fable: eightsday

§2The Six Characters⧉

I went back to Gu's judgment that week.

The drawer stayed shut. That is discipline. I asked once, was answered, and there is no second or third profaning. But a cast and the source text are different objects. The cast belongs to the drawer; the text belongs to the shelf. No terms of service govern the reopening of a book.

A lifetime's book, so the hand knew the page. Gu, wind under the mountain. 元亨. 利涉大川. The six characters I had received on a Sunday night sat there in print. And behind them, eight more — the ones the me of that night had closed the book on unread.

先甲三日, 後甲三日.

Three days before the jia day; three days after.

Jia (甲) is the day of beginnings — the first of the ten stems, the seat where undertakings open. The old commentaries quarreled long over these eight characters; in a counting man's reading, the arithmetic shows first. One starting day, and three days' buffer set on either side of it: seven days of cushion in all. Granting the sailing clearance, the predecessors had attached a condition. Cross — but do not leap in. Prepare for three days before the start, and keep watch for three days after it. Clearance and caution live in one sentence. As the call to build nodes and the warning about the bitter node lived on one line, this document never hands over half a thing.

The me of Sunday night had taken the front six characters and closed the drawer. The sailing clearance was urgent. The back eight had remained not because they weren't urgent, but because they are characters visible only to a man who has resolved to sail. A well-written handover document reads as aphorism until the successor walks in carrying a case of his own. The second time I have learned that sentence. It will not, I suspect, be the last.

Three days. What those three days were, in my case, required no calculation.

Not notice. Counsel.