Symbols

"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life--they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all."

Gene Wolfe, Shadow of the Torturer

Getting close...
The complexity of Reality has to do with the Incarnation:

"History is neither necessity nor freedom, but rather their flexible integration. In fact, history results neither from impersonal necessity nor from human caprice, but rather from a dialectic of the will where free choice unfolds into necessary consequences. History does not develop as a unique and autonomous dialectic, which extends in vital dialectic the dialectic of inanimate nature, but rather as a pluralism of dialectical processes, numerous as free acts and tied to the diversity of their fleshly grounds."

Davila, again. The vertical movement down (Schuon) into matter, but what transpires after that is flesh and spirit. Neither half one, half the other, or both at once separately, or capable of separation...reality is existential, but not intellectually. It is what it is, and how it is. Art and poetics and philosophy are ALL used to grip it, or recreate it, or evoke it.

The symbol is the closest thing we have to incarnation, among us. It begins to comprehend the paradoxes at the heart of the truth of what happened & is happening.

Schuon agrees that Westerners tend not to "have a sense of the metaphysical transparency of phenomenon," and instead "insist as a matter of preference on penitential means" of religious practice. In short, they emphasize the "moral alternative, not that of contemplative participation." But as a courtesy to other spiritual types, "if these fideists have no wish to use their intelligence, at least they should not forbid others to do so" (Schuon).

OneCosmos is doing a good job of using Platonism as a means/vehicle to achieve Christian objectives. The Reason and Intellect have suffered mutilation in various ways in the West, which is now extremely anti-intellectual, even (and most especially) when it is pretending to be most intellectual. Marx, for instance, for all of his dialectic, says "the point of history is not to understand it, but to change it". This assassination of Intellect, after its worship, effectively enthrones Will in such a manner as to be beyond question. In this sense, Nietzsche & Lenin & Adam Smith all carpool to work together.

But if all are corrupt (which is to say, partial) visions/liturgies, then where is truth to be found?

Baby steps, but the insanity of God is wiser than the wisdom of men.

Yet, as a human, clearly, something which transcends either Right or Left would be desirable.

God's Forms in Nature (Jonathan Edwards?)

"For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God" ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Tree of Life is symbolized by many particular trees: the oak, the ash, the fig and others throughout the world. The axis is the Way itself, the way of return to the Absolute. It is also symbolized by man-made things: the ladder, the mast, weapons like the lance, and the central pillar of edifices. As architects know, many buildings are built round a central axis which is not in fact there, which is not Religio Perennis materialized. Very often in traditional houses the hearth is the center of the house and the chimney through which the smoke rises is another figure of the axis. And things which are normally horizontal are symbols of the axis: a bridge is also a symbol of the world axis. Witness the title Pontifex, the maker of the bridge, which is given to the highest spiritual authority of the Church -- the bridge, which is the bridge between Heaven and earth. Another fundamental symbol is the river. There are three aspects to the river: the crossing of the river symbolizes the passage from this world to a higher world, always, but then there is the river itself. There is the difficulty of moving upstream which symbolizes the difficulties of the spiritual path, of returning to one's source against the current. There is also the symbolism of moving in the other direction to the ocean, of returning finally to the ocean; that is another symbol of the Way. In this book amongst many other symbols, Guénon also treats of the symbolism of the mountain, the cave, the temporal cycle. In the temporal cycle the solstices of summer and winter are the gates of the gods according to Hinduism. The gate of the gods is the winter solstice, in the sign of Capricorn; the gate of the ancestors is the summer solstice, in the sign of Cancer.

Rene Guenon's doctrine, & perhaps that of Jonathan Edwards as well