Tree
What this is
A young tree in full leaf, rooted in a scrap of ground, set at the head of the sixth folio. It is the emblem of growth, of life drawing up from the root and putting out leaf after leaf.
What it governs
Presides over growth, increase, and the slow strength that comes of being rooted. Folio 6. It rules what grows by its own nature when it is planted well and given time.
Its properties
Its colour is green; its number six, the number of things brought into balance and bearing fruit. The quality is steady growth and deep root; its shadow is the sapling forced too fast, or the tree that keeps all its leaves and gives no shade.
Where else it appears
The same note is the tree of life planted in the midst of the garden, the world-ash whose roots and branches bind the worlds together, the sacred groves where the old oracles were heard, the acorn that holds the oak. One trunk, many branchings.
Where you meet it on the Oracle
On the Oracle it heads the Folio of the Day on the daily Book of Fate surface, and it heads the folio your own five rows of strokes lead to when you consult the Book. The words you are given are the Book's own Answer on that folio, the one that stands beside your Sign; the Hieroglyph marks the page and does not choose the words. As a frame for the day, give the thing you are growing its root before you ask for its fruit.
Why it matters
The Book gives its Hieroglyphs no order but their folios, and no meaning but the Answers that stand under them. In the Table a Question meets this one wherever the number of the Question and the number of the Sign together make seven or thirty-nine.
Correspondences
Where this comes from
- H. Kirchenhoffer, The Book of Fate, the fourth edition (London, 1823)