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.