Synonymous Poetry
One of the most poetically wrought metaphors in the book is, boiled down to essentials, just a synonym for “outside.”
“I could be walking through the steep-domed, unlit chamber of a great cathedral, roofed by coal-black vaults of sky.”
DO: Proceed in a Logical Order
The author explains that the metaphorical phrase “nose before ear” is the equivalent of Do Not:
“eat before you cook…weave before you shear…light the fire until you have the kindling…reap your corn before until you’ve plowed and sown”
Minority Rule
Speaking out against wrongs is a time-honored way of making change come about. In a democracy. In a feudal-type system, however, even if those speaking out number five times as many as those in power, it doesn’t matter because:
“Dissent is never counted; it is weighed. The master always weighs the most.”
Magic Mushrooms
The metaphorical description of the aftermath of eating a certain type of mushroom:
“dancing lights and merriment…melting trails that haloed everything. We were like sun-drenched butterflies and then we were like moon-struck moths.”
Burning Man
In the aftermath of an injury suffered while trying to put out a barn fire, a character concludes:
“a roasted man does not smell as appetizing as a roasted dove.”