The Core contains 27 subjects drawn from human experience. Each subject is an area of experience that can be examined from different perspectives.
The subjects are encountered rather than individually chosen. Each is paired with a visual operator — a visual form that gives you another way to look at the subject.
ACCEPTANCE
ALLOWING
Recognising what is, without giving up agency.
ATTACHMENT
HOLD
What we hold onto because it matters.
BELONGING
CIRCLE
Being part of something, and being recognised.
CAPABILITY
REACH
What we are actually able to do.
CHANGE
TRANSITION
Movement from one condition to another.
CONFLICT
FRICTION
Competing interests, needs, values, or directions.
CONTROL
GRIP
Attempts to determine outcomes, events, or others.
DESIRE
PULL
The felt movement towards something wanted.
FEAR
THRESHOLD
Response to threat, danger, uncertainty, or loss.
FREEDOM
OPENNESS
The space to choose, act, or change.
GRATITUDE
GIFT
Attention to what has been received or valued.
IDENTITY
SELF-BOUNDARY
How we understand who we are.
JUSTICE
BALANCE
Fairness, rights, obligations, and treatment of others.
LOSS
ABSENCE
What is no longer available.
LOVE
CONNECTION
Care, attachment, valuing, and connection.
MEANING
ORIENTATION
What gives significance or makes something intelligible.
MORTALITY
LIMIT
The finitude of life, and its implications.
MYSTERY
VEIL
What remains unexplained, unknown, or unknowable.
PRACTICE
REPETITION
Repeated action shaping ability, habit, or attention.
PRESENCE
ATTENTION
What is here, and being noticed now.
PURPOSE
AIM
Direction, aim, and movement toward a valued future.
RESPONSIBILITY
CHOICE
What is properly ours to answer for.
SELF-DECEPTION
MASK
Protecting a preferred view from unwelcome truths.
SUFFERING
WEIGHT
What is difficult to endure, carry, or live through.
TIME
INTERVAL
Change, duration, memory, anticipation, and finitude.
TRUTH
CLARITY
What is actually the case.
UNCERTAINTY
FOG
What is not known, predictable, or decided.
The concept identifies the subject. The visual operator provides another way to look at it. Neither supplies a fixed interpretation.
A Core card does not have one final meaning independent of its position. Its significance develops through the other cards, the Lens, and the Field in which it is encountered.
The purpose is not to produce a five-card verdict. The concepts give you something to work with. As you look at them together, you may begin to see what you are really trying to ask. Forming that working question is part of the reflection.
