Yesod

Zilantrope adjusts the view screen for clearer focus as the ship approaches the third planet from the dwarf star. Beyond the atmospheric haze,into the settlements seen from the darkness of space,what was he seeing?

The magnifier is tuned higher till the figures come into focus.

What are those that resemble the forms on the aberrant planet Zigtarrch which reproduces ad infintum forms that resemble themselves? Such identical replication has always been seen as a great absurdity on Iamos, where Zilanthrope comes from.On Iamos, no two forms of life resemble each other. The Iamoans,influenced by their world’s biological characteristics, see beauty as consisting in diversity and never in sameness. They even have sayings to the efffect that “Diversity is the essence of beauty”,“The greater the beauty the greater the diversity”.

But here on this planet,on this agglomeration of life, the creatures he sees moving about in massive numbers,either through their own power or through powered devices, are all shaped so as to resemble each other in their general structure.

Are those light refractors encased in the domed structure that surmounts their forms?What are those objects protruding from their central frames,frames that resembles the casing of a star going ship,which they use in manipulating objects around them? The entire structure rests on two flexible columns which are used for movement.

Eeeh! Wonders will never end. The expanse of the cosmos breeds wonders that continually take one off guard,cause one to revise one’s anticipations of reality.

How do such creatures perceive beauty? Will they see it as inherent in similarity? Could they go beyond the nature of their own replicative system and conceive the possibility of the beautiful as consisting in difference? Or,something Zilanthrope had never thought before,something that suddenly revealed to him how much his thinking had been confined by the limitations of Iamos,limited too in spite of its great diversity.A thought that only now emerges under the inspiration of his sight of the creatures of a plnaet he had first thought of as aberrant. Could these creatures perhaps perceive beauty in relationships between difference and similarity?

Zilantrope's ship moves closer into the planet’s atmosphere. The pictures of the creatures becomes even clearer and he can now see that in the flood of similarity of form there are certain differences which can be discerned on careful observation. The shapes portray certain subtle differences which slowly emerge as one becomes accustomed to the strange forms. Who knows, these differences, subtle as they are, could be the creatures' means of identifying each other.

“In thee appears the cause of our continuation as human creatures; for thou art the reality our reproduction represents.” "While thy potent force prevails, we surely shall not perish from this planet”.Anon.

“Shaddai el Chaim, the Lord of Lives art thou in the Creative world beginning every birth, of thee do we emerge into embodiment and end our days on earth” .Anon.