Gate 19 — Approach — That all things are interconnected is self-evident; it shows in how we approach people, things, and phenomena, in our closeness with them and the way we build connection

Full breakdown

Gate 19 is the Gate of Wants and Needs. Just as the fuel of gate 41 steadily kindles our evolutionary process, and the fuel of gate 39 supplies the mutative stages of evolution with the energy they need, gate 19 supplies the fuel that keeps resources on hand — resources needed to sustain all of these processes.

These resources touch the everyday and the mundane — how many sheep are grazing in the pasture, how much corn came in this year — but they also touch spiritual need, because here we're dealing with the mystical channel. This is the gate of Animism, the beginning of our religious process. It's where we worship the spiritual essence within animals, because by sacrificing them we receive energy that serves us well. The fuel of gate 19 is, at its root, the energy of needing or not needing.

Understand that this is pressure — the pressure of having resources — because this gate sits in the pressure center. Anyone who has ever lived inside a tribal setting, anyone who has ever been married, anyone who has ever supported another person and received support back, knows this pressure of needing the resources that are necessary. Every tribal relationship rests on the pressure to possess the resources it requires. It matters to see the real force held in this gate: what does the tribe actually need? The gloss over the lines says that all things are, self-evidently, interconnected — and this shows up in how we approach people, things, and phenomena, in our closeness with them and the connections we build. The tribe recognizes its own bond, its union, as something self-evident. Of course everyone has to support each other — otherwise nothing works. In other words, everything stays interconnected for as long as there are enough resources; the moment resources run short, everything falls apart.

I know this well from northern Spain. I love the Basque country. To the west of Bilbao there are a handful of remarkable villages, tucked into beautiful mountains, and the whole landscape is dotted with grand old stone houses — enormous houses built for families with ten or twelve children. Every one of them is empty now. The life and culture of those villages belong to the past. People left because the resources stopped being there. Remember that the resources of gate 19 reach far past the obvious need for enough food. Where are the other resources we need? Education, for instance. Once Spain took its place among the modern countries of Europe, the value of education for the young became something impossible to ignore, and eventually it turned into a universal value. Children who grew up in those tiny villages started heading off to the local colleges and universities. They saw other horizons, things that had never been available to them at home, and suddenly it was over. All that's left to us now are empty houses scattered across beautiful countryside. Understand how much the interconnectedness of everything depends on there being enough resources — this reveals something about the nature of the world as a whole. It's easy to say we're all brothers and sisters, that we're all one. Of course everything is interconnected — as long as there's enough to go around. If everyone has food, if everyone has shelter, if everyone gets opportunities suited to their potential, skills, and abilities, then what we have is a peaceful light in which everything really is connected. The importance of having resources has to be understood. This is the pressure of making sure resources exist, because without them, every bond between people stops functioning, even while those bonds technically still exist. If there isn't enough, the tribe scatters across the world, and the group falls apart.