It’s curious what can be discovered when poking at the everyday.
The commonplace objects and ideas we edit from our questioning perception simply because they are so banal we forget to see them.
Take the simple twelve inch ruler, passed on through generations, few consider its origin deep in antiquity, or the apple, hiding its five pointed star unless cut perpendicular to the core.
Looking beneath the layers of assumed stories that overlay our perception of the world, like children looking under rocks at the beach, can open us to wonders and horrors, but if we follow Seneca’s advice - that the unexamined life is not worth living - then we must continue to question.
One of my favourite questions lends itself to the title of this post:
What is the point?
A question that holds a mirror up to us, whether asked out of despair, ambition, or curiosity it remains an enduring metaphor of human passions and our quest to see deeper into ourselves and the world, to find a centre.
When we consider the qualities of a mathematical point, as Pythagoras would have us do, our question takes on new depth. For a point is peculiar in its paradoxical nature of both defining position and centre, yet it having in itself no size or dimension.
A Creation story within the universal tradition of Symbolic or Sacred Geometry, treats the point as a mystical source of all things, an image of the ONE, source of all, free of the dualities of language and perception. To approach such a paradox we must open our eyes as an artist or poet would, by cultivating vision, awakening ourselves to ‘The Intelligence of the Heart’.
Humans are numbering creatures, our hands and feet make plain the importance of number to our consciousness, nature has made us mathematicians, perhaps so we can ask our question.
What is the point?
Aristotle in his treatise On The Heavens, tells us the Pythagoreans named the fire at the centre of the Earth ‘The Guardhouse of Zeus’, this fiery stronghold of divinity at the source - whether Heart, World or Cosmos - when married to the hidden cause with no size or dimension, sounds a lot like light, or stars.
Stars without and stars within. Cosmos as living metaphor.
Join me in the coming weeks and months as i explore these themes and others in greater depth, in a journey through this beautiful animal we call the Cosmos.
As i find my feet with Substack, i will be including essays, geometrical patterns to construct, as well as excerpts and drawings from my sketchbooks.
Live long and prosper.
Adam
I never ever cut the apple to see Venus. I saddens me. I can't break the pattern. Maybe a post to help us all cut the apple in the "right" way?
I see the point. Thank you, Adam!
To move out of a ‘Life of Overlay’ 2 thoughts arise to see better by digging deeper first:
* Every story has five points - find them before finding your center.
* Ask better questions to discover better answers!
After a long teaching hiatus, I surprised myself by creating 3 pages with only triangles, squares and circles that make the point in a quick and profound way. It’s about the art of translation to correlate, not compare, with life today for all of us to have fun teaching and learning!