Laws, Penetration and Rulership: Twelve Right Angle Crosses by Name

Laws opens with Gate 3, Ordering Through Difficulty, in the Sacral centre, read as the energy to bring order out of a new beginning. Gate 50, Values And Responsibility, sits in the Spleen and is read as the instinctive sense of responsibility that guards a group and its rules.

The same two gates return with Gate 50 first and Gate 3 second. The Spleen gate of responsibility now leads and the Sacral gate of beginnings follows, and the atlas notes that reading the numbers as one cross belongs to the modern system, not to the classical I Ching.

The second pair under Laws pairs Gate 56, The Storyteller (Hexagram 56, The Wanderer), in the Throat, with Gate 60, Acceptance Of Limits, in the Root. The first is read as stimulating others with ideas drawn from experience, the second as accepting limitation as the ground real change grows from.

Here Gate 60 leads and Gate 56 follows. The atlas records that both hexagrams are old texts and that pairing them as a life direction dates from the system's founding in 1987, which is why the two Laws pairs read as one name with two different orderings.

Penetration begins with Gate 51, Shocking Initiative (Hexagram 51, The Arousing), in the Heart or Will centre, read as competitive courage that goes first and can startle others awake. Gate 57, Intuitive Clarity, sits in the Spleen and is read as intuition in the present moment, heard rather than seen.

The mirror puts the Spleen gate of intuitive clarity first and the Heart gate of shocking initiative second. The gates and centres are identical to the previous stop, so only the order of emphasis changes, and the atlas stresses that the grouping into one cross is a modern construction.

The second Penetration pair is unusual because both gates sit in the Root. Gate 53, Beginnings (Hexagram 53, Development), is read as the pressure to begin, often with no interest in seeing a thing through, and Gate 54, Ambition And Drive, as the drive to rise and transform one's material circumstances.

Gate 54 now leads, with ambition placed before the pressure to begin. Both gates are still in the Root, so the reversal here keeps everything inside one centre and changes only which of the two is named first.

Rulership begins with Gate 22, Emotional Openness (Hexagram 22, Grace), in the Solar Plexus, read as a social grace that flows or withdraws with the emotional wave. Gate 47, Mental Realization (Hexagram 47, Oppression), sits in the Ajna and is read as a mind working over confusion until sense arrives.

The mirror leads with the Ajna gate of mental realization and follows with the Solar Plexus gate of emotional openness. The atlas notes that both hexagrams are old texts and that this pairing as a life direction dates from the system's founding in 1987.

The second Rulership pair joins Gate 26, The Persuader (Hexagram 26, Great Taming), in the Heart or Will centre, read as willed salesmanship that markets and, unchecked, exaggerates, with Gate 45, The Gatherer, in the Throat, the voice that holds and distributes a group's resources.

The path ends with Gate 45 first and Gate 26 second, the Throat gate of gathering placed before the Heart gate of persuasion. Having seen three names each built from two gate pairs in both orders, a reader can now compare any one of these crosses with its mirror on the same terms.