← Encyclopedia of Embodied Energy · lesson 134/164
Gate 53 — the itch to begin
Gate 53 is the gate of the itch to begin — a pressure, rising from the Drive centre, to open something new and set a cycle in motion.
What it is
Gate 53 sits in the Drive centre (the tradition's "Root"), which is a motor and a pressure centre. Our theme for it is the itch to begin. Its number is the number of hexagram 53 of the I Ching, traditionally called Development (Gradual Progress) and built from Wind (Wood) above the Mountain; the theme is our own reading of that hexagram's old imagery. The old image is a tree on a mountain, growing slowly and so standing firm — and wild geese moving step by step from the shore to the heights. Progress comes in stages, each in its turn.
Where it sits on the wheel
Gate 53 spans 15°07′30″ to 20°45′ Cancer on the gate wheel, between gates 39 and 62. The Sun crosses it each year in early July, roughly 6 to 13 July. It lies in the quarter of civilisation among the quarters — purpose that only counts once it is built. Opposite it lies gate 54, so a Sun in gate 53 places the Earth in gate 54.
How it works in a chart
Any of the chart's thirteen points — the Sun, the Earth opposite it, the Moon, the lunar nodes and Mercury to Pluto — can activate it, on the aware side (the tradition's "Personality", the birth moment) or the built-in side ("Design", the moment the Sun stood 88° earlier). Lit alone, it is a hanging gate: a theme the person reaches out with, which tends to come alive when someone else supplies the other half.
Its partner is gate 42 (carrying things to completion) in the Vitality centre (the tradition's "Sacral"). When both are lit — by either side, in any combination — they complete channel 42-53, cycles begun and finished, and both centres become defined. The channel runs on the collective current (the sensing (the experiential side) stream). Defining the Vitality centre places the person in the Generator family, with the Vitality centre as inner compass when the Feeling centre is open. This is the channel the tradition associates most with cycles — beginning, middle and end — taken as experience.
How it is read
The gift is the fresh start. The gate is read as an appetite for new beginnings and the patience to let them develop in stages: the person who gets things going, and whose energy is at its best at the opening of something.
The shadow is a trail of beginnings. When the pressure to start runs ahead of the energy to finish, there can be many things opened and few closed, and a restless dissatisfaction whenever nothing new is underway. The tradition invites starting what one genuinely has the response for — and letting each stage arrive in its turn.
In your chart
On the Embodied Energy Chart, find the number 53 at its port on the Drive centre. Its colour shows which moment lit it — the aware side, the built-in side, or both. A * beside it means it is hanging: gate 42 is not lit. A line drawn through to gate 42 means the channel is complete and both centres are coloured in. A question it invites: Do I want to begin this, or just to be beginning something?