The story it tells is an interesting one: The face cards of the tarot — the Major Arcana —can be arranged in such a manner that they work as signposts toward spiritual evolution. Card twenty-one, the final card in this arrangement, is called the World. There is in this card as deep a representation of the spirit and force of the triad as exists on earth: It consists of the four beasts of the Sphinx, one at each corner, surrounding an enigmatic and powerful figure who stands within a wreath.

This figure's genitals are hidden by a cloth; it has breasts and also the suggestion of a male form. It is intended, I think, to represent a potential in all human beings. In the hands are carried tools from the table of the card of the Magician, most specifically, his wand. The figure may represent humankind transformed, the beast reborn, man or woman, half human and half god.

Out of communion there emerges transformation. The strong body, the brave heart, and the intelligence of a human being.

What is the true aim of mind? Does it seek knowledge only for the sake of constructing the intricate pleasures and poisons of technology, or just to know, or is there another dancer in the shadows?

The mind can bring understanding to body and heart. It can direct the body toward healthy ways and the heart toward the balm of insight.

Then, when a being comes into harmony, body, mind, and heart reconciled, there is a chance to look up from the plodding and the toil, and there to encounter the whole tremendous ecstasy that made the phoebes scream in the morning light.

It is then that the struggling worm turns from clay into fire and the soul takes wing, sweeping out of time and chance, going higher and higher, daring like the eagle the relentless, revealing fire of the sun.

In all of us there is an unaddressed urgency which we cannot really name, which seems to lie at the heart of our hope for ourselves. It is the flight of the eagle that we seek, the walk of the monk down the nirvana road, the faith of the old priest whose mass in his humble little church last Sunday was really said between the worlds of body and soul.

We go from the endless battle of duality to the harmony of the triad, and then to the mystery of the eagle. Each of us is potentially a transfigure being, the friend of God, the Phoenix gliding free.