A Mason's Work

The compasses are one of the more recognizable symbols in Freemasonry, and for most people,

there is a relatively obvious and maybe even superficial interpretation of what the compasses

are for.

So first things first, the compasses as an operative tool, you might remember from your

old school education in geometry, are used to draw a circle.

Now, or any meaningful arc, right?

The idea is you are circumscribing a distance from a central point.

In the context of Masonic sort of ritual, there's not surprisingly a whole lot more to it

than that.

We tell folks to circumscribe their desires within due bounds towards all mankind.

When we talk about circumscribing our desires within due bounds towards all mankind and

whatever that sort of means, we're not really given a ton of instruction on what that

looks like, how to do it, even a depth analysis of what that really means.

And I think a lot of that is by design.

It's left open to interpretation like all good symbolism.

It is designed to essentially be used as a surfacing tool to help you resolve so many internal

ambiguities and things like that that come up.

Any of these symbolic uses and throughout the entirety of the podcast so far and moving

forward in the books and all the things that I'm cooking up, you'll find that the symbolism

itself is really best when approached sort of flexibly.

You're going to bring whatever you need to the table when it comes to doing the work

and vice versa.

The symbols are not going to give you a ton of meaningful discreet instruction.

But when we start working with some of the symbols together, some decisions become much

more obvious.

So when you look at the compasses and constraining your desires, constraining your behavior,

whatever sort of interpretive lens you want to take, it starts to make sense to bring

other tools into the conversation.

So I want to circumscribe my desires within the limits of my lifetime, which is the compass

and the level sort of paired together.

Or I want to circumscribe my desires within the limits of the number of hours in the day,

which is the compasses and the 24 inch gauge paired together.

These tools, when combined, really give a much more rich interpretation and approach to

solving some of these day-to-day life challenges.

The compasses and the trial essentially help you define and extend the boundaries of

care and what that looks like.

The compasses and the square talks about whether or not you're going to be able to essentially

achieve the objective you're going out to do by adding effort in this capacity.

So when you start to look at these things and play with them a bit, you'll find it's

a much richer field than it lets on.

When we start looking at the compasses in more detail over the next couple of episodes,

we'll get into what does it mean from a behavioral level?

What does it mean at a relational level?

And what does it mean systemically?

How can we apply the compass at a systemic level so that we can achieve our objectives

in an artful way?

Now there are some things that you want to be sort of watch out for.

The compasses has a ton of useful value, but when you are not using it well or unskilledfully,

it may show up in your life in the following ways.

So when you are confusing things like containment, containing your desires or putting boundaries

on your ambitions, don't confuse that containment with suppression.

This isn't about sort of stomping down parts of yourself or any of that kind of stuff,

nor should it be used to stomping down others for sure.

When it comes to setting these boundaries that the compass helps you do, you want to do

that intentionally and not just reactively.

You don't want to be like, okay, this person hurt my feelings.

I'm going to draw my compasses here so that I don't talk to this guy ever again because

my feelings are hurt.

That's really kind of a misuse of the compasses in this way.

And the other one of the sort of key things here as well when it comes to the compasses

is over-constraining your ambitions such that it limits your growth.

If you're using your compasses from a place of fear to essentially constrain your behavior

such that you don't take meaningful risks or useful risks, this is again a sort of a practical

misuse of the compasses as a tool.

Again, you'll hear more about some of these things throughout the rest of the episodes

this week.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at

BrianEdomasonsWork.com.

Thanks.