Gate 39 — The Obstruction — The importance of obstruction for provocative analysis, evaluation, and reevaluation

Full breakdown

We move on to gate 39, and we're back in the individual process. Wherever we turn within the Emotional stream, wherever we make contact with this individual current running through the Solar Plexus system, we notice that this is the stream in which a metamorphosis, a mutation, will eventually occur — one that releases the potential awareness of spirit held within the Solar Plexus. We know that this event itself is tied to the sixth line of hexagram 55. Keep in mind that the potential of 55.6 opens up correctly precisely when gate 39 supplies it with fuel. As fuel, gate 39 makes its contribution to the metamorphosis that will eventually take place in our emotional process. Gate 39 is the Gate of the Obstruction, the Gate of Provocation. It's the energy to provoke, or not. Sexually, its theme is teasing pursuit. This energy provokes in order to find the right spirit.

This is one of those gates better understood through its negative. In other words, provocation happens in order to discover who can't be provoked. If you try to provoke someone and that person doesn't take the bait, their spirit suits you. If you succeed in provoking someone, their spirit is wrong for you. Provocation is trying to locate the right potential to fuel, trying to find the right spirit. All of this can be deeply confusing, because gate 55 lives on a wave. What looks like the right spirit on Monday might turn out wrong on Tuesday. The archetype at work here: provocation happens in order to discover the right spirit; once contact is made with the right spirit, there's the potential for emotion to manifest — the potential for individual spirit to manifest — and then the capacity to express that mutation and bring it to everyone.

By design, the individual is responsible for mutation — it's built into their design. You also need to understand that metamorphosis in the emotional system can happen nowhere except through the individual process. An individual can only affect the tribe or the collective when they're in the right frame of spirit. Most people confuse this with the concept of "enlightenment." When an individual carrying this mutative force is in the right mood, their spirit is contagious, infectious — because it's meant to carry mutation forward in all of us, as a whole. The mechanics of the energy here is the impulse to eat, rooted in the pulsing energy of 3-60. What should I eat? One of my favorite suggestions for gate 39: when someone enters your life, imagine you have to eat them. Would you actually enjoy eating a meal with this person? Gate 39 knows this better than anyone. Adults never quite catch up to this, but ask a child about the people around them — "who do you want to eat with?" — and the answer can be a revelation, because they answer without a moment's hesitation.

Looking at gate 12 within this stream, it speaks of caution and meditation in the face of temptation. Gate 12 represents the individual process in the Throat. It's the Gate of Caution. It matters enormously to resist temptation — it's far better to meditate and hold back from acting. Gate 39 carries the fuel for this process. The heading over the lines speaks of the importance of obstruction for provocative analysis, evaluation, and reevaluation. That's exactly the fuel behind caution. That's the whole point of provocation, which is a highly selective process. It's a very important process. People carrying this energy provoke automatically, and given the nature of our world, plenty of people take the bait — but the spirit turns out wrong, since not everyone carries the right spirit, so it gets genuinely hard for them, and as a result gate 39 people can end up not accepting the very core of what they are. They stop liking themselves; they don't love themselves. You can see all of this in the very first line, at the base.

What succeeds as a provocation of spirit today may not work the same way next time, because of the emotional wave on the other side. The carrier of gate 39 has to know why they're provoking in the first place. Gate 39 is fuel, and it's unconscious. If a person like this accepts that the only thing they're actually looking for (I call it the right spirit) is the reaction of people who are capable of resisting their provocation, then they come to understand that their provoking is natural. In other words: say you have some habit, like tapping your foot while you eat, and the person across from you grunts every time you tap it — that means you've provoked them. Which means their spirit isn't right for you. Don't eat with them. If there's someone else at the table who doesn't even register your tapping under the table, you've found the right spirit. Full stop. Don't overcomplicate it. You simply know that certain qualities in your nature are provocative to some people. Whoever doesn't buy into that provocation is meant for you. "Effective" provocation always sends you back to yourself — back to self-recognition.

If you carry gate 39's energy, you need to know with certainty that the people who don't take your bait — in whatever life situation — are the right ones for you at that particular moment in time. The right spirit lives in them. Next time it might not be there, because the energy flows into the emotional field, into the wave. So it works one time and not the next. What you can genuinely discover over time is who typically always falls for your provocations, and who typically never does. That's where real success lies. True success for gate 39 is to keep provoking. To stay yourself, you have to keep provoking, understanding exactly why the provocation happens at all, and without getting uncomfortable that people don't always like your behavior. The worst thing that can happen to this individual is someone telling them, "I don't like the way you do that. Do it differently." That's extremely hard for people who provoke, because there's always someone nearby who says, "Don't provoke me." That's the same as telling the sun, "Stop shining." Gate 39 is what it is, and that's exactly its beauty.

Many gates have their own way of learning precisely what's correct for them — it's built into their genetics. Gate 39's gift is provocation. Without it, we could never gather enough people together in a good mood. Good mood arrives together with accepting provocation — that's the wisdom of gate 39's sixth line, which spells out exactly where the real problem lies. If you're solving problems and the people in your life accept your advice, the right spirit is right there with them. If they don't accept your advice, the right spirit can't be present in them. People with Mars activations in gate 39 need to insist that others respect their advice. The principle of gate 39 is constant, ceaseless, unrelenting provocation.

I keep shocking people. That's my design. You need to keep on being yourself. It's simply an acknowledgment of the value of what already is. Of everyone I know, people with gate 39 feel the most discomfort about the quality of their own energy, because they don't like the unpleasant consequences their provocations bring. That's unfortunate, because it's the only way this gate ever learns.