Halfway there...

I'm turning fifty next March ... Yesterday, I passed the halfway point between the two birthdays. For several years now, I've been exploring the changes from one "birthday hexagram" to another -- in this case, from Hexagram 49 (REFORM) to 50 (THE CAULDRON). If someone were to ask me right now, "Who are you?" -- I'd likely go blank. I also might respond with this passage from Rainer Maria Rilke, whom I consider to be a great alchemical poet:

I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

(from "The Book of a Monastic Life," I, 13, trans. Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows)