Back again. I knew I meant to address something else in this rich tapestry of yours, these lines that I highlighted here, and the line above it but then I got distracted by the rest of the lines on which I commented earlier. Reading Graham Pemberton's discussion just now of Taoism and the divination tool, the I Ching, which is a great read so far https://graham-pemberton.medium.com/the-ideas-of-carl-jung-in-relation-to-other-traditions-taoism-part-1-7621ac7c1cb8 (I left mid story to come back here), reminded me that I wanted to note the connection between your story and, no surprise to anyone who reads my work, a piece by White Feather, who I just remembered also discusses the I Ching, but in a different story, which book one day will make it out of my partially read pile (I've read the forward (or some of it) which was written by Jung).

Ok, White Feather's essay is https://medium.com/@whitefeather9/asking-questions-bee51110960d The subtitle is, "Calling forth answers." It's only a three minute read, jam packed with passages you and others reading this comment will love. I'll draw you in with this passage, which does not contain the iceberg beneath the surface but hints at it, as my son complained to me that my dragon fable last week ( https://medium.com/total-fiction/a-dragon-gets-his-wish-77457c10ec29) didn't leave anything beneath the surface for readers to discover on their own:

"Why, when we look at a flower, do we not see the answers to our questions? Is it because we did not ask any? A flower can answer many questions for us but if we don’t ask the flower it is merely beautiful. There are many answers in beauty but the main reason we do not see the answers is because we do not ask the questions. But it is not necessary to ask the question of the flower. We merely need to ask ourselves. It is we who create the flower to answer our questions."