of gradual progress. In our bodies if a part calls attention to itself it is taken as a sign that something is wrong, it is no longer part of the organic whole but has become separate. Similarly identity is part of our whole being and the being is healthy when identity is not demonstrating its separateness.

Heaven and spirituality are imaged as “above” so the heights are towards heaven or the inner whole reality, the state of wholeness. The goose (our identifying) disappears into this unmanifest reality leaving just an outer appearance, the feathers, as indicators of where it has gone.