Dear Unknown Friend,

I number of months ago, maybe even a year now, Brother Kenneth Davis through his excellent blog, Prospero’s Books, turned me on to the periodical Parabola.

The latest is sitting on my desk. Regrettably, unopened, except to the first paragraph of the editorial page. I haven’t read it, but two italicized words immediately caught my attention - terra incognitae. Unknownland Land. Immediately, I recalled the Working Tools of a Fellow Craft, specifically, the Level, and the admonishment of our travel to an undiscovered country.

Undiscovered Country. Unknown Land. Terra Incognitae.

The purpose of Initiation is discovery. Discovery of Self, of the World (and the inhabitants thereof, and the cords that bind), and Discovery of Deity.

In our Initiation, we are introduced to a New World. Indeed we are told that the Lodge itself is representative of the world. In this new world we are dressed different, we are addressed different, we are different. After Initiation, we are no longer the man who knocked on the door. We find ourselves on a road somewhere from the man he were, to the man we will become, assuming we complete this discovery and explorations of this new world we have entered.

Somehow, over the last few years I have forgotten this. I started this year with the expressed idea that the corner stone of one’s Masonic experience is Lodge. And the purpose of a Lodge is to create quality Masonic experience. Yet it is that I have become so focused on this achievement that I have broken the line of my circumspection, and my passions have ruled me.

Thankfully, this recapitulation presented itself.

So my Friend, here is where I leave you, and how to find you again, anew.

Recommended Reading

Some Deeper Aspects of Masonic Symbolism, A.E. Waite

PoTS

J.