the four series : meta, proslogion, los, magnificat . a series of posts, organized according to a certain pattern derived from the original principle of dispatching from one of four series each day . groups of series, and series within series, variations on a theme, and evolving thoughts and images that make sense as a whole and less so individually : evolving from traditional . stepping stones: meandering path toward the ritual ceremony : some stones are small and close together and slow one's pace and force the visitor to look downward while others are larger and further apart and therefore encourage one to pause along the way and take in the scenery or engage in contemplation . ... to mimic some natural morphology : something thematically or serially, with proportional dimension : narrative of the variations . not minimizing effort of digging : it is already there, it doesn't come from the air, it is right or wrong : making it explicit : and revealing secrets, vulnerabilities : searching for vulnerabilities : and presenting them . excavation involves error : build up and then destroy : accept that there is right and wrong : good or not good : knowing which part to discard and what to keep is the whole thing . the unseen layer, the layer in the composition of everything that came before, that was either erased, covered, or never laid down to begin with : the normally undetected layers of conceptual undergrowth . layers of process like the overtones that resonate above the fundamental : what makes that finished layer other than a sine wave with no overtones resonating above . several versions of the same narrative : the final version will be irreconcilable to the first, but: the original narrative is still present, living obscured underneath those layers of process that have the benefit of time; fermentation, which has both the implication of rotting and transforming into something different, more potent : there is no substitute for time in that situation, contemplation is not inactivity . kandinsky: "To whom is the soul of the artist crying out, assuming that it too was involved in the act of creation? What is it trying to communicate? 'To shine light into the depths of the human heart is the profession of the artist,' says Schumann. 'A painter is a man who can draw and paint everything,' says Tolstoy ... Of these two definitions of the artist's activity we must choose the latter, ..."