Operation

On actions.

The last method of Interstitial Anatomy has a special backstory. These concepts were the first the author managed to organize as a proper set — the stepping stone for Conciliatorics, in place long before the project had a name. Once this item was synthesized, the rest began to fall in around it. What we now call Operation was first called the Compass.

The name comes from the shape of the diagram, and from the use. The compass assigns a cardinal direction to each mode of acting inside a system.

The root levels are the horizontal Identity Axis and the vertical Participation Axis. Identity is elastic. It can feel rock-solid at a given moment and still have been formed by what has already happened to it. Fronterization gives that identity a boundary; permeability lets it take in the world’s flow. A chamber that cannot close is not a chamber. A chamber that cannot open is a tomb.

Participation is usually pictured as active engagement. Accurate engagement, though, has to receive before it pushes. Proceptivity and receptivity calibrate each other. In many contexts these are described as masculine and feminine. That framing is valid. We prefer proceptive and receptive: the tone stays neutral, and the pair can still grow.

Four cardinals:

• North: Proceptivity (Pr)
• South: Receptivity (Re)
• East: Fronterization (Fr)
• West: Permeability (Pe)

The hemispheres are concatenations of those cardinals. Individual (i) is proceptivity with fronterization: a defined entity exerting itself — north-east. Community (c) is receptivity with permeability: south-west. Orientation (o) sharpens as we take in the environment and refine what we intend — south-east. Navigation (n) is the jump into the world: proceptive, and permeable to what was not on the map — north-west.

A soloist at full voice is individual. A choir taking the same breath is community. A chart of the river is orientation. Entering the current is navigation.

The cardinal initials (N, S, E, W) sit easily on Pr, Re, Fr, and Pe. Used together they are easier to hold than either set alone.

That is the last component of Interstitial Anatomy. Anatomy, even at this grain, is still a structure. What remains is for the structure to become alive. The physiology of these methods is Attributes Status.