The Rotating Blade of Meaning (3)

For this series of posts to make sense – and be spiritually useful in our lives – it must challenge the way we see and therefore ascribe meaning to situations. That challenge must also apply to what we are, as well, since how we used to see, in innocence and wonder, lies, now, below the surface of our active adult consciousness, yet comprises its foundations. Everything we perceive has a human process of perception to it, shared by us all, but differently configured within our individual psychologies. This happens so fast and so automatically that we are not aware of it, but the child is still within us.

There were four of us in the small conference room, high in the executive suite of one of the corporate buildings belonging to the giant telecommunications (telco) company. We were a small but important supplier of complex management software to the giant company.

And we’d had enough…

The four people around the table were present to discuss the legal case that was brought by ourselves and due to enter its court stages in a few days’ time. We were not bluffing. We never had been. As the principle of the business, I was there to demonstrate this stance; and that we were not being intimidated by their size. My opposite number was a senior sector head and a very decent man. The legal crisis had been passed to him to resolve. As always, it was sad that the proceedings had taken so long to get to the attention of a reasonable person, but that’s often how it goes. We knew we were burning our bridges and we knew that we would never work with that Telco, again. It was, potentially, as confrontational as it gets…

The two people with us were lawyers. One of our own and the other acting for the Telco. Our lawyer sat to my right around the small table. The Telco lawyer was at the side of the corporate exec. Together, we formed a cross, just like in our previous post.

If we grow up in a commercial world, we come to expect that our ‘betters’ will sit across that desk or table when they are ‘dealing’ with us. The face to face, 180 degrees position is one we learn very early in our lives. We do it because it is only face to face that we get the full range of signals that tell us what we need to survive, to communicate and to love… It has always been said that love is close to its opposite…

The lawyers were there to advise, they were not able to affect the primary axis between me and the Telco manager, but they could suggest mediation.

If we consider another, and familiar example of a ‘four’ diagram, we can immediately relate to another aspect of this fourness. In the above diagram, we recognise the compass directions from typical map, or even – these days – a smart phone. We know from our reading of maps that we can move along the north-south axis without changing where we are in the East-West direction. The one does not affect the other, yet has great potential to mediate. If it is late and we are hiking to our safe destination, the other axis will play a crucial role.

One of the finest examples – given by Arthur Young, himself, is that of the story of the wise King Solomon mediating between the two wives over the ownership of a baby. We all know the story of how the king asked whose baby it was; and both women replied it was theirs. This is represented by the vertical axis of ‘Possession’ – they were each pulling to get the child. One of them was lying but Solomon could not know which without invoking the other axis, which, in this case, was Love. So, he did so, and deliberately suggested that he cut the infant in two, so that each wife could have half. The real mother was horrified at the proposed loss of life of her son and offered to let the other woman have the child rather than see it killed. The movement along the other axis, Love, resolved the situation, and the cleverness of the solution has come down to us through legend.

Or did the story always contain a pointer to the architecture of real meaning?

Arthur Young’s passion was to unite the worlds of science and mysticism. In this research, he was beginning to see way to do it. In the next part, we will consider how he invoked the different aspects of space and time to assist him.

Part One,

Part Two 

To be continued…

©️Stephen Tanham

Stephen Tanham is a director of the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, a not-for-profit organisation that helps people find a personal path to a deeper place within their internal and external lives.

The Silent Eye provides home-based, practical courses which are low-cost and personally supervised. The course materials and corresponding supervision are provided month by month without further commitment.

Steve’s personal blog, Sun in Gemini, is at stevetanham.wordpress.com.

You’ll find friends, poetry, literature and photography there…and some great guest posts on related topics.