What turns your wheels?

The wheels that have turned me throughout my lifetime include bicycles, bracelets, ships wheels, rings, clocks, watches, cars and circles generally (spiritual and psychological). Like most people I've never fully appreciated the deeper meaning of the mathematical pie symbol (other than possibly as wallpaper). Occasionally I am moved to comprehend the "circle of life" at least to the extent that it captures one's awakening return to the beginning after a period of discovery and exploration (what I've heard called the "Magus" - a sorcerer).

One of the more frequent metaphors of Freemasonry derives from the carpenter's right-angled square which has promoted such adages as "square one's actions" and "meet others on the level". This speculative element connects with another well-known symbol of the institution - the compass - which predicts a circular sphere importing the limitation of one's ambitions and actions. My preference has always been for circles over squares.  Circles enable movement - though significantly the best one can hope to accomplish in the end is to get back home safely. As always it is the journey that matters, not especially the context or the result.

The concept of "wheels within wheels" further heightens the amusement, the indication of a complicated situation perhaps affected by secret or indirect influences; hence the expression "a complicated watch" - though the term is normally far more philosophic than mechanical.

The mystical import of wheels within wheels can have a stirring pragmatic significance. Sometimes it is no more complicated or secret than the spinning tale of experiences which gradually project one's identity to the outer limit. In one respect the evolution - or should I say the revolution? - captures the ultimate simplification of life as we gradually and at times imperceptibly twirl away from former attractions and gravitate instead to a more acute reality.

It is of no inconsequence to seek to return to one's beginnings. Some prefer to categorize the intrigue as a search for one's roots - identifying the ethnic or geographic start of one's life or family. Successful Americans routinely thrill to recite their initial humble economic environment. In every case however the theme of completing the circle - for whatever reason - is the same. The appeal is ultimately identical and similarly native.

The clarity of the process of "going full circle" is unquestionably one of its most important features. Everything I have learned about wisdom invariably conjoins it with simplicity - that is, plain reckoning and straight talk. It is remarkable how magical even the most sophisticated concepts can become when subjected to gyration - the rapid swirls which per force focus on the subject at hand. So often lack of communication and understanding arises from ignorance and avoidance. Setting the wheels in motion eventually gets to the heart of the matter.