MUSINGS

How can you be bound across the seas, astrolabe in hand and stars in boundless sky, bounding en route to the Pure Land or the Land Down Under, when you are bound? Perhaps you could be bound in the captain's quarters or in the hold below, in bondage, yet part, a parcel of a ship sailing, bounding, perhaps over the Bounding Maine.

And perhaps if you had been bounding out, a bolt was needed to keep you bound, thus unable to execute your bolt outward, bounding into the blue.

You know I love to play with words. And nowhere do words return the favor of play more than in the seduction of contranyms. Or perhaps you say contrOnyms. Either way, these word dyads are just as delicious.

A contranym is a special type of homograph. Homographs are two words that have the same spelling but different meanings. Like the "records," meaning paperwork about, of how many "records," meaning ancient audio capturing discs, you might have.

Contranyms are homographs in techni-color razzle dazzle. They are the linguistic wet dream of philosophers and mystics. They are the short circuit of all civilized sensibility. They are the créme de la créme of nonsense.

A contranym is a homograph pair in which the different meanings are the opposite of each other. So we cannot be "bound," tied up, and "bound," en route, at the same time. We cannot "bolt," make a quick exit, if they "bolt" us down to prevent our escape.

A contranym is a linguistic taijitu, a geometric pattern which signifies complementary opposites united in a greater whole. Perhaps the most familiar taijitu is the classic Taoist yin/yang symbol. This symbol is called the diagram of ultimate power.

It is a pictorial representation of the I Ching, the foundation of Chinese philosophy.

The second Chinese character in I Ching means "profound book." The first character means both "ease" and "change." This character is clearly a contranym: No change in the human realm is easy. This contranym character is formed by the sign for sun on top of the sign for moon below.

When the linguistic symbol for I Ching becomes the pictorial yin/ yang symbol, the essential nature of all contranyms becomes more understandable. In the white sun swirl is a black circle; in the black moon swirl there rests a white circle. These little circles, embraced in their opposites, are harbingers and embryos and invaders and hopeful fears and fearless hopes.

To clarify, let's look to the natural order itself. The longest night of the year, winter solstice, is the black circle in the white swirl. The depth of the longest darkness of winter solstice night is itself the seed of the coming longer light, the turning point. And likewise, in the brightest, longest day, summer solstice, is the very beginning of the coming longer darkness.

Inherent in every phenomenon, at the deepest core, is the forming life breath of its contranym. This perpetually changing changeling is always essentially the same. Contranym rules.

The yin/yang symbol, pictorial contranym, represents the entire celestial phenomenon. And as above, so below. As outside, so inside. This symbol is the philosopher's astrolabe.

To gain our philosophical bearings, our place in the grand schema of things, we cleave. We divide and split and separate into analyzed parts. Then the more than the sum of these parts must be the seed to which we cleave, adhering firmly, closely, loyally, unwaveringly. This is the ultimate power of the union of opposites.

Please know that in this oh,sweet contranym of life it's not all or nothing: It's nothing at all.

N.B. Thanks to muse extraordinaire Lady Jill for pulling the veils off my memory of contranyms.

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse w ho hopes t o inspir e pr ofound mu tiny in all those who care to read. Our Rx ma y be wearing a pir ate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr om within this shado w is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who kno ws: You ma y e ven inspir e the muse. Make contact if you dare.