The Great Pyramid

The pyramid is an archetypal form. As an archetype, the pyramid is not merely a shape; it’s form, rather, is an eternal substance. The pyramid exists and persists on all planes, from that of geometry to those of Giza. Yet our pyramids are not only those that we draw as a square of triangles or even those that we build of stone to last five thousand years. Pyramids are the things we live in, as much as we live in our houses or our skins. And, being of eternal substance, we live through pyramids, too.

The pyramid is a form that contains not only all reality, but also all that is impossible. It is the graceful vessel of all extremes, and is the true shape of the world and of life. Remember that a pyramid is only a triangle from one side. Its actual dimensions are more mysterious than even that sacred form. There can be only one peak to a pyramid, and it is a point infinitely small. Toward this point tend all three dimensions of space. The first and second comprise the base, and the base is built in the direction of all things on earth. The third dimension guides the first two to their ever-shrinking, impossible end. When the cardinal directions converge with the three dimensions on a single point, a pyramid is formed.

The greatest opposites are never equal, we have come to learn. Equal opposites are constitutionally inconsequential—this or that, six or half-dozen, and neither here nor there. The greatest opposites have the same coordinates as a pyramid: everything and nothing, now and forever, infinite and infinitesimal. The lesser opposites, though, are also contained, and easily, by any two sides. And between opposites, we know, lie all other things.

Human life is lived to complete a pyramid—to reach an apex beyond which we can only see heaven. We are creatures of the ground, however, and the ground is the base of all pyramids and the place of our birth. We build pyramids to cover the distance between the dirt and our destiny.