From Atop the Mountain

From the Tarot by Caro, the Page of Swords; from the Holitzka I Ching, Hexagram 52:

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

~Iris Murdoch

Precocious and intelligent, it's easy for the Page of Swords to think she knows everything (which she'll gladly share, whether you want to hear it or not). Yet the clouds and blowing wind suggest her ideas about life are rather foggy. Our discernment can be skewed by opinions and prejudices, emotions, attachment to desires, or a lack of knowledge. Just because we think it's true doesn't make it so. Hexagram 52 is often titled the Mountain or Keeping Still. It suggests that it if we want to see with clarity we must still our mind and observe it. Are we making assumptions or seeing only a small slice of reality? What is at the root of our beliefs - evidence or something else? The Mountain gives us a higher, wider perspective of things rather than from a single viewpoint. 

Wipe out imagination: check desire: extinguish appetite: keep the ruling faculty in its own power. ~Marcus Aurelius

The Set of the Sails

From the Hoi Polloi Tarot, the Three of Wands; from the I Ching Pack, Mountain over Mountain (hexagram 52):

          This fellow is waiting for his ship to come in. Judging by the three staffs leafing out, effort and action are about to produce a result. Many folks wait on ships without doing or changing a thing, as if wishing hard will make it happen. This man would tell us not to wait for fate to intervene or good fortune to arrive at our doorstep - we need to get things moving. But once we've put things into play, the outcome is often out of our control. Mountain over Mountain (hexagram 52) represents stillness and patiently waiting. If what arrives at the dock is not what we wanted, we can rethink our plan, learn from our mistakes, and do things differently next time. 

One ship sails East,

And another West,

By the self-same winds that blow,

'Tis the set of the sails

And not the gales,

That tells the way we go.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox