CLC - ENTERED APPRENTICE - 05.22.17

Freemasonry to symbolically bind. While sailors consider the length of a cable tow to be about 100 fathoms or 600 feet, its symbolic length in Freemasonry differs for various brethren. It is almost universally now considered to be the “scope of a brother’s ability.” As that ability increases, so does the length of the cable tow. Cardinal . Of basic importance; main; primary; essential; principal. Chalk, Charcoal and Clay. The first two words mean what they say: clay is here used in the widest sense to mean all earth. “Drawing the lodge” was a custom which antedated the modern Masonic chart containing the symbols. Early symbols were drawn on the floor of the room in which the lodge met, even if it was but earth or clay, with chalk, or charcoal, and erased after the lodge meeting was over. Circumambulation. Walking around a central point. In Masonic usage, it is always clockwise, from East to West by way of the South. In many early civilizations, God was the sun. In the Northern Hemisphere, the sun travels from East to West by way of the South. Hence, early man circled his stone altar on which a fire might be built, in imitation of the sun, by travelling from East to West by way of the South, in humble imitation of the God in the sky. Circumscribe . To draw a line around; to limit in range of activity definitely and clearly.

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