Enclosed Tree

My hexagram for the new year:

47 - K'un - Adversity

A Dead Sea, its Waters spent eons ago, more deadly than the desert surrounding it:
The Superior Person will stake his life and fortune on what he deeply believes.

Triumph belongs to those who endure.
Trial and tribulation can hone exceptional character to a razor edge that slices deftly through every challenge.
Action prevails where words will fail.

Once you have developed yourself and formed your character, you will be tested in the fire of life.
The fire of life is the Universal force that endlessly shapes and alters you until you come to realize who you are in relationship to the rest of the Universe and learn to act accordingly.

This is the realm of the Shaman.
You have exhausted every alternative, spent yourself completely, taxed body and mind beyond your former limits.
Survival and salvation lie beyond your reach now.
Only transcendence to a new existence - a higher plane of being - will see you through.
The Old You is just a dry husk.
You can't return to it.
Metamorphosis is the only grace offered.
You can only return to your homeland as a New You.