Level Five – Look Around. What do you see?

Now that we have seen a lie, said the Caveman, and we have found ourselves, we must look outwards and find the ways that we can understand that which is shown.

When I see a rock that stands between me and my goal, then I shall look closer. Do I see an innocent piece of stone which is thrown to this place by the random hand of fate or is it a viper, full of venom, which is hidden by its colour as a rock and will lay me low with its aggression should I mistake it for that innocent rock. To know this I must look and listen, only then may I come to my goal unscathed.

So, said the Queen, what you’re saying is stay frosty at all times?

The temperature makes no matter, said the caveman, only keep a strong mind to the clarity of your senses.

I shall not, will not, cannot discuss this further, said the Queen. It can all go on without me, I’ve had enough, I’ve got decreeing to do. Your visions are too many and too various. Leave me now with one Truth from which I may prosper.

The Cave man took a position close to the great gilded doors of the Queen’s Hall, the better to make his escape should his truth prove unpalatable.

This then is truth that he laid bare for her.

There came a rock that lay in a path. Each person who, in time, passed by on their journey through time, saw the rock. Although few remarked in their mind’s eye upon it. Yet each seeing sparked a response within that person.

These are some of the responses that the rock created.

A pillow, a cloud, a loaf of bread, a sore toe, a hammer, a fruit, a broken hoof, a brick, a piece of sugar, a broken wheel, a bruised thumb, a useful thing, a paperweight, a dog curled in repose, a house, a mountain, a cat, a broken plow, a pie, a chest, a fist, a pudding, the head of a child, half of a turnip.

I could go on, said the Caveman

Not if you value your liberty, said the Queen as the Caveman edged closer to his door.

Then I shall desist, said the Caveman, but the point, then, is fully made.

A rock is in all truths a rock, upon that we can agree, but each person finds in this truthful rock a difference and a reference upon which we can never agree. So let us take this first truth, that the rock is a rock, and raise it to a level higher that that of our individual interpretations.

The Queen pondered for some moments before she spoke, From this self-evident truth I cannot prosper, she said testily. And turning to the armed escort there she said, seize him and throw him into a dark place.

But the Caveman was too quick and escaped through the great gilded doors, running fast as he could. Out of the castle, across the fields, through the wood and forests until finally, running up the steep path to his cave he tripped on a rock and bruised his ego.