This week we drew the “Eight of Pentacles” (in other systems known as the “Eight of Disks” or the “Eight of Coins”). This card centers around the subject of working, working as a center of life. Ultimately it intimates that whatever “work” is to your life, this is a time to get it right. If it is important to you that you lead in your occupation, take the reigns. If work is killing you, try for serious adjustments. If you are not disciplined with your labor, find loving self control. Work is essential in large form to most all lives — the door this week is open to take it seriously.
        Since beginning these divinations we have only rolled hexagrams containing a change; that is, resulting in two hexagrams. This week is the first time where there is no change. This means that how we enter the week is how we will exit the week. Our single hexagram is #18 “Decay, Work on What has Been Spoiled.” “We must first know the causes of corruption before we can do away with them… so that a relapse may be avoided.” There is an additional pair of lines that underscores this notion: “Before the starting point, three days” and “after the starting point, three days.” Perhaps carve out serious time this week to take personal stock of any stagnation that is interfering with your progress generally speaking. After you have thoroughly identified the obfuscating putrescence, take another three days to cleanse your pathway(s) of it.
        Our extraction: It is not optimal to find the energy to work, it is better that your love of the work gives you the energy to complete it. Another way: take your boat completely out of the water, scrape off the barnacles, repaint it and return to the sea. Find joyful refresh with your new quickness.