Line 6 being yin, we are following this emerging life force as it becomes more active.

Now there is energy where there was none, but this needs to be used in following (correct continuance). To follow our circumstances we need to go out to them, to follow with them (the associates).

To follow the life force we need to feel it. Here we are feeling it less and we lack experience of it.

The boy is youth seeking identification and self-experience while the mature man does not need this. That we need it now shows that an inexperienced aspect is active in us and we should allow this experience while witnessing it with our mature aspect if we can. To follow it without witnessing becomes an indulgence.

When outer activity decreases in the tao of following, we do not follow what is on the outside, seeking experience, but follow what is inner, accumulated experience.

What he needs is the wisdom to follow, not to seek experience.

Intuition follows (feels) the emerging life force which is inactive here, so we are turning our following to the inner. As the inner is quiet we find ourselves remarkably close to being in the tao—following quite naturally by being part of it—where this feeling becomes very real.

It is fortunate for our outer state when the life force is manifesting activity, it creates a balance of inner and outer activity so that the outer seems to move of its own accord, at other times we seem to have to push very hard to make the smallest movement. In this line our activity will feel right.

Intuitive feeling is our first activity of distinguishing, we then define an attitude according to the feeling and so distinguish the feeling in terms of mind. It is advantageous in this tao that we should be free of mind attitudes and simply be in the flow, this gives freedom to the magic of the moment.

Tortoise shells are artefacts of magic, and what the tao offers in this line is the magic of the life force providing our feeling with just what it needs. For this to be accepted we need to drop our way of identifying what is happening and then choosing (this is the mode that normally rules us, is our king); if this is not sacrificed the gift is not seen or felt at all. Learning to drop our personal activity takes this long perseverance and is the inner good fortune of the tao.

It is more in tune with this tao to reduce our controlling of activity rather than to reduce the activity itself; our outer experience is food to the inner self. Here we make a move intending to do something about an overactive “I am” but “I am” doing it.

Our seal is that which identifies us and the prince is our identity (the outcome of our ruler which is the identifying process), so here we need to see how we are identifying ourselves, how we are choosing; the middle way is not to choose but to allow.

Here we choose less amongst the strong flow of outer activity which is this tao; it is in keeping with this flow to go with the outer activity but not to manipulate it.

The capital is the seat of government, the chooser, which is sacrificed in this tao to allow the magic of the life force. For symbols of the seal, the prince, and walking in the middle, see line 3.

By accepting direct feeling of the life force we are becoming one with our intuitive feeling of this tao about increase.

Questioning comes from the mind, flow from the feeling. The essence of the flow is to be genuinely in it, we cannot question a flow without stopping it.

This is no time to get involved in inner stillness (line 1 is yang) when we are in a tao of nourishing outer activity.

Here we fail to sacrifice the importance of identifying—we identify in the inner stillness—and we miss the middle path, the non-identified state. By trying first the outer and then the inner as our focus we are not being consistent and nothing is furthered; only a shock will change this cycle of choosing, for it fuels itself, so it is as if someone strikes him.

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.