10 Walking - The I Ching
Chris Gabriel January 10, 2026
Judgment
Walking on a tiger's tail; it doesn’t bite.
Lines
1
Walking on.
2
Walking the easy way on your own.
3
A blind man can see like a lame man can walk. Walking on a tiger’s tail and being bitten.
4
Walking on a tiger’s tail with a heart full of fear.
5
Walking the line.
6
Walking and watching your step. The time comes.
Qabalah
Kether to Binah: The Path of Beth. The Magician.
The Magician walks carefully along the path.
In this hexagram we see the image of caution, and of walking carefully. At times, we are confronted with dangers too great to oppose and must tread lightly. The image is pleasant, that of a calm lake under the heavens, but here we apply it to the body: the head is strong and driven, while the feet are soft and gentle.
The ideogram deepens the image, walking and watching your steps so as not to make a sound. The lines of writing show us the dynamics that form from this situation.
The Judgment gives us the danger - a tiger - we are behind it and walk over its tail, yet it doesn’t bite. When you walk gently enough, you can avoid the claws and fangs of the beast.
1
Sometimes the best thing to do is just keep walking.
2
If your path is certain and your eyes are open, trouble rarely comes. It is in erring from the path that we tend to walk into dangerous situations. Think of how walking along a main road differs from walking in a dark alley.
3
When we are distracted or uncertain, we invite trouble. One can picture a tourist in a crowded city, their uncertainty and awkwardness is immediately apparent to thieves. Or when we are walking while texting and nearly head into traffic.
4At times, fear is the proper reaction to danger. Without fear mankind would have died out long ago. This is the gift of our fight or flight response. There is no use fighting a tiger.
5
Walking the line is walking the “straight and narrow”. Take these verses from Matthew 7:13-14:
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
6
When we walk carefully through danger, we can often escape it entirely.
As this hexagram corresponds to the Magician, I think of the relation with Mercury, the God of Thieves, who shows how a thief who walks very carefully and quietly can achieve his ends. Or of the Magician himself, who carefully “walks the circle” and stays within it, lest he be torn asunder.
A more positive view of the dynamic here is that of gymnasts, skaters and mountain climbers, who do something very dangerous with astonishing grace and skill. With regard to “the straight and narrow” an acrobat can dance on a tightrope! It calls to mind a line from magician and mountaineer Aleister Crowley’s Book of Lies:
He leapt from rock to rock of the moraine without ever casting his eyes upon the ground.
Expertise is one form of magick, faith is another. The expert is beyond faith, their body and mind are attuned to the otherwise dangerous and difficult situations they find themselves in. Faith lets anyone walk without fear. Psalm 23 says it best:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Therefore, let us learn what the Magician knows well: the art of walking and of faith, so no danger can assail us as we go through the world.
