Gate 64: The Gate of Confusion

A transition in the midst of confusion has its prerequisites. You either work your way patiently to the core, or you act too soon. In its exalted expression, working your way to the core produces an understanding that gives you enough balance to get through the disorder, even when the decisive point is hard to find in all the chaos. In its weakened expression, there is a strong urge to rush into action as soon as the transition comes into view or it seems you have seen through the confusion.

A transition calls for certain qualities. Inner maturing recognizes them, while nonstop activity uses them up. In its exalted expression, inner development can end the confusion about what makes sense, because it recognizes the qualities without which no progress is possible. In its weakened expression, incessant busyness drains the very strength and resources you will need later, and the confusion weighs on your mood along the way.

Are your own resources enough to make the transition? You may wisely admit that you need help, or you may recklessly count on your luck. In its exalted expression, recognizing in time that your own resources fall short opens the way to seeking help. Confusion is then seen as a passing state that time or other people will clear up. In its weakened expression, a shallow confidence trusts that fate will play along, and little is done to prepare for the transition.

You are certain that a transition will succeed. This rests either on trust in the process or on a confidence that has no power against intense confusion. In its exalted expression, the confidence is grounded in the process itself: confusion is something that unfolds and often leads to insight. In its weakened expression, when confusion is too highly charged, doubts cannot be resolved by either force or confidence.

How believable is the promise of a new order? Values lived out in how people treat one another stand against mere criticism of the old. In its exalted expression, harmony lived out among people shows which values the new order promises, and in this way it supports the case for the upheaval. What remains open is which values and relationships sustain that harmony. In its weakened expression, the upheaval tends to be justified only by the failure of the old, without the quality of the new becoming visible. Old confusion about values and relationships keeps shaping how things are seen.

The goal has been reached. You can enjoy it calmly, or lose perspective in exuberant celebration. In its exalted expression, you enjoy the victory you had long since anticipated in your mind, without tipping into excess, and even the confusion, with all its wealth of data, brings you joy. In its weakened expression, alertness and a sense of the big picture are quickly lost in the rush of triumph, especially since, with so much varied data, your perspective easily gets skewed.

In all its variations, this cross is about inspiring others, even though people with this cross in particular are often confused themselves and full of doubt.

With the Sun in Gate 64, the pressure of abstract thinking comes into play. Past experiences replay like a sequence of moving pictures, and these people feel an urge to make sense of their own past. Sorting it out is hard for them, while they can easily see the bigger picture of someone else's past, and this is where the theme of inspiration draws its strength.

For this cross, it matters that you do not leave your decisions to the mind. Brooding over the past does not stop, but it can lose its power once your decisions are truly made somewhere else. Without this shift, a great deal of mental restlessness builds up, and memories quickly turn into problems that seem to demand a solution.

A Right Angle Cross points to a personal theme: your path belongs to you, and the people you meet color it without steering it elsewhere. You live it when you follow your Strategy and Authority, and it is neither a demand placed on you nor a fate.

Here the Sun in Gate 64 shows up in a sharpened, fixed form. The name of the cross is not a moral judgment.

People with this cross are seen as walking archives of the past. They enjoy recounting it in rich detail, and the teaching sees them as an inspiration for the writing of history. Gate 26 on the Design side brings in the theme of shaping and embellishing memories, right up to the edge of the truth. With Gate 45 comes a further theme: drawing material benefit from the past as well.

Juxtaposition Crosses are rare. Your path here is fixed and your own, a bridge between a personal and a transpersonal theme, much like a train running on its tracks. 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 shows itself as life unfolds.

This cross stands for seizing power, meaning gaining power without necessarily having a right to it. With the Sun in Gate 64, this plays out through how the past is handled: deliberate misinformation can turn people against one another until a third party comes out on top.

As a Left Angle, the cross intervenes strongly in society, and those who carry it can win others over to their stance.

With this cross and the Juxtaposition of the same gate, watchfulness is called for, because their picture of the past can mislead. That does not make them guilty; this is simply how these crosses work.

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