Birds and Flight
Appears in five chapters
Birds and flight carry the oracle's meditations on ascent, aspiration, and their limits. The grandest of them is the wild goose of 53 Chien - Development (Gradual Progress), the book's most sustained single metaphor and an emblem of both ordered progress and conjugal fidelity, "because it is believed that this bird never takes another mate after the death of the first." Line by line the goose "gradually draws near the shore," the cliff, the plateau, the tree, the summit, until at last:
The wild goose gradually draws near the clouds heights.
Its feathers can be used for the sacred dance.
Good fortune.
The flight is right because it is gradual, each resting place suited to the bird's nature; the plateau, "dry and unsuitable for the wild goose," marks what happens when development transgresses its own law.
Against the goose stands the flying bird of 62 Hsiao Kuo - Preponderance of the Small: "The flying bird brings the message: It is not well to strive upward, It is well to remain below. Great good fortune." A bird "should not try to surpass itself and fly into the sun; it should descend to the earth, where its nest is." The bird that will not come to its nest "eventually falls into the hunter's net," and the careless wanderer of 56 Lü - The Wanderer learns the same lesson when his nest burns up. The doctrine of lowliness of the Tao Te Ching is stated here in a single image.
The subtlest bird passages belong to 61 Chung Fu - Inner Truth. The crane calling in the shade, whose "young answers it," is hidden sincerity heard at a distance, while "Cockcrow penetrating to heaven. Perseverance brings misfortune" is its counterfeit: "The cock is dependable. It crows at dawn. But it cannot itself fly to heaven. It just crows." And in the dark time of 36 Ming I - Darkening of the light the wounded bird gives the image of prudent self-concealment: "Darkening of the light during flight. He lowers his wings."