The metaphors we choose matter. When the lines between symbolic and actual start to blur and no longer become so mutually exclusive, the more powerful the way we frame things becomes.

In Eustance Mandeville Wetenhall Tillyard's tightly written 1959 classic The Elizabethan World Picture, the master scholar lays out three visions of the English Renaissance world, as experienced in the time of Shakespeare, Dee, Donne and Milton.

These visions, in short: the Chain of Being, the distributed-but-mediated correspondences, and the Cosmic Dance. I find the Dance the most useful.

In the wonderful, artful and powerful Grimorium Verum, almost as an appendix casually tacked onto the end, there is a curious operation called the “Cabala of the Green Butterfly”.

This charming, oblique little text contains a range of challenges to the human security system – physical, social and philosophical.

It takes the operator outside, in many ways.

(A title that will get you reading.)

So: we’re looking for the palace of the Doge, to prepare for a trip the next day.

Venice is a disorienting braid of fascinating streets packed with fascinating distractions; when moving down lanes running between medieval buildings. This is a subtle city, and it’s easy to get lost.