This gate appeared to me around the time of my birthday. Looking at it now, I think of it as the Tending with Tenderness Gate.
The gate is closed, but not forbidding. Beyond it, the path continues. It protects rather than excludes. It reminds me that this next circle of life may not be about striving toward something new. It may be about cultivating what has already arrived—with devotion, consistency, and tenderness.
In class today the June birthday babies lit candles in apples and made our wishes. He smiled when he noticed the numbers. Nine of us on Zoom. Five gathered with him at the retreat house.
Nine and Five.
In Chinese tradition, he explained, nine is the highest yang number and six the highest yin number. Together they represent the fullness of Heaven and Earth.
But the emperor would not call himself Nine and Six.
Out of humility, he referred to himself as Nine and Five—one step below Heaven.
Not above life. Not in control of life. Not separate from life.
One step below. Listening. Participating. Belonging.
As I listened, I felt something settle inside me.
For years, birthdays have invited me to ask: What’s my wish for what comes next?
This year, a different question appeared:
How do I inhabit the circle I am already in?
The coming year does not feel like a year for accumulating more techniques or chasing a distant horizon.
It feels like a year of stewardship and tending what has already arrived.
A year of trusting the painter and practitioner who is already here.
The field that is already here.
The memories that have been patiently waiting inside the circle.
The practices that continue to nourish me: Qigong, handpan, field notes, walking, painting.
Master Lu joked that if we want to keep our kingdom, we must stay healthy. Otherwise, our kingdom becomes someone else’s kingdom.
Everyone laughed.
But beneath the laughter was a teaching.
The kingdom is not something outside us.
The kingdom is our own life.
Our own body.
Our own creative field.
Our own capacity to meet what arrives.
For me, this next circle feels less like claiming a throne and more like tending my kingdom/queendom.
Showing up, paying attention and listening for what wants to emerge.
Not because I am less.
But because life itself is greater than any plan I could make.
So I enter this new circle with the spirit of Nine and Five:
Humble and faithful.
The tiny opening at the center of the gate feels symbolic. It isn’t fully open, yet it isn’t sealed shut. It feels like a threshold arriving for just this moment.
Perhaps that is what my birthday is about: not a grand entrance, but a small opening into the next circle of life. Perhaps that is the invitation of this gate as well: not to plow through like a bull, but to step through like a cat.