← Encyclopedia of Embodied Energy · lesson 142/164
Gate 61 — the pull of inner truth
Gate 61 is the gate of the pull of inner truth — pressure from the Head centre to know what cannot simply be looked up: why things are as they are, and what lies beneath them.
What it is
Gate 61 sits in the Head centre, which is a pressure centre. Our theme for it is the pull of inner truth. Its number is the number of hexagram 61 of the I Ching, traditionally called Inner Truth and built from Wind above the Lake; the theme is our own reading of that hexagram's old imagery. The figure has an open centre between its solid lines, like a heart left empty to receive: sincerity so complete that it reaches even the hardest to reach.
Where it sits on the wheel
Gate 61 spans 20°45′ to 26°22′30″ Capricorn on the gate wheel, between gates 54 and 60. The Sun crosses it each year in early January, roughly 10 to 16 January. It lies in the quarter of mutation among the quarters — purpose that works by changing. Opposite it lies gate 62, so a Sun in gate 61 places the Earth in gate 62.
How it works in a chart
Any of the chart's thirteen points — the Sun, the Earth opposite it, the Moon, the lunar nodes and Mercury to Pluto — can activate it, on the aware side (the tradition's "Personality", the birth moment) or the built-in side ("Design", the moment the Sun stood 88° earlier). Lit alone, it is a hanging gate: a theme the person reaches out with, which tends to come alive when someone else supplies the other half.
Its partner is gate 24 (returning thoughts, ripening) in the Mind centre (the tradition's "Ajna"). When both are lit — by either side, in any combination — they complete channel 24-61, the thinker of inner truth, and both centres become defined. The channel runs on the individual current (the knowing stream). Neither centre is a motor and neither is the Throat, so this channel does not decide the type or the inner compass; it does make a Reflector impossible, since a Reflector has no defined centre at all. What it defines is a steady supply of deep questions and a consistent way of turning them over.
How it is read
The gift is wonder. The gate is read as inspiration that arrives from the edge of the known — a sudden sense of what something really means — and as the gift of putting it in a form that can move other people.
The shadow is the pressure to be certain about what cannot be settled: going round and round the same 'why', or feeling that an answer must come now. The tradition invites holding the question lightly; inner truth, it suggests, arrives when it is ready rather than when it is pressed.
In your chart
On the Embodied Energy Chart, find the number 61 at its port on the Head centre. Its colour shows which moment lit it — the aware side, the built-in side, or both. A * beside it means it is hanging: gate 24 is not lit. A line drawn through to gate 24 means the channel is complete and both centres are coloured in. A question it invites: Does this question need an answer today?