The ancient mandala was an ordered hierarchy of fixed verities. Our modern equivalent consists of unfixed eccentric cycles among which we choose, invent, rationalize our own paths. Paths that seem to promise freedom, possibility, hope but that offer no firm value, virtue, efficacy. They may prove to be the stuff of adventure and ecstasy or conversely of folly and disaster. Haunted by both golden mandala and unseen epiphany, we mark our path with gestures and signs: seed or spoor, beginning or end, beauty speaks only of unknowing but remains sure of its intention.