Hi there! I am Lady Eruwaedhiel's mom, but I hope you won't hold that
against me.
We have been working on the Meta Essence/Essence Mapping idea this morning and I had some ideas/questions about it. I think
this is a totally great concept! I was in love with the idea from the
moment Elizabeth told me about it. I taught myself html and dabbled in
CSS and I'm a terrible word nerd so the possibilities of the system were
immediately apparent and appreciated! We had a bit of trouble getting
our heads around the concept at first, but I think I have it figured out now.
I think a couple of things make it difficult to explain to "outsiders" *grin*
1. What you are using is a nesting or hierarchical language, but it's written
(at least in the forum) in a non-nesting non-hierarchical way. After I finally
got the concept down I realized it's much like a basic outline. (dots are placeholders)
TOPIC
I. First Point
....A. Important subpoint
........1.Blah Blah
............a. subpoint
............b. subpoint
........2.Blah Blah 2
............a. etc.
This format would work really well in a spreadsheet! One of the main
things that was confusing us was the lack of physically represented
structure to help define the terms. Which brings me to number 2.
2. I think the system would be much easier to understand if the terms you
used for names ("metaphor" "class" "element") were either less common
(even made up) or less conflicted with our everyday definitions for those
words. In the process of figuring this out I typed up Emeth's sister's
example from the "What is Essence" topic in the structured way that I
was referring to. I'll include it at the end of this post.Using the first couple
of lines from her post I'll illustrate what I mean about the terms (the dots
are used as placeholders to keep the structure intact):
....BODY {Motion [Speed (quivering flags)
..............................(the flirt of butterfly wings)
The Meta-Essence titles applied to these parts would be as follows:
METAPHOR NAME {Metaphor [Class (element)
...........................................(element)
However... BODY is not a metaphor! Nor is Motion. The true metaphors
in the system are quivering flags and butterfly wings! This confused me!
Therefore I would suggest a change in terms. After looking at the
example she gave and the definitions you all posted for each part of the
system I came up with these, though I'm sure there are many terms that
would work equally well. I also added an overarching topical title which in
the above example would be HORSE or the name of the particular horse.
SUBJECT
ASPECT {Qualifier [Characteristic (metaphor)]}
----------------------------------------------------------------
SUBJECT: name of the object, character, person, event, concept, etc
that you are describing.
ASPECT: general quantifier or broad aspect you will be describing; body,
soul, spirit, mind, that which is immediately apparent (1st Level),that
which is just under the surface (2nd Level), that which is deepest in a
thing (3rd Level), span of time, etc.
Qualifier: specific, allegorical qualifiers of the aspect that encloses
them;light, depth,density, motion, image/sight, scent, sound, texture,
taste, balance, complexity, beauty, size, etc.
Characteristic: (this part deviates a little from your set up) what binds
together the individual metaphors you will be using? In her example
quivering flags, butterfly wings, and archer drawing his bow all
characterize the Speed of the Motion of the BODY of the HORSE we are
describing. I would consider the colors, descriptions, poems etc to be
part of the next classification, which I would call the metaphor.
metaphor: different ways of articulating the nature of the attribute that it is in. They can either be abstract and nebulous, concrete and precise, or indirect and allegorical. There are only a few that we use, but they can be as powerful and as flexible as you have the skill to use them. There are six main kinds: color, color pair, color triad, description (a sentence, paragraph, or even a poem), percentage, or a reference.
Elpis's example in my suggested structure:
HORSE
....BODY {Motion [Speed (quivering flags)
...............................(the flirt of butterfly wings)
...............................(an archer slowly drawing back his bow)]
..................[Variability (moaning wind)
................................(roiling clouds)]}
.........{Beauty [Strength (gothic arch)
................................(momentarily arrested power)]
...................[Color...(bark of a redwood tree)
................................(mahogany - dull red)]}
....SPIRIT {Strengths [Depth (a dog's brown eyes)]
........................[Loyalty (Mt. St. Helens)]
........................[Pride (Reepicheep)]
........................[Gentility (the soft, black eyes of kywedim child)]
........................[Density (a translucent black agate - 60%)]}
