For the next week of Libra season we get double the gentle.
Hexagram 57 – The Gentle (Subtly penetrating) of the I Ching is our hexagram host. It is one of the 8 hexagrams that has doubled trigrams.
This hexagram has gentleness as its attribute, which penetrates like the roots of a tree or the wind.
Hilary Barrett says in her translation: “Whatever penetrates subtly becomes influential – not by acting on situations or people to change their nature, but by becoming part of their nature and acting in them.”
This brings to mind one of my favorite Marie-Louise von Franz quotes: “But if a single individual devotes himself to individuation, he frequently has a positive contagious effect on the people around him. It is as if a spark leaps from one to another. And this usually occurs when one has no intention of influencing others and often when one uses no words.”
Richard Wilhem says that the “penetrating quality of the wind depends upon its ceaselessness. This is what makes it so powerful; time is its instrument. In the same way the ruler’s thought should penetrate the soul of the people….Only when the command has been assimilated by the people is action in accordance with it possible. Action without preparation of the ground only frightens and repels.”
I’m sure we can all think of times when someone – or maybe we ourselves! – forced a change too abruptly and it caused chaos. There are certainly countless examples of it in the news stories on any given day.
One would be hard pressed to find a leadership book about this. “7 Steps to Leading Like the Wind” probably wouldn’t be a bestseller! For the wind isn’t visible; its effects can only be felt gradually and subtly. You can’t make an action plan for acting in situations instead of on them.
Each of us has our own journey and individuation process; the effect it has on others can’t be mapped out.
Libra season is a perfect time to contemplate The Gentle, as its qualities are in keeping with Libra and its host planet Venus. During this next week perhaps you’ll become a bit more aware of the sparks that leap from you to others, and vice versa that often go unnoticed.
References:
I Ching or Book of Changes translated by Richard Wilhelm
I Ching: Walking Your Path, Creating Your Future by Hilary Barrett
Man and His Symbols by C.G. Jung
