The Quadrivium

The Quadrivium is a book on the teachings of the Quadrivium itself, referring to the 4 classical liberal arts of Number, Geometry, Music, and Cosmology. This book is based upon a collection of books known as the wood books. This will be the first installment.

Part One


The Monad

Unity. The One, God. The Great Spirit. Mirror of wonders. The still eternity. Permanence. There are countless names for it.

According to one perspective, one cannot actually speak of the One because to speak of it is to make an object of it, implying separation from it, so misrepresenting the essence of oneness from the start, a mysterious conundrum.

The One is the limit of all, first before the beginning and last after the end, alpha and omega, the mold that shapes all things and the one thing shaped by all molds, the origin from which the universe emerges, the universe itself, an the center to which it returns. It is point, seed, and destination.

One is echoed in all things and treats all equally. Its stability among numbers is unique one remaining one when multiplied or divided by itself, and one of anything is uniquely that one thing. One is alone, all one, and no thing can exist to describe it.

All things are immersed in the shore less ocean of Unity. The quality of oneness permeates everything, and while there is nothing without it, there is also no thing within it, as even a communication or idea requires parts in relationship. Like light from the Sun or gentle rain the One is unconditional in its love, yet its majesty and mystery remain veiled, and beyond apprehension, for the One can only be understood by itself. It is alone, all one, and no thing can exist to describe it. One is simultaneously circle, center, and the purest tone.

reply to post by xacto


Learn something new here every day
I was unaware of this term and book, but it sounds intriguing and made me think of what things could have contributed to such great works of art and science back in the day. Then, to unify these subjects sounds great to me, and downright a necessity for teaching, imo. It's a shame art is being excluded from curriculums these days. To me, art is still the most powerful medium for truth.
Thanks for giving me a subject to read about over the holidays.

Peace,
spec

reply to post by xacto


Part 2

Duality

There are two sides to every coin, and the other side is where the Dyad lives. Two is the othrwodly shadow, opposite, polarized, and objectified. It is there, other, that not this, and essential as a basis for comparison, the method by which our minds know things. There are countless names for the divine pair.

To the Pythagoreans, two was the first sexed number, even and female. To develop their appreciation of twoness, they contemplated pairs of pure opposites, such as limited-unlimited, odd-even, one-many, right-left, male-female, resting-moving, straight and curved. We might also think of the positive and negative charge in electromagnetism, and the in- and out- of our breathing.

The dyad appears in music as the ratio two to one, as we experience a similar tone an octave higher or lower, at twice or half the pitch. In geometry it is a line, two points, or two circles.

Linguistically when speaking of both parts of something working as one we use the bi- prefix, as in bicycle or binary, but when the divisive quality of two is invoked, words begin with he prefix di-, thus discord or diversion. The distinction between self and not-self is one of the first and last we generally make.

Modern philosophers, if they stop to think about twoness, can get little further than the ancients. All experience a left and a right, front and back, and up and down through two eyes and two ears. Men and women alike live under a Sun and Moon, sometimes remembering how miraculously balanced they seem, the same size in the sky, come shining by day, the other by night.

Part 3

Three


Male in some cultures, female in others, three, like a tree, bridges heaven and earth. The Triad relatives opposites as their comixture, solution, or mediator. It is the synthesis or return to unity after the division of two and traditionally the first odd number.

The third leg of a stool gives balance, the third strand of a braid makes a plait (knots can only be tied in three dimensional space). Stories, fairy tales, and spiritual traditions abound with portentous threes, juggling past, present, and future with the knower, knowing, and the known. As birth, life, and death, the triad appears throughout nature, in principle and form. The triangle and trinity's most simple and structural device is the first stable polygon, defining our our first surface.

In music the ratios 3:2 and 3:1 define the intervals of the fifth and its octave, the most beautiful harmonies other than the octave itself, and the key to ancient tunings. Three is the first triangular number.
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The vesic piscis formed by two overlapping circles immediatly invokes a pair of triangles. An equilateral triangle in a circle defines the octave, so that the area of the ring is three times that of the small circle. Archimedes favorite discovery was that the volumes of the cone, sphere, and drum are in the ratios of one to two to three.

The last page the book statea that in the current angle of the precession and placement of the solar system relative to the galactic center, every midwinters day, the Earth, the Sun, and the Galactic Center align. This would otherwise be known as the Winter Solstice, or December 21.According to this information, this alignment will occur on December 21, 2012, as it has the last year and before.

I know this was written 7 years ago, but I'm just now learning about this book. Great post!! Thanks for laying it out like that. I'm going to have to read this as soon as I get some time.

Do you have a link ?