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As said in Confabulations 25, the cosmos unfolds, blossoms like a flower. It "manifests." In the pictures below this metaphysical (truly!) idea is diagrammed here below:

 The center form is the main manifestation, a theme in many of my mandala drawings. Imagine very gradually poking a three dimensional fingertip through the two-dimensional surface of water---the surface being a two-dimensional plane. That's an analogy of a four-or-more dimensional being emerging into and traveling through three-dimensional spaces. Imagine, further, that the journey from the first touch of the finger (the Big Bang) to the present has been only the "time" it took for the tip of the finger to be fully immersed, revealing the subcutaneous tissues, nerve endings, capillaries, etc., as well as the emergence of other peoples (other fingers) and so forth, to the point of the whole hand---and all this has taken, like, more than thirteen billion yearsFrom the tip of the finger---the essence---gradually passing through three dimensional space so that increasing details might be seen---all the subcutaneous tissues, For decades I have been given pictures I'm am impelled to draw-doodle. They begin as a ritual, with some geometric forms, and then the muse gradually takes over and fills them in. Mandalas unfold. Technically, they are differentiated mandalaforms, because they don't have the clean symmetry shown by most artists who draw mandalas. My muses tell me that these, though, are more like how it is, really. I don't know how much I believe them, but oh, well.

In the Central Mandala

Note to the left the architecture near the surface of the essential manifestation. This is a symbol of the cultural forms that express so much of the manifestation. In cultures, it seems to be architecture, in individuals, it's roles, business, religion, social, etc.  

To the right is a reversed image that shows the right lower quadrant reversed, so you can consider more of this process.  Note the Greek Temple-- a religion--- and to the right, a kind of Kitty face,
because pets are a kind of religion, if worship has to do with what people in that culture give priority to.

Below left is another part of the picture above, a sort of large face. This is a symbol of the hero, whoever is the celebrity of the moment. It could be a political dictator or a show-biz personality. This also is a grand attractor of sorts.

Auxiliary Functions

Beyond the body of the central mandala, though, are the large number of little characters---Mayan-like symbols, who represent auxiliary functions. This is analogous to the high degrees of complexity in material reality, which only in the last century have you begun to become aware of. The point is that most complex life---and most of everything else, too---requires a host of such functions. Auxiliary functions are all of the things that need to be happening to make the main thing happen. For example, a military campaign is only partially a matter of strategy and tactics, or the fighting of the soldiers. So much is logistics, the challenge of getting the food, water, medical care, and other materials to the soldiers who are fighting. If logistics aren't working, the army wilts.

Another example: Folk dancing, for example, is supported in life on the outside by others who dance and yet others who organize the dancing, manage the dance studio, clean the dance studio. (Yes, that's me on the right---I've been folk dancing since my late 'teens.) Logistics again, auxiliary functions: Advertising the dances opens to another group of people who are only concerned with advertising, not especially of dancing itself. The dancing involves the mind-body, having learned the dances, the whole history of the form of dancing impacting here. But now let's zoom lens into the body itself.

A third example: there is an amazing variety of auxiliary functions in the body, too, breathing, eating, excreting, getting thirsty, the whole of physiology. Well, that's another subject, but the point is that this kind of ecology happens at the metaphysical level, too. There isn't just an unfolding of God's will, a single chain of descent of form. There are innumerable auxiliary functions. (and I mean beyond human capacity to enumerate them, or even perceive them intuitively or identify fully their functions).

Fate

Have you ever wondered what went into the workings of fate? I'll tell you, but note that this language is poetic. The transdimensional realms cannot be fully understood by those with merely a three-dimensional (though fabulously complex) brain. So it's like trying to explain to the two dimensional figures above, if they could hear, what the three dimensional world is like---four dimensional, because we move through time, too.

Anyway, there are about thirty major angels guiding each of us, and that makes 60 for any meeting of two humans. There are also supplementary angels, consulting angels, liaison angels, similar to all the roles in a major organization. This is just for arranging for two people who are "made for each other" to meet. (My wife Allee and I often wonder and thank the gang of angels that coordinated the odd story of our meeting, now that we've been together 37 plus years and marvel at our compatibility. We're pretty convinced this was more than "just" coincidence. It was what Carl Jung called "synchronicity," and others call "The Grace of God." Yeah, okay, but how does all that work. The picture above hints at it.

In addition to the central mandala of unfolding of any incident, event, occasion, there are scores of auxiliary spirits each with their own functions, collaborating, working out arenas where they might otherwise conflict, coordinating, problem-solving. There's a lot of creativity here. No occasion is like any other, and so new adaptations and applications emerge.

The Place of Play

If anyone thinks there's a right way to do things it tends to lock the process up. People taking themselves too seriously generate programs, maps, schemes, and these always---always---are inadequate to the present nexus or point of convergence of many things. Amplify this when the consciousness of human beings are brought in. The machine age treated people as replaceable (fungible) parts, but in fact each worker at the same job will be bringing a different set of qualities---types of intelligence, sub-types, types of motivation, sub-types, temperamental variables, factors in the personal and cultural background, arenas of interest---and there are scores (at least) of each of these elements. As a result, every person needs to work out how he works with the system. Most just "get by," and that's the subtle point of the Dilbert comic strip---relatively low consciousness can still live for a while.

Play loosens this process up, opens it up, allows for exploration, negotiation, room to maneuver, cross-encouragement, cross-support, laughing at and with each other, and seeks creative and slightly unexpected responses. We have hardly been able to see how prevalent this factor is, coming from a mechanistic world-view based on the factory-assembly-line engineering and management of the early 20th century. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift and most folks don't recognize that what it's about is (in part) the tendency to take oneself seriously, to think that one's inner map of the situation is accurate---and it never is in terms of fine detail, because that detail opens to the complexities of individuality of the other players. So there is no right way to do lots of things in the world! It's changing, opening up, there are new techniques, new ideas, new technologies, new inventions, new materials, etc.

So that's what all those other little faces and characters are: Auxiliary facilitators, playfully adjusting. It's complex beyond what humans can begin to know.

Well, that's enough for now.