It’s time for the “Clinging Fire” of Hexagram 30 from the I Ching, which symbolizes the brightness, clarity, and persistence of life.
This hexagram has double the fire – in other words, a doubling of the fire trigram. There are eight times per year we get a hexagram that is a doubling like this.
Fire has no defined form but must cling to an object in order to be made bright. As Richard Wilhelm says in his translation:
Everything that gives light is dependent on something to which it clings, in order that it may continue to shine.
Thus sun and moon cling to heaven, and grain, grass, and trees cling to the earth. So too the twofold clarity of the dedicated man clings to what is right and thereby can shape the world. Human life on earth is conditioned and unfree, and when man recognizes this limitation and makes himself dependent upon the harmonious and beneficient forces of the cosmos, he achieves success.
Wilhelm goes on to talk about cows, which I appreciate as a Wisconsinite (Wisconsin is known for its dairy farms). He describes cows as “the symbol of extreme docility.” If we cultivate docility we acquire “clarity without sharpness” and find our place in the world.
We’re in the last stretch of Aquarius season. Aquarius is a Saturnian air sign, which might not seem fiery, but air signs do have a hot quality. It’s perfect timing that Mars entered Aquarius yesterday and is conjunct Pluto. This energy of Mars in the coming weeks should help encourage the Aquarian themes of innovation and progressive thinking and shed some light on new ideas. Venus will enter Aquarius in a few days, which will take some of the edge off the Mars effect.
Take care of your cows. Notice what you see in this brighter light ahead. Tend to the new insights you receive and your inner clarity will cause your light to spread farther “and penetrate the nature of man ever more deeply.”
REFERENCES:
I Ching or Book of Changes translated by Richard Wilhelm
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