Crux

Here, the elemental state that is the crossroads: black balanced by white, lie by truth. The basic condition in which first we wander, and only later overcome. Our nature is seeking, if only seeking the possibility of the possible.

Doorways yawn, gateways lure, and pathways emerge from Mind. This figure—with its mystery breeched by the prisms of revelation—is a representation of the inner landscape. Only in the center, the Garden, can be found the solidity of the four-sided, the earth-force. Beyond, perched in the jaws of Dilemma, there to be pierced by doubt and hesitation, we choose because—chastened by the clarity borne by the exigency of the universe—we must. Such a ticklish paradox! Choice driven by choicelessness. All seekers face the darkness, redeemed by oases of illumination. Therein lies the challenge of wayfinding—to find the destination that can only exist after our arrival.

To choose is to die and, dying, to transcend.

Piety

Notice the aims of Man’s every urge: a cathedral, an Alhambra distilled to its essence. And here, a cruel geometry that men might worship, and, worshipping it, draw Rule into their veins. But while Rule can bind Flesh, it cannot guide Spirit. The pious harken to Example.

But what exists beyond the strictures of the tabernacle? Outside the shrine’s walls—and its niches, naves, and ranks of cardinals—the Eternal lies in wait. The Eternal, defined by absence as much as presence (represented here by the nothingness floating, ghostly, within a field of nothing) bears the unanswerable force of impending judgment, and more order than all the orders of Man.

The heart’s command speaks louder than any Church.

Haruspex

The innocent heart wrested from its sanctum. The belly laid waste, and for what, save love of gore? Here, we look down on the altar to see the heathen’s crooked hopes, as well as his hubris. As though prophecy arranged itself in flesh and blood for him to see!

The theme of this figure is savagery. This is sacrifice, indeed, but not holy sacrifice—the One offered in consideration of the many. No, this is barbarism: the dumb brute slaughtered for the supposed wisdom contained in its viscera. The curving black forks—splinters of clavicle, scapula, rib—offer mute testimony to those who shiver for want of grace. To the over-reacher, the omen-monger, sky-watcher, shabby “priest.” (Ha!) The wavering, parallel inscriptions are empty repetition, epitaphs for illiterates.

Wrong questions lead to wrong answers.

Fallacy

The eye of a storm, a whirlpool that drags men under, the ring of fire. These circular motifs are bearers of tragedy. Beware those who liken life itself unto a circle.

The falsity of the metaphor is apparent, and the figure underscores this conclusion. The cycle—with its endless repetition of anthropocentric stages and achievements—bears no resemblance to the true nature of existence. Redemption is a destination, not a way-station. The circle admits no endpoint, hence, no final reward. Time, like grace, is an arrow, and it points only one way. It is bestowed, not merely experienced. The past might be prologue; regardless, it will ever remain past. The only wheel with the power presumed by this figure is the wheel upon which the disbeliever’s body was broken that his soul might be mended.

Hell is a circle. Salvation is a lifeline.

Messenger

The soul’s journey to its ultimate post-life? An enticement to embrace a pan-naturism? Answers prove elusive as the Wander continues. We strain to hear echoes of the Word.

It is as though a guide has led a reluctant protagonist through realms both inherent and elemental—witness the water and flame forms, repeated as a rebuke of nihilism. At last the quest denied is taken up! At last, action is initiated! The messenger—communer with the Outer and the Inner—is the spark, the instigation of motion: O, Impetus! Seen in this light, the entire figure takes on the appearance not of aura, formless energy, but instead of a compass rose, that which orients.

We are never alone who listen for the Voice.

Sorcery

Such simplicity? But see! The geometry is warped, betraying even numbers. Peer into the talismanic Eye (of Dischord, of Faithlessness) and feel the obscene tug of “magic.”

Necromancy—the use of the dead for divination and influence—is symbolized by the four stark spurs that lead to the corners of time and place, ravening with imagined power. Surrounding them is a web of perverted faith, sagging under the weight of its heresy. Attend in particular to the negative forms (candle flames? hatchet blades?) and the malice they imply.

The Sorceror’s gaze looks inward, seeing nothing.

Mammon

Has the seduction of greed ever been more plainly put? Here, all is guile, all is sheen, the captivating image in the mirror.

The pervasive theme is overabundance, an offensive visual gluttony. Note the arcs, bedotted so as to resemble kingly ermine or heraldic gold; the solid circles—coins—at ordinal and cardinal points of the perimeter, the gaudy humps round as bulging pockets. And at its heart: an asymmetry that could only represent corruption, of the Soul, of Nature, of Possibility. The diagonal axis at the center reveals a structure incapable of stability, a spirit incapable of grace.

The coin is Man’s heaviest millstone.

Colony

The three basic principles of life: symbiosis, parasitism, and hierarchy. Note the dominance of these patterns throughout the spectrum of Organism. Volvox, mycelium, hive—all require an adherence to a common structure.

The figure’s trilateral symmetry is especially significant as a statement on humanity’s contemporary reality. Three (3)—the sacred numeral—permeates the figure, and its multiplicands provide an almost musical argument in favor of mutualism: Man as Symbiont. I, you, we.

To be is to exist, to be with is to live.

Canon

Our footprints provide the best guide. And only by recitation and convocation are we permitted to enter into the next Realm.

The watchword of this figure is system. The connotation is architectural in its accessibility: The universe is inherently habitable. Is this Nest? Palace? The mandalic quality reveals the salience of place within any system of rite. Everything here—the structure, the filigree—gives further evidence that history is servant to future as much as scribe to past.

Memory is the foundation for future action.

Abyss

Dissolution, a depletion of Spirit. The mockery of iconography is informed by the renunciation of sacrament. The land of the crippled opens its necrotic arms and confers unending mutilation.

This figure represents nothing less than hatred, foul condemnation, and abject misery. No pattern, no structure, no symmetry. No basis. No principle. No foundation. Nothing to offer redemption. The lack of order is so extreme as to be disorder.

The Beast is Chaos.

Telesis

Man's aspirational impulse! The indications—signs—all looking outward, all pointing beyond, toward transcendence. In this sense, the figure is a paean to civilization as the machine of Hope.

From the center—a hive of digital binarity—to the forms that push against the perimeter (as though forcing expectation to greater dimension), we are left to contemplate a utopian future for humanity. However, the alternating solid and skeletal shapes warn against complacency by insisting that in a binary reality—On/OFF—plenty stands alongside plague.

The polity is the enemy of entropy.

Primordium

A blind sifting, an unmindful search for nutriment, stimulus-triggers guide the Primitive. Do we dare recognize ourselves in this brainless grasping, in this reflexive grope? Take note: even the body primeval allows the soul to inhabit its withered spaces.

This figure reminds us that Mouth and Orifice—the Stomata, the Spiracle—are fundaments, the sine qua non of Being. The rigid articulation of forms, the acanthine overtones, connote an almost unicellular innocence. Unlike previous specimens, the only symmetry on offer here is bilateral, fitting for this portrait of the all-Alpha.

All beginnings are small.

Doctrine

Tacit understanding—of Self, of Universe, of the myriad ways they intersect—surrounds us as a fragile halo. Right action moves along the framework like current down a wire.

This piece deals with the nature of ethical behavior. Far from presenting a constraint on action, the underpinnings, the scaffolding of Code, offer the opportunity for limitless invention. Joy becomes possible—witness the eightfold figure in the center—when the methods for obtaining it are explicit.

Rule gives birth to vision.

Ego

The assembled might of Man gathers unto itself a hollow authority. When Man mounts the turrets of his defense, what has he left untended?

The dominant element of this figure is an out-thrust dynamism. Reminiscent of armor, battlements, and stockades, the dentate forms are as weapons. This fearsome grandeur is nominally in service of protecting the Citadel (the self). In the end, the projection of strength is clearly shown for what it is: a stance, a pose.

Eventually, every sword pierces its owner.

Stasis

The Spirit's goal: a tranquility possible only through the mastery of contradictory forces. Grace flows when positive and negative are held in one hand.

A perpetual expansion and recession offers both ecological and personal insight. Inner and outer tensions perfectly maintain balance. The rings of pyramidal forms (cenotaphs?) orbit the solid center, pulling and pushing simultaneously, held in exquisite opposition by their own metaphysical gravity.

Change defeats change.

Devotion

When the Idol gazes, His gaze is refracted through the prisms of the assembled. But, like mirrors, the exalting chorus has solidity: They are pledged, not surrendered and not taken.

This figure presents a veritable manual on the way of the Disciple: the compliance of the curved lines suggests subsumption of the self. But note that the sacrifice is not utter. The blank spaces—the floral forms—provide a bold counterpoint, a representation of Will, of an offering unmade.

True devotion is never total.

Insigniae

By the act of assigning, of ordering, reality is warped. Emblematic of this distortion, these symbols of a chain of command (chain of Being), create false need.

Tokens of class and power—of any human-ordered system, any orthodoxy—including these small, practically featureless figures, deceive. Their simplicity is their danger. “You are here.” They create distance by their very nature as bearers of iconicity.

Identity conceals as it reveals.

Sphinx

Intentionality and obstacle collide, buckling expectation. Thus, the pilgrim must confront the central riddle of his pilgrimage: Where lies the destination? In the world or in the Self?

A labyrinthine figure—suggesting a hierarchy of possibility—faces us as we comprehend the path. At its heart, where directions converge, square within square within square represents Enigma. Continuing, each node—each station—is a milestone. Supplication seeks a clue. Which way? Is progress illusion? An Eye watches, unblinking.

The Path creates the pilgrim as the pilgrim creates his Path.

Cosmology

A central spark illuminates the form, resulting in an evocation of supranatural space. The tessellation of inner and outer existence is both cause and effect of Consciousness.

This figure bespeaks a material density and a metaphysical expansiveness, much as ripples on water—dependent as they are on a physical medium—transcend their context. The triangles—stretched, deformed (de-formed!)—provide the underpinning and the ornament. The effect is to reinforce the suffusion of matter and meaning.

In a universe of reverberating energies, all are welcome.

Nexus

The invisible is made visible as the underlying structure of the form moves from background to foreground. Is this a challenge to faith, or its very embodiment?

In this figure, the tacit becomes plain and thereby recapitulates the act of creation—all acts of creation! And note the oblique exisiting in harmony with the grid. Each cedes ground to the other. What appears to be formless is seen as the tension between rectilinear and diagonal. (Man vs. Spirit.) The abundant connections emerge as an earthly dazzle. (A paradox?)

He that nurtures Pattern banishes doubt.

Propagation

The Eternal resides within an intrinsically natural context. Vibration is the force that carries information to the edges of the knowable universe.

The figure's dominant motif: the fanned lines—the vein forms—cast from the inner to the outer ring. Everything this implies—kinship, culture, translation of Self to Other, the Self's discovery of itself—is held in balance. The movement of the piece is apparent, from the perpendicularity of the central element to the oceanic nature of the cardinal foci.

Transmission is a trinity: Sender, Receiver, Message.

Organicity

Within the form lies the seed of its own rebirth. And in that concept lies the singular Body. Straining within the confines of the seed, life pushes in every direction, limning the sphere of being.

Take note of the elements used in this specimen: in the center, the Inscrutable. Beyond that, a cross-hatched nimbus reveals that which cannot be revealed. But bursting from that central enigma, that instantiation of The Mystery, round forms. Round! The very kernel of life, of the feminine, of The Real! The shape of encapsulation, the something-in-the-midst-of-nothing, the renunciation of absence!

Flying from the center, The Thing cannot be denied. The Thing is all.

Apotheosis

In its disarming simplicity emerging from disorder, its overall outfoldedness, this figure describes the quintessence of the Divine.

Note the rotated—that is, marked—central figure, in this case a square embedded within a hollow square. The degree of rotation of the outer feature is small enough to be overlooked. Indeed, its effect on the overall symmetry is practically nonexistent. One level from the true center, the hollow square's corner spurs have righted themselves, achieving perfect alignment, obliterating every vestige of the Flaw.

Within the opening of every Flower, a universe trembles.