Hexagram 25 -- INNOCENCE

Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.

(James Baldwin)

INNOCENCE immediately follows RETURN (24) in one traditional arrangement of the I Ching. We are on the cusp of Spring, at the very beginning of rebirth. A time of great vulnerability...and resilience...persistence. All is new, chaotic...and somehow known. We have been here before; we have not. We expect nothing, anticipate anything. Spring recurs; we recur. The season itself does not change, but its pourings are new every year. Creation flings rapturous colours and songs into the world; up, out they come from their dens and wombs and sod. Life is budding to burst into light. Wisdom's robes are about to unfurl as a culmination of patience; proof of the sageness of waiting.

We have worn the concretions of winter. The world is crackling; the eyes of trees are snapping awake.

Rebirth. Tabula rasa.