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.

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.