Your reading

Your reading resulted in the following hexagrams:

	changing to
60		24

Hexagram 60, Measuring

Key Questions

What limits apply here?
What agreements are at work?
Does everyone understand them and find them palatable? Do you?

Oracle

'Measuring, creating success.
Bitter measures do not allow for constancy.'

Things need to be articulated to make them more manageable, easier to take in and work with. Such measures, when they grow organically, reflect the natural rhythms of life and allow a fuller participation in its flow. Progress is made in small increments.

Individuals with measure live sustainably and flourish; groups who share measures and standards, who speak the same language, can reach agreement and build trust. But if anyone reacts to the measures as they would to a bitter taste – if they find them too hard to swallow – then they are not sustainable. This isn't a matter of tradition, principle or logic, but of human experience.

Image

'Above the lake is the stream: Measuring.
A noble one works out and reckons the measures,
Reflecting on character in action.'

Sequence

Measuring follows from Hexagram 59, Dispersing.
'Things cannot end with spreading out, and so Measuring follows.'

Changing Lines

Hexagram 24, Returning

Key Questions

What is just beginning to germinate?
How can you follow your sense of direction more closely?
Where might the path lead now?

Oracle

'Returning, creating success.
Going out, coming in, without anxiety.
Partners come, not a mistake.
Turning around and returning on your path.
The seventh day comes, you return.
Fruitful to have a direction to go.'

Your journey leads you out and home again, through the turning points on your way. Vigour and authenticity return in the still moments of those turning points; life regenerates from the roots, and light returns.

By walking constantly to and from your source, you participate in a two-way flow of creation You go out and rediscover your own way; you return through an open door to your home and relationships. This is a living motion, like breathing, that revitalizes and restores. Relaxed and spacious, it allows time for the path's natural meanderings, never creating resistance.

Since you are in motion, helpers of all kinds come – travelling companions who walk alongside you for a while. (If someone is meant to be with you, you will never need to leave your path to chase after them.) Just as any road can be travelled in two directions, your path also leads both out and back again, and so – in the fullness of time and following a natural progression – there comes a moment to turn round.

Through all this going and coming and starting afresh, it is good to have an overarching direction and purpose to guide you. The quality of Returning is alive, growing and dynamic – a good time to rediscover your own deepest intent and its harmony with the Dao.

Image

'Thunder dwelling in the centre of the earth: Returning.
The ancient kings closed the borders at winter solstice.
Itinerant merchants did not travel,
The prince did not tour the regions.'

Sequence

Returning follows from Hexagram 23, Stripping Away:
'Things cannot be completely used up. Stripping Away comes to an end on the outside, and there is turnaround on the inside, and so Returning follows.'

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