Gate 58: The Gate of Joy in Life

Your joy in life is sparked by the stimulation the world offers. It can sit steadily and gladly in harmony with existence, or it may flare up only now and then. In its exalted expression, the abundance of the world feeds a delight in its beauty. Whether you experience this alone or with someone else, it gives rise to a cheerful harmony with life. In its weakened expression, your joy in life follows your moods and so arrives only from time to time, in waves.

The urge for stimulation carries the risk of sliding from what is joyful into what leads you astray. No exalted expression is described for this line; what remains is the warning about slipping. In its weakened expression, a peculiar talent for deviant stimulation turns against you and others, and joy shrinks down to mere indulgence.

Where does your aliveness get its spark: from its own power to ignite, or from other people? In its exalted expression, your aliveness charges itself, in a sense, and needs no one to set it alight. In its weakened expression, your aliveness depends on being stirred by others and takes in their influence, whether it does you good or harm.

Many stimuli pour in at once. This line sits between a clear eye for what is valuable and the confusion that comes from overstimulation. In its exalted expression, it is easy to settle on the right one among many stimuli, because a natural sense picks up on which input is worthwhile. In its weakened expression, the flood of stimuli confuses an impressionable energy that wants to give everything its due and loses its balance in the process.

How do you protect yourself from tempting stimulation? Through instinctive caution, or by going boldly toward questionable excitement? In its exalted expression, a practical instinct keeps you protected even when the stimulation is tempting. In its weakened expression, you boldly seek out questionable stimulation instead of protecting yourself, trusting that your strength of character will keep you from getting hooked.

How far do you let stimulation carry you away? Either you stay independent, or you lose yourself. In its exalted expression, your own identity stays intact even while you fully enjoy outside stimulation, because a practical instinct pulls back as soon as your independence is at risk. In its weakened expression, the natural longing for harmony can go so far that you become absorbed in the stimulation and put your own identity at risk.

Common to this cross is the service of logic: critique and judgment question existing patterns so that no one slips into patterns that are invalid or harmful. However annoying this challenge may be, it is essential to living together.

With the Sun in Gate 58, the cross gains the zest for life and the energy that logic lacks. In this view, people with this cross are much sought after as a source of energy. They are often asked for their service, yet they don't offer it on their own. In the line “Love of Life,” this can show up as a blissfully rapt joy in living, while the critical side of the cross keeps running underneath.

They look for a cause: a correction or a challenge that makes their energy worth spending. Some put it into issues that unsettle the collective and are seen as odd for doing so. When there is no real bond to a cause, the energy doesn't last long enough to reach mastery through practice; one example is an instrument that ends up in the corner after four weeks. Anyone who wants to win these people over first has to win them over to the cause. If you carry this cross yourself, you are looking for something to devote yourself to, and according to the teaching, you do best to start in line with your Type and Authority. Many logically minded people haven't committed to a cause yet because they are trying to copy another Type.

A Right Angle Cross points to a personal theme: your path belongs to you, and encounters color it without changing its direction. It is neither an entitlement nor a fate. You live it when you follow your Strategy and Authority.

Vitality is the theme of Gate 58, which gives this Juxtaposition Cross its name. In place of taste and opinion (Gates 18 and 17), depth (Gate 48) and control (Gate 21) are at work in the Design.

People with this cross have plenty of energy, but they want to be the ones steering, because they want to bring their own solutions to life. They are more likely to give their strength when they are left in charge. This makes things uncomfortable for anyone seeking their cooperation, since they seem to bring everything you could hope for and then hold it back. It works well when interests are very similar or the direction is the same.

Juxtaposition Crosses are rare. Here your path is fixed and your own, a bridge between a personal and a transpersonal theme, much like a train running on rails. In this view, someone who travels with you for a longer time can ride along for part of the way. This is not a prediction; the meaning reveals itself over the course of your life.

With this Left Angle Cross, your own energy depends on conditions. Anyone who wants the strength, effort or money of people with this cross hears their demands first.

Unlike the Gate 52 variant, where everything revolves around whether there is enough energy for an undertaking, the demands here are rooted in an energy for challenge and in a talent that wants to bring things into being with skill. Energy can also mean money. According to the teaching, people with this cross are often asked for money, and they typically put their energy into the wrong things without setting conditions of their own.

Someone who does not live by their own Type brings up corrections at the wrong time and in an unsuitable way, and so runs into resistance early on. For Line 6, the teaching describes phases of life: until about age 28, a lot of trying things out and the feeling that no one lives up to your standards; with the Saturn return, showing others by example how to set standards tends to come to the forefront, and from the Chiron return on, standing up for your own standards yourself comes to the forefront.

A Left Angle Cross is a transpersonal theme that is only fulfilled in connection with other people. This path needs people who fit it and help carry it. This is not fate; the meaning of the cross reveals itself over the course of your life.