I Ching: Week of Monday, September 7

One of the sixty-four hexagrams

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Return

Hexagram 24 is the winter solstice: one yang line reappearing beneath five yin lines, the turning point at its smallest and least impressive. The Judgment says the way turns and returns, and on the seventh day the return comes, which is the book stating plainly that cycles complete on their own schedule rather than on yours. The Image is stranger and more useful. Thunder inside the earth, so the ancient kings closed the passes at the solstice, merchants did not travel and the ruler did not tour the provinces. The instruction at a turning point is to stop moving. Whatever has just started coming back this week is protected by being left alone, not by being encouraged.

For your star sign

The same reading, taken through each sign of the zodiac.

Aries

Something has just turned and your instinct is to accelerate into it. The Image closes the passes. This week's return is a single line under five, and pushing on it is how it gets crushed.

Taurus

Waiting is your natural instrument and this is the week it is exactly right. What has come back is small. Feed it nothing, move it nowhere, and look again in seven days.

Gemini

You will want to tell people the corner has been turned. It is too early for the announcement, and the announcement will cost you the quiet. Notice it privately this week.

Cancer

Something you had given up on is back in the smallest possible form. Do not test whether it is real by pressing on it. This hexagram protects new life by leaving it entirely alone.

Leo

The turning point here is invisible and unimpressive, which is the hard part for you. There is no scene available this week. What returns does so underground and in silence.

Virgo

You will want to optimise the recovery at once. Hexagram 24 forbids the tour of the provinces. Leave the process unexamined for a week and it will be sturdier when you get to it.

Libra

The week asks for no decisions at all, which is unfamiliar relief rather than a problem. Something is rebalancing on its own. Your part is to keep your thumb off both sides of it.

Scorpio

You will want to know whether the return is genuine before you allow it. You cannot know yet. Suspend the investigation for seven days and let the thing establish itself unwatched.

Sagittarius

The passes are closed and you had plans. The hexagram is unusually literal here: merchants did not travel. Stay where you are and let the turning finish turning.

Capricorn

You will read a small return as insufficient progress and add work to it. Add nothing. The single line at the bottom is the whole of what this week is meant to contain.

Aquarius

The seventh day is the book's way of saying the cycle keeps its own timetable and does not consult you. Stop redesigning the schedule and let the existing one complete.

Pisces

You feel the turn before there is evidence for it, and this time you are right. Say nothing and do nothing about it. Being early is only useful if you leave the thing intact.

For your Chinese animal

The same reading, taken through each animal of the Chinese zodiac.

Rat

You will move first on the recovery, which is usually your advantage and this week is not. The opening is not open yet. Position quietly and let the seventh day arrive.

Ox

Steady work is not what this week wants, which will feel wrong to you. Hold the ground you have. The return is happening underneath, where your effort cannot reach it.

Tiger

Thunder inside the earth is power that has not surfaced, and yours has not either. Anything launched this week goes off half charged. The same launch in ten days does not.

Rabbit

Staying in and keeping quiet is both your instinct and the hexagram's instruction, which happens rarely. Take the whole week on home terms and let the small returning thing settle.

Dragon

You will look for the large version of this and there is not one yet. The turning point is genuinely tiny. Guard it rather than trying to make it worth your attention.

Snake

You are good at knowing when something has shifted and better at waiting. Both apply. Note the turn, tell nobody, and take no action until the week after next.

Horse

The road is closed this week and you will test that. It is closed. What comes back does so while you are stationary, which is the least natural sentence in your year.

Goat

Something gentle has started again and you will look for somebody to confirm it. Nobody else has noticed yet. Let it be yours and unconfirmed for seven days.

Monkey

There is nothing to solve here, only something to leave alone, and leaving alone is the manoeuvre you have least practice at. Treat the week as an exercise in exactly that.

Rooster

You will inspect the new growth daily to check that it is progressing. That is how it fails. Close the passes on your own scrutiny and look once, at the end of the week.

Dog

You will stand guard over the returning thing, which is right, and fuss over it, which is not. Guard the perimeter and stay out of the middle of it.

Pig

The good stretch is starting again and you will spend it before it arrives. It is one line, not a harvest. Enjoy the fact of it and wait for the rest.

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