Gate 20 · The Now

What it is like

You work best when something is happening, not when it's planned. What you put off until tomorrow often loses its pull.

When someone close has it

Here and now is where this person lives: they react at once and say what they see. It's easier to get along with them in the moment than over talk of distant plans.

A question for today

What can I do now, instead of putting it off until later?

The six lines of gate 20

1. Line 1 · First Glance

   This line wants to know what is happening now before it acts. You look like someone new to a place, plainly and attentively, searching the moment for something solid to lean on. Once you find it, word and movement come quickly. When the ground shakes, it is easy to stay stuck in watching and let the moment you were waiting for slip past.

2. Line 2 · Door Ajar

   Here presence in the moment works without effort and out of sight. You see what is going on in the room through a narrow crack, and it is enough to say the right thing in the right second. You do best when nobody is looking at you and someone finally calls you in. When you only ever look through that crack, your picture of the moment can be accurate yet too narrow for what is really going on.

3. Line 3 · Trying It On

   This line tests the moment by moving. You take a step, see what comes of it, and either go on or step back, and each of these choices teaches you more than long deliberation. Many things make sense to you only once they fail. From the outside this can look like indecision, though it is simply the way you test the present on your own skin.

4. Line 4 · Guest at Court

   Here presence in the moment works through the people you know. You can step into someone else's world, a team, a family or a company, and see at once where your word could be useful. People invite you because around you things happen now, not some day. When the circle is unfamiliar, you may wait too long for an invitation and the moment to move passes without you.

5. Line 5 · A Watched Move

   This line makes others look at what you are doing right now and see in it an answer to their own affairs. Your on-the-spot decisions seem practical and easy for anyone to repeat. That is why it is worth watching your own moves, since they are being watched. When someone expects action from you at once and you do not yet see what to do, disappointment comes easily on both sides.

6. Line 6 · View from Above

   Here presence in the moment ripens into distance. Over time you react less to every second and look down more at how your now adds up to a whole life. Others learn from this that one can be fully here and still see wider. From that height it can be hard for you to come down into the conversation happening right now, and someone waits for a word that stays with you.

The centre of this gate

• Throat

Channels through gate 20

• 10–20 · Awakening
• 20–57 · Perceptiveness
• 20–34 · Charisma