GUA 14 · DA4 YOU

He remains down below to watch those above become slaves to their cravings for wealth, compromise themselves for bad dreams, sell their souls for false promises. He wants to be free of this servitude and to have no commerce with something so harmful. He might be right about what is inferior here. The propertied classes may spend their whole lives to command no more than the power to rearrange what they look at. But if the real wealth is a freedom, he will never find it in this much aversion to common human traits, or by twisting up his eyes at every evil he can find. A true wealth moves, interacts and makes changes, and it may or may not have its uses for big bags of money. If scowling is hard on the stomach maybe it’s bad for health. So why not instead set compelling examples of a noble and wholesome simplicity?

Great wealth is like this great wagon, waiting to be loaded or emptied, with a value in either condition: loaded means it is useful, emptied means it is mobile, ready to respond to the unforeseen chance. Wealth depends more upon what is moved, and the movement itself, than upon what is owned or contained. It might make just as much use of things which it does not have. And rolling stock is not just something possessed, it needs to get dirty and worn. As long as the supply is moving towards the demand, wealth grows. Try hauling cargo both ways, moving in both directions with things in demand. Free trade will see all sides advance. Then you can love your work, get paid to travel and have a clear conscience as well. This is like rubbing the portly belly of luck. You are this vehicle here. Cargo is neither you nor your future.

Why not stand out on the promontory and throw gold coins at the sun? The prince donates wealth to his wealthier lord, while the commoner people cannot understand why things move in this direction. There is no clear ulterior motive, and nothing to gain by such loss. They might sooner harm themselves than be caught acting thus. And herein there may be a clue. You cannot hold flame from the skies in clenched hands, so if you want to grasp, grasp that wealth is all about circulation. In theory, such offerings are not made to get more in return, but to work on your worthiness, to express your gratitude, to offer up trust that good will come back around and to practice the sun’s way with wealth. For the gifted ones the higher power is giving. The needy cannot escape real needs and they cannot move on until these are met.

Some say that we own this world by virtue of having laid claims. Some say that we inherit it from those who came before us. Some say we borrow it from people yet to come, a distant seven generations from now. And another group claims that it won’t be truly possessed by human beings at all. If we are to survive, in any pleasant way, we will learn that these property rights are nothing more than a trust, for the whole of life to come, all of the myriad beings, including those beings who might become more and better than human. Our rights are to the use of the fruits, not to cut down the tree, not because any one of us says so, but because some day time and the facts will insist. Wealth is more than attracting the priciest brides, or stoking the envy in those less well off. But dominion is really no more than making ourselves at home.

* (It is) assuming dignity (which) leads to good fortune, Naturally, and avoiding pretense Culture, economics, genetics and climate all obey similar rules. However complex and chaotic these seem to be, little bits of knowledge can normally be applied to alter the outcomes or nudge them further from random. The first or most useful of these is to take some measure of charge over things inside your power and not be a victim or a leaf in the wind. Things in your power might not include the whole world, but things like your hands, your wings, your mind and your values. When you merely do as you’re told the game will play you. Quantity, not quality, will be master and the size of your pile will measure its value. It’s no wonder the junk that such piles collect. But a metaphor of commerce does not need to cheapen things. Free minds and markets are for sovereigns great and small. Our hope lies in merit and dignity.

Heaven help us! What shelter is this with no roof or lid? How easily blessings are gained from the stars! All the space and time we can use, in parsecs of permission. If you have the proper attitude, protection even covers poverty and loss, while doing nothing to prevent them. The trick is to keep vision lively, to keep looking around, down in appreciation or up in awe, back in reflection or ahead in hope, and sideways for things that you missed. It’s the one track mind that misses the riches, the favors, the wealth, the solutions to problems and the ways out of trouble. This is all spread before us, all of the clues that we need. The greatest gift is our gratitude: it’s this that makes lots of stuff treasure. And divine guardianship is our maintenance problem: it works best when we work on our value and worth and stop taking life for granted. 141 14 Dimensions pang tong gua (opposite): 08, Bi, Belonging qian gua (inverse): 13, Tong Ren, Fellowship With Others jiao gua (reverse): 13, Tong Ren, Fellowship With Others hu gua (nuclear): 43, Guai, Decisiveness shi er di zhi (12 branches): No Family 14, Wai Guang * Qabalah: Chokmah in Atziluth * Tarot: Two of Wands * Astrology: Uranus in Fire 14, Quotations * The ass loaded with gold still eats thistles. —German proverb * Natural wealth is limited and easily obtained; the wealth defined by vain fancies is always beyond reach. —Epicurus * I desire ... to leave this one fact clearly stated: there is no wealth but life. —John Ruskin * Let him go where he will, he can only find so much beauty or worth as he carries. —Emerson * From the Sun did I learn this, when it goeth down, the exuberant one: gold doth it then pour into the sea, out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman roweth even with golden oars! For this did I once see, and did not tire of weeping in beholding it. —Nietzsche, TSZ *56-3 * Valuing is creating: hear it ye creating ones! Valuation itself is the treasure and jewel of the valued things. —ib., #15 * Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. —Bob Wells * The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated. —H. L. Mencken * The price is what you pay; the value is what you receive. —Unknown