Gate · centre: Sacral
Gate 42 · Growth
Finishing. Once something has started, there is energy here to carry it through and gather what has ripened.
What it is like
You finish what you start and learn from it. That's how cycles close and make room for something new. It can be harder to leave something halfway, even when it no longer fits.
When someone close has it
This person often sees things through once they're in. Hand them things they actually care to finish, not one more of someone else's beginnings.
A question for today
What do I have to wrap up today, and what can I choose to leave?
The six lines of gate 42
Line 1 · Sound Start
On this line finishing begins long before the end. Before you set off, you want to know where you stand, because whatever is begun pulls you all the way to the finish. A well placed first step lets you walk on later without hesitation. When the ground feels unsteady, it is easy to check and prepare for too long, and the start keeps moving further away.
Line 2 · Steady Hand
Carrying things to the end comes to you without effort, as if they grew in your hands with nobody's help. You do not always see a skill in it, and others arrive with a project dropped halfway and ask you to finish it. It helps to take what comes with gratitude and without too many plans. When they call on you too often, it is easy to get stuck in other people's affairs and have no room left for your own.
Line 3 · Lessons in Stumbling
On this line growth comes through what does not work out. You carry a matter to its end, see that it fails, and draw from that ending something an easy success does not give you. The tradition says that even an unlucky event can increase good if it is met honestly. At times a run of finished failures looks like a lack of direction from outside, though from inside it is learning.
Line 4 · Shared Move
For you growth runs through the people you know. It comes easily to carry news and ideas from one circle to another, and when something has to be brought to its end in a group, it is through you that others know what comes next. The tradition shows this as moving a whole settlement to a new place, which works thanks to trust. When friendships weaken, even a well started shared effort can stall.
Line 5 · Honest Generosity
Others see in you someone who will see a shared matter grow and reach its end. When you act from goodwill rather than calculation, people feel it without asking and follow you. This projection is practical, because they expect a concrete result. At times they take every step back you make as betrayal, though you are only walking away from what can no longer be honestly finished.
Line 6 · Art of Endings
From this line you see from a distance that growth does not last for ever and that closing well is part of growing. Over the years you try different ways of finishing, then step back, and in maturity others learn from you how to leave matters with dignity. When the wish to take without giving back wins, it is easy to lose the support of people who have walked beside you so far.