On the Free Mason

They say Freemasonry is secret.

But secrecy is not the same as silence.

And mystery is not the same as menace.

A Free Mason does not swear allegiance to darkness—

he swears allegiance to work.

Stone by stone.

Self by self.

Not to rule the world,

but to rule the chaos within him.

He learns with symbols because truth does not survive being shouted.

It must be approached.

Measured.

Circled.

Returned to.

The square is not a weapon.

It is a reminder: act rightly.

The compass is not control.

It is restraint: know your limits.

The apron is not costume.

It is humility—

a laborer’s garment worn in a world addicted to crowns.

Yes, there are doors.

Yes, there are rituals.

Yes, there are hands placed on shoulders in rooms without windows.

But this is not conspiracy.

It is continuity.

An ancient remembering that wisdom was once passed mouth to ear,

heart to hand,

symbol to soul—

long before algorithms decided what truth should look like.

The danger was never the lodge.

The danger was forgetting that initiation means beginning,

not belonging.

Some mistake privacy for power.

Others mistake discipline for domination.

But the real work was always inward:

To tame the rough ashlar.

To refine the stone.

To become fit—not for supremacy,

but for service.

And like all human institutions,

some lost the plot.

Some used symbols to hide instead of heal.

Some confused brotherhood with exclusion.

But that corruption does not erase the original vow.

To build.

Not empires—character.

Not hierarchy—integrity.

Not secrecy—stewardship.

The Free Mason was never meant to stand above the world.

He was meant to stand squarely within it—

measured, awake, accountable.

Not chosen.

Choosing.

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“I do the work no one applauds, so the world does not collapse in my hands.”

— Flower InBloom 🌿

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Myth vs. Truth: On the Free Mason

MYTH: Freemasonry controls governments.

TRUTH: Power is easier to imagine than responsibility. Most control is bureaucratic, not ceremonial.

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MYTH: They worship something hidden.

TRUTH: They study symbols—because symbols slow the mind enough for ethics to catch up.

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MYTH: It’s an elite club.

TRUTH: It’s a disciplined one. Discipline looks elitist to a culture allergic to restraint.

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MYTH: Secrecy equals danger.

TRUTH: Privacy once meant safety—for ideas, for conscience, for men learning to govern themselves before governing anything else.

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MYTH: Initiation means indoctrination.

TRUTH: Initiation means beginning. No one is finished when they enter. That’s the point.

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MYTH: They’re hiding knowledge.

TRUTH: Knowledge was never hidden—only earned. Slowly. Repeatedly. With effort.

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MYTH: It’s outdated ritual.

TRUTH: Ritual is memory with a body. Without it, values dissolve into slogans.

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MYTH: They think they’re chosen.

TRUTH: The work was always about choosing—to act uprightly when no one is watching.

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Counter-Piece: From the Voice of Rumor

I am the whisper that fills the gaps

where patience used to live.

I thrive where people stop asking why

and start asking who to blame.

I say:

“They meet at night—so it must be evil.”

As if darkness has not always been the classroom of reflection.

I say:

“They know something you don’t.”

As if effort were a conspiracy

and discipline a threat.

I turn symbols into monsters

because I cannot bear that meaning might require work.

I feed on fear because fear is faster than study.

I dress ignorance as intuition

and call it truth.

I don’t care if I’m right.

I care if I’m repeated.

And when people are lonely,

uncertain,

or searching for a villain large enough to explain their confusion—

I arrive, smiling.

I am rumor.

I don’t build.

I replace understanding with spectacle

and call the collapse revelation.

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The Work: A Short Vow (Initiation-Style Prose)

I enter not to be elevated,

but to be measured.

I accept that the stone is unfinished

and that the work begins with my own hands.

I choose restraint over impulse,

integrity over applause,

and understanding over rumor.

I will square my actions,

circumscribe my desires,

and remember that symbols point—they do not replace the path.

I take no oath to dominate,

only to do the work

when no one is counting.

And if I forget,

may the stone remind me.

— Flower InBloom 🌿

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Author’s Note: Why Myth Exists

Myth is what forms when meaning outlives its explanation.

Before information was instant, truth traveled slowly—

through story, symbol, ritual, and repetition.

Myth wasn’t deception; it was compression.

A way to carry wisdom across time without flattening it.

But when symbols remain and context disappears,

myth mutates.

What once invited reflection becomes rumor.

What once required initiation becomes accusation.

What once asked for inner work becomes an external threat.

We fear what we no longer know how to approach.

And when patience disappears, imagination fills the gap.

This piece is not a defense of institutions,

nor an indictment of them.

It is a reminder that mystery does not automatically mean malice—

and that the human impulse to mythologize

often says more about our hunger for meaning

than about the object of our suspicion.

Myth exists because truth is too large to travel naked.

And rumor exists when we forget

how to listen long enough to receive it.

— Flower InBloom 🌿