← Encyclopedia of Embodied Energy · lesson 123/164
Gate 42 — carrying things to completion
Gate 42 is one of the 64 gates of the Embodied Energy Chart. Our theme for it is carrying things to completion: steady life-force that, once committed to something, wants to follow it all the way to the end so that the experience is whole.
What it is
The gate sits in the Vitality centre (the tradition's "Sacral"), the motor of life-force and response. Behind it stands hexagram 42 of the I Ching, traditionally called Increase (I): wind and thunder strengthening each other. The old text treats increase as a season to use while it lasts — a time when effort multiplies and it pays to undertake something.
Where it sits on the wheel
Gate 42 spans 20°45′ to 26°22′30″ Aries on the gate wheel, between gates 51 and 3. The Sun crosses it each year in early April, roughly 10 to 16 April. It lies in the quarter of initiation among the quarters — purpose that arrives as thought. Opposite it lies gate 32, so a Sun in gate 42 places the Earth in gate 32.
How it works in a chart
A planet in this slice at birth (the aware side, the tradition's "Personality") or at the design moment (the built-in side, "Design") lights the gate — an activation.
Its partner is gate 53 in the Drive centre (the tradition's "Root"). Together they make channel 42-53, cycles begun and finished, on the collective current in its stream of sensing. Completing it defines the Vitality and Drive centres. A defined Vitality centre makes the chart a Generator at the least — a Manifesting Generator if a motor also reaches the Throat — and, unless the Feeling centre is defined, the inner compass is the gut response. Lit alone, gate 42 is a hanging gate.
How it is read
At its best, the gate is read as follow-through: someone who finishes what they truly said yes to, and who can bring a phase to a satisfying close so that the next can begin. Endings, for them, are part of growth rather than a loss.
The shadow, as the tradition describes it, is feeling obliged to finish things that should have been dropped — or entering too many beginnings, so that completion becomes a weight. The invitation is to let the body's response choose what to start, because what is started will want finishing.
In your chart
Look for 42 at its port on the Vitality centre. Its colour shows which moment lit it, the number after the dot its line. A * means gate 53 is not lit in your chart: the capacity to finish is there, and the spark that starts a cycle may come from someone else.