46 Rising - The I Ching

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In this hexagram we see the unimpeded growth of natural life, shoots rising up through the dirt. The ideogram gives us a brilliant image of a dipper raising up the sun. The same force which makes the sun rise makes plants come up.

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Judgment: The rise is aided by fortune; as we go up we meet great people who help us go even further. Yet the farther we go, the more anxious we can get. This is the “fear of heights”, which goes beyond literal heights. The South corresponds to the Heaven trigram in the Primal Arrangement, making this a journey to the heavens, reaching for the sky.

1 This growth here is natural and unavoidable, the simple “growing up”. Taking one's expected place in the world. This is the hierarchy and station that is expected of us, the dandelion reaches its peak at a far lower place than the sunflower. 

2 The sacrifice here is of our natural position.  By stepping out of what is ordained, one gains the attention and faith of those looking. This is the nail that sticks out and may be hammered, the tall tree catching wind.

3 Here we go far past the norm. Where we would expect obstacles, we find the path undefended. This is the ease with which Caesar marched on Rome, or negatively, Napoleon taking the abandoned Moscow. The momentum of rising is enough to clear the way.

4 The rise is ordained by the Gods. Consider the focus of this hexagram on ascent, climbing the Holy Mountain where the Gods live is the highest form of this. When men raise themselves high enough, they often appear as Gods themselves to the people. This is the deification of rulers, like Alexander the Great in antiquity or Mao in modernity.

5 The journey up the Holy Mountain is a key image in occult orders. The graded development of an initiate is the step by step ascent up to the mysteries. Though it may seem that some “skip steps”, it is simply easier for some to develop quickly, while others may never make it up at all.

6 The depths here are those of Hades. For all the focus on worldly ascent and desire to be as Gods in the uppermost line, we find the most significant rise here: the raising of the dead. This is the truest rise, for all the high and lofty people will die and be buried in the ground. Who can rise from the dead? This is the realm of the divine alone, Christ, Osiris, Dionysus, and Orpheus. This is the great goal of nearly all spirituality: to overcome death. The tarot card corresponding to this hexagram, the Last Judgement,  depicts exactly this: the dead rising in the apocalypse.

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Think of the mockery of the phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, a physical and assumed impossibility, yet history is full of those who did just this,who came from nothing and made themselves extremely powerful, and on occasion, divine. 

The plant that grows higher than others is an aberration of nature, this too is the case for man. Wilhelm Reich describes the intolerability of a great man being human. People cannot accept that they are the same, they are compelled to deify great people to feel more comfortable in their station. Usually, the people deified in this way are quite comfortable being put upon the pedestal, forsaking their humanity for power. Though it must not be forgotten, the pedestal is a cross on which all “great men” will eventually be crucified.

The truth is that there is a way up for everyone, no matter how difficult, each of us has a high and lofty place among the stars.