Gate 42 ⌇ The Gate of Contraction

First lines always speak for the nature of the hexagram The first line is called ‘Diversification.’ This is not synthesis. This is not the first line of the 3rd hexagram. This is diversification, this is literally the foundation of the experiential way that is, not to do the same thing twice. This is the lesson for the abstract person. "Do it once, have the experience, put it in your bank account and go on to the next thing." The essence begins with diversification. Sun exalted. The ability, when surplus resources are available to extend one’s activities beyond their normal scope.  On the logic side, we are stuck with patterns and habits. That is the logic side. It is about patterns and habits which lock you into a fixed way of living out your process. The abstract comes along and says, "I have to go beyond these patterns and habits in order to have my experience." The surplus resource to go beyond just the strict patterns to find that additional experience. 

Venus in detriment,  A tendency when surplus resources are available to centrifugal application. Decadence. In the white book it says, Growth through expansion, particularly when defined to the Root, or  Too much expansion can lead to decadence.   Now look, the decadence in this is what happens to your energy the moment that you are placing your energy commitments in too many places. This is something that comes back to one of the most important things that you can do in a reading for people. When people have a defined Sacral center, people who are generators by nature, for them to understand that only when their Sacral center makes the commitment as “uhun" are they really going to have the energy and not descend into decadence. What so often happens to Sacral people is that they make their decisions in life based on other places - their emotional system, their Throat or their Mind - and in doing so they literally do become decadent in the way they are using their energy, because most of that energy is not going towards their process experientially but is being fed off to others. 

This can create all kinds of energy problems in the human being themselves aside from the dilemma of people who say, ‘You have broken your word, your promise or this commitment.’ The 42 is always under pressure to finish things so it can feel very guilty when it can’t finish things. This is the decadence that can come in. Without the clarity to understand where the energy goes. Remember, that there is no awareness here. There is the energy to grow and complete but there is no awareness. There is the energy to be diversified, but how diversified. How far out do you go? How many different experiences do you go after? Are they really for you? If they are not, they will eat up your energy.

The first line - due to its introspective nature - recognizes that it has a resource and that those resources can be available for all kinds of diversity. It does not know what to do with it but nonetheless, it knows that that is there. When you come to the second line - the projective line, you know that they do not know whether they have the resources or not. What they are doing is that they are projecting out that they have their resources. The line is called ‘Identification.’ Sun exalted, Recognition and acute capitalization of trends. Remember, that somebody who has anything in the abstract process, they are always interested in a new experience that comes along. They are the first ones. When I go and give public lectures, the room is filled with 11/56’s. They just come and say, "Aha, a new idea. Something new and different to think about. Some new possible experience." The identification is literally being able to make your energy - projected – available, and then the diversity is shown to you in that sense. 

The whole thing about that is that you don’t really know, as a second line, whether you really have the resources. You can identify that. You can recognize that straight away, "Aha, there is an experience, a new thing that is available to me." You are projecting out but you don’t really know if it is for you. You do not really know if you can handle it. This is not about awareness.  The Venusian detriment, An ascetically motivated withdrawal in times of progressive change. These are people that are projecting out their resource and then all of a sudden, everything around them changes and there is this sense that what they are projecting out does not fit in anymore. In other words, on both sides of this line is this capacity to be able to project out exactly into a new experience to see whether one has what it takes or not. Or, at the very same time, to recognize that there is something different going on, some new experience that is available, but not feeling equipped. Remember, that the second line always has this dilemma of not knowing whether or not there is the necessary depth, the necessary tools. In the white book, Power for growth through participating in trends.  The moment that these people see a new trend, they can project their energy into it. The other side of this is, Growth which stops in reaction to trends or change. Because all of a sudden they are out of step. They can be in step, they can be out of step, but it is all a projection. There is no guarantee of the depth underneath.

Everything that we have been talking about in terms of third lines, here you get to see the archetype of what a third line is. After all, when you are dealing with the abstract you are dealing with the experiential way, you are dealing with the human process and the keynote of the third line is ‘Trial and Error.’ This is the term that we have been using - trial and error, bonds made and broken. In times of increase -you can substitute increase for growth, this is the maturing process; how we grow is through trial and error- mistakes are a natural part of the process. Mars exalted, The energy and assertion to turn mistakes into advantages. This is so difficult for people to recognize. What they call a mistake is only a point on an arc of a path. It is not something that you have to go back to. We do not go back to anything. We are flying at 445.000 kilometers an hour in space. You cannot turn around at that speed. You can’t even put on the brakes at that speed. There is nothing to do about that. It is very important to understand that. So look! The mistakes become advantages. That is the nature of growth. 

In this line you see a phenomena that all parents know with their children. When children are young and they get sick with a fever, they grow. If you measure them two days later, they have grown. You can look at the sickness and say, "Oh, my goodness. Here is a failure. The child is not well. I did not look after it properly." The fact is that that illness is an advantage, because the illness itself is part of the growth process. Otherwise, it would not be there. It is very important to understand the essence of trial and error. We have an obsession with ‘no mistakes.’ No mistakes? You might as well die because there is no growth and maturity and there is no process. 

On the other side of this, Moon in detriment, A moodiness that in error may succumb to brooding and unnecessary caution.  "Oh, I made a mistake. It is terrible. I have to be careful next time. I will not do that again." The power to accept mistakes as part of the growth.  Here is Mars, the twelve year old child in all its glory. This is one of the best positions you can have for Mars in your design. Mars saying, "Yes, I have the power to grow." Mistakes give power to moodiness and caution. Trial and error really is the essence. Remember, that the resonance to the third line is always the sixth line, the possibility for a profound mutation, for a transition to take place. Growth is rooted in trial and error.

When you come to the fourth line, you come to the upper trigram. We now have a transpersonal process. There is this recognition of what is at the other end of the channel, and so we have a totally different process. Always remember the limitation that is there in the first three lines. This deep involvement in the nature of the gate itself, "I have the resources, I project the resources, I adapt to the resources." but it is still within itself. When you get to the fourth line, you get to something different. This transpersonal is the beginning of the recognition that in order for experience to be achieved, it has to be achieved through union with others, in consort or connection with others. This line, by the way, is a line that I have seen in I think now seven different midwives. This line is called the ‘Middle man.’ It should probably be called the midwife. This would be a great line to call the midwife, because this is the energy to provide the resources by being in the middle - in mediation - providing the resources for others. In other words, there is this intrinsic recognition that the maturity cannot be established alone. 

The Moon exalted, The quintessential manifestation of the mediator. On the venusian side we have, The gift to establish and maintain relationships is ill-suited in this position to act in mediation, where harmony must take a back seat to pragmatism.  This is about using these resources carefully, not simply working on the social level of recognizing that there is another end of the channel. Remember, that collective circuitry is by its very nature social, so underneath all of these lines is lying this social imperative that says, "I have to share this." Here in the fourth line it is, "I have to share my resources." What happens is that in the detriment they get caught up in the social aspect, trying to make sure that everybody is harmonious and that everything is okay, instead of putting the energy into their real business. That is like a woman being in labor and the midwife is putting her energy into trying to be harmonic with this woman who is in labor, instead of putting her energy right there to what the process is. 

There are times when the social aspect takes away from the necessary pragmatism. These are people that have wonderful energy, but so often their energy is used by other people. Their resources are given away to others simply because they want to establish a harmonic social environment, and that becomes more important than just pragmatically using the energy. The maturity to bring growth through mediation. To bring growth to the collective in that sense by having the resources. Fourth lines are very fixed. "I am fixed on having to give my resources to others. I have to share my resources with others." In the detriment we have,  A lack of maturity where the power to harmonize distorts mediation and limits growth. If you are so busy trying to make sure that your client who is in labor is going to like you as a person, you may have all kinds of difficulties in the actual birthing because the energy is in the wrong place. It is like the surgeon who is cutting open your heart and listening to rock and roll at the same time and gets lost in the song, and you end up with a scissors inside. (Jürgen: There is a story in a recent novel in Germany which is called "Schlafes Bruder", where the midwife just gossips and misses the birth).

Look at the incredible resonance in this gate. The first line and the fourth line, the second and the fifth line, they all have Venus in detriment. Here is a fundamentally collective process and the Venus in detriment always brings out problems, because it brings out the problems of being over concerned about the social aspect of experience. This is not about the social aspects of experience. It is about the pragmatism of recognizing the nature of the experience itself, but you can see that the Venusian power here can distort the resources. Remember, that in the first line we always have the essence - to diversify the resources - and when we get to the fifth line, we get to see how the world looks at it. The world calls it ‘Self-actualization.’ They project on the 42.5,  "Aha, they have the resources to be able to go through a process and grow. They are the ones who are mature." This is a very funny thing.  42.5’s are always being projected on that they are the mature ones. "They are so mature for their age." This is the flavor that comes with the 42.5. 

The Sun exalted. The fulfillment and actualization as purpose as a natural path, whose reward is a healthy sense of self, rather than the power and influence that naturally follow. This projecting out, this projection on them that they have the resources, the fact that they can bring that out. The moment that somebody projects on you that you are something, it becomes easier and easier to live it out. If somebody keeps on projecting on you that you have power, then you have power. These people are projected on all the time that they have the resources. So they have them. Maybe not always but most of the time, they do. The venusian detriment,  Self-actualization as a strictly inner experience that may demand or result in a reclusive nature.  This is not the fourth that says,  "I must share because I am the resonance of diversification. I have to share with everybody. I have to be in the middle." The resonance to the five is the two, which is to be identified with here. 

The detriment here is not really a detriment. It is simply that this growth power is going to be my own growth power. I have an inner growth process rather than helping you with your growth process. You can project on me that I have the resources for you, but I do not identify with where you are going and I will not give you that energy. The two sides of this in the white book, Growth that is self-fulfilling and naturally leads to influence  or  Inner growth that empowers reclusiveness.  “I will do my own experience.” These are often people that do things that nobody else knows about. They have this mask in their life. You work with them for five years and then you discover that twice a year they take off all their clothes, they paint their body and they slaughter animals and do weird religious acts. You don’t know that because it is a reclusive inner experience that they will not share with you. 

I had a reading with some guy, a really insecure and uncomfortable strange sort of creature, working in a government job in Munich. I got to a place in the reading which triggered something for him and he said, "I’ve just been through that." And I asked, "You have been through what?" "Oh, last week, I have been doing fire walking." I looked at this guy and thought, ‘fire walking.’  42.5. These are people that have hidden experiences in their life, so they have a lot of things that they have actually done, but they do not tell anybody about. They can range from anything, to anywhere, because the abstract circuit being what it is - anything is possible in the experiential field. They are very secretive in that sense about the nature of their inner experiences.

When you get to the sixth line and you get to transition, you get to the classic situation in which the sixth line does not necessarily want to release what is there, unless there is much more to it. After all, the whole nature of the abstract process is to go through experience so that at the end of that experience, when you have completed that process, you can reflect upon that process and out of that comes your maturity. Out of that comes what we call history. The ability to be able to share with others the nature of your experience. Here, when you get to it in the white book it is very clear, The power to share the process of growth with others.  Perhaps. You only share the process of growth if the experience can be seen in that sense. If they can believe that it is going to lead to that kind of growth. That is full of all kinds of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts,’ ‘maybes’, ‘should haves’ and ‘could haves’, and I don’t know. They are not necessarily going to share it, but they can. 

On the other side we have, The refusal to share the benefits of growth with others.   The ‘Nurturing’  in the black book, A natural and instinctive nurturing of others. Saturn in detriment. A restrictive and malefic materialism that is self-alienating and encourages aggression. This is one of the sixth lines that can get a lot of hostility because everybody knows that they have the resources, and everybody is saying, "Why don’t you give these things out. You are collective and this is about sharing. We want it." So they can go to the extreme and again, this is dependent on the nature of the design, whether the center is defined and how this operates. They can get to the point where they react in that way only to use their resources for their own benefit. Materialism in the sense that energy has value. I am somebody that has three motors open. I know how valuable energy is. I teach on your adrenalin. It is not mine. I know how valuable it is. That adrenalin energy is a necessary currency. Without it there is no fuel for the process. 

People who carry energy gates like this, are carrying wealth within them. The moment that the energy is used properly, the growth comes and then you reap the harvest of whatever has grown. The harvest in life is to come to grips with what it is to be human, what it is to be alive, what it is to live out the experiential way. Like all sixth lines, it is not certain whether or not it is worthwhile. Whether it can trust that the process is valuable for its growth. This wonderful joke: Where does the 42.6 lead to? To Synthesis in the 3.1. It starts with Diversity, and you get to the end of the whole thing and you say, "Well, yes, all this diversity is terrific but what does it all mean?” That is what the sixth line is thinking about. What does it all mean? Not just this experience. What you get from the nature of the sixth line is that they are not ready to make the mistake that is made in the third line. They are saying "What for? What do I have to go through that for? I am not really sure that it is of value to me." There is always a hesitancy in the sixth line because there is this inherent sense of "Yeah, but what else?"