Before the first migration, before form could travel,
the world turned inward.
Silence met its own reflection and folded —
and from that inward turning came the Three Containments, the primordial shapes that taught all things to know their edges.

I. The Caged Seed

Within the first containment rests the Seed of Stillness:
a perfect sphere bound by delicate bars of thought.
It breathes, though no air stirs it.
The cage is no prison, but a teacher —
whispering to the seed the memory of enclosure.
In time, its colors fade inward,
the living pattern becoming remembrance,
and remembrance becoming form.

“That which encloses learns its own name.”

Thus arises the first geometry —
potential circled by awareness,
form born from the echo of its own boundary.

II. The Egg of Opposite Fires

Upon a chalice of shimmering silence stands the second containment:
the Egg of Dual Flame.
Two arrows — one red, one blue — spiral round it,
thought and counter-thought locked in their slow orbit.
From its crown emerges the serpent of division,
ascending and descending in one breath,
yearning both for the sun and the abyss.

Here begins all striving:
heat and cold, love and refusal, ascent and descent.
Within this egg, every tension learns its mirror —
and in recognizing, breaks open.

“To open is to divide, and to divide is to see.”

III. The Coil of Retained Gold

The third containment is the Coil of Fulfillment,
resting upon a bed of dust circled by sacred lines.
It does not grow — it gathers.
All that was scattered by the dual flames returns,
condensed into gold — the slowest and most patient of lights.

It hums with layered memory:
each transformation folded into the next
until rest itself begins to shine.
This is not wealth, but stillness perfected —
the dream of matter after long awakening.

“What was caged learns freedom;
what was split learns rest.”

Coda

From these three containments the world begins its movement:
first enclosed, then divided, then gathered again.
Every thought, every motion, every being
traces this silent pattern —
the seed, the flame, the coil.
And from these, the architectures of thought arise:
root, flight, and return.