While watching the eclipse yesterday, Air Force One flew overhead at the exact moment of the eclipse in Icarus-type fashion. It had just taken off from the airport after the President made a brief stop here.
It seems a fitting correlation to this week’s Hexagram 42: Increase of the I Ching an appropriate for Aries.
Just like Aries, the hexagram is about purpose, movement, and having a direction to go.
As Hilary Barrett says in her translation:
Increase simply flows, without limit; there is no need for restrictive frameworks to contain it. When you are blessed, it is good to respond with purpose and movement: participating in the increase, pouring more in, you receive more in return. Let yourself imagine where you want to be, and take the first steps that commit you to going there. This is how to keep the momentum.
I Ching: Walking Your Path, Creating Your Future by Hilary Barrett
The image of the hexagram shows a marriage of heaven and earth, with the earth being able to partake of the power of the heavens.
This reminds me how Jungian analyst and author James Hollis frequently reminds us to ask ourselves if a choice is diminishing us or not:
Then we look at our daily choices; some of them small, some of them are very large, and we ask: Does this choice make me smaller? Or does it make me larger? Does it enlarge me psychologically? Or is it diminishing me?
Life of Meaning by James Hollis
I like to think of the increase in this hexagram as being about NOT making ourselves smaller.
Or in other words, it’s OK to take up space.
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