Hexagram 60

Jié, the Measure

A very rigid hexagram, but giving value to the most free means of expression. Living moment after moment makes that possible. Restrictions need expiring dates, so every new cycle will have its own new energy. Life becomes a composition. Not the notes but their rhythm and succession make the music.
Play your own song on your own flute. If your pitch is right, you will able to join in with others, and they with you.

Hex.60

JIE: A man (3) is kneeling before a pot of food (2), about to start eating: 'approach, thereupon, attain to'. At the top bamboo (1).
JIE: knots or joints of bamboo or other plants, degree, rank, regular division, juncture, circumstance, regulate, discriminate, to moderate, frugality, rule, law, baton, tessera, token of authority, capital of pillar. A part of a book, season, period of time or music: chapter, term, time-interval, holiday. All these meanings have to do with a certain amount. A bamboo-tube was used for standards like the pitch in music, measure of capacity, weights.

The trigrams: Water above Lake:
Lake holding the Water: limits. The noble one delimits number and measure, and deliberates upon ethical conduct.
A lake occupies a limited space. When more water comes into it, it overflows. The lake limits the water and gives it a shape. The human mind, and also every action and creation, need limits. The mind without limits drowns in the ocean of chaos. A creation without limits dissolves.
Time needs the limits of periods, of hours, weeks, months, years. Of festivals and holidays.
Music and literature need the limits of chapters and rhythm.

For the meaning of Eminent - expansion. Harvest - determination click HERE
Line 1 and 2. The door from the house to the court, and the gate out of the court?
Line 6. Bitter is literally 'old herbs'.

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