Interpretation: This reflects a sort of purity test or trial, such that symbolically only that which is “healthy,” worthy, honest, virtuous, and reliable can persist here, and the rest is destined for destruction or failure.
It is important to stay honest and flawless and to sort through your environment so as to move in this direction, discarding “harmful” things or people.
There is also a sort of confrontation of the personal sphere with the social sphere and the collective. We may have to show or demonstrate something to an audience and be judged based on this; that is, we may be symbolically accepted and valued based on our attributes.
Development implies a notion of growth and evolution, somewhat like cells in biology: we have to ensure that there is a favorable environment, promote healthy genetics, and create conditions for successful multiplication in order to avoid problems down the road with what we have preserved.
Having practical, pragmatic, and analytical skills, as well as perfectionism, allows your creation or the situation to be carved out.
Astrological points to pay attention to: We very much find the Virgo archetype in all of this symbolism, as it is the sign that is at the very end of the personal hemisphere before crossing into the social hemisphere, and it is connected to notions of purity and purification. We find that it is tied to the “harvest” time, when we in fact have to sort the “wheat from the chaff” and when the notion of a “filter” is at play.
Analogously this may also reflect the notion of an intense personal crisis, since certain parties have to be abandoned in a potentially painful way, and it may additionally reflect the notion of questioning.
On some level, this may also lead Pluto’s processes to come directly into play, as this planet also represents this destruction, certain necessary bereavements, and this improvement that occurs through the act of abandoning that which is no longer useful so as to continue the cycle in a lighter, metamorphosized way.
Remarks: This hexagram represents a significant reality check that is very practical, concrete, and fundamentally empirical: that which works will continue on, while that which is dysfunctional must stop, and we cannot go back.