When a change is happening in our identifying pattern our old motivations turn up all sorts of new activities to keep themselves in being; these are the stumbling blocks to change.

We have to continue through the change (three years symbolically is a cycle of change) continually preventing old and habitual ways from keeping their footholds. Before completion means that we are on our way in a process of change and to complete the transition we must persist.

Our intuitive feeling is quiet in this tao; we have needed to accept this quietness also so that new action did not arise. Now we are further along the path of change and do not need this vigilance.

The transition has passed its doubting phase where we were subject to going back to the old ways. We now have confidence in the wider experience which is the reward of transition.

When the life force is actively changing we can take part in this. We find it easier to take part in activity, which we see as progress, than in the inactive phase where we tend to create activity by planning.

Our prince of equal rank is the unexpressed half of ourself. When the life force is active there is no barrier to conscious expression of the inner self so it is favourable to go forward with this for its full cycle (the ten days).

To feel less in this tao is to misunderstand, and to act on such misunderstanding courts disaster. When we do not feel the present we look to the future to seek a direction; we avoid feeling, but feeling is the essence of our present situation. We have arrived, we are here now and need no direction.

A star is the guiding light of navigators, so here we are trying to navigate, mistaking the sun, the abundance, for a direction. Going forward, which is following the mood of looking forward, is a mistrust of the life force, an aversion to feeling the present.

If we are engrossed in outer activity we are avoiding the abundance of feeling; abundance may seem to risk being overwhelmed by feeling, but go with it, it is the tao and outer action is not fruitful at present.

The abundance of feeling is obscured so as to seem tiny and far away, a guide to direction and not a warmth to bask in. We cannot act out in this tao and this symbolically breaks our right arm, our arm of action.

The outer state which we are now taking to be a centre of interest is distracting us from feeling; we are asking where the abundance is when it is there inside. This line deals with our outer identity so here we are projecting the feeling of the tao to our outer reality; it will find a response, a reflection of the tao.

We are still not seeing the tao for what it is and we still look for a direction, mistaking the sun that warms for a guiding star to some future event. Here we face the outer world as our reality and it becomes our ruler; its appearances are a reflection of our point of view, we see them through the filters of our choice. Our good fortune is being able to move (change) by accepting the tranquil (line 3, outer, as a substitute for line 1, inner).

Here the fullness of feeling is ending with the end of the resonance between the second and fifth lines. The abundance goes on to its next phase, the outer manifestation which we call success.

The variations which fill us with wonder are the changes that come to our outer lives as though undeserved, like blessings, they are not caused out there but come from the inner abundance.

Our inner being does not accept the abundance of feeling so it is inhibited from flowing in the next cycle of our being.

The abundance stays inside so he cannot share it outside his person. Until we change (the three years is a cycle of change) we can find no one to share with. We need to learn to allow the abundance within to flow outwards; this follows its inner acceptance.

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.