There is a kind of abstract ontological figure which belongs to the (mostly latent) constitutive level of every experience. It exists in 3 or more dimensions, and it announces the various lines between what is revealed and what is unrevealed. It changes over time over both long and short durations, but at any one moment it expresses the permanent or invariant background against which events flow. When you achieve a degree of inner freedom the figure endows this with an enduring ground in your being, beyond ego, the latter being merely one of the things that pass before it. This is why you are so bewildered when like a cat's cradle it transforms and your freedom is obliterated, as if (your) being itself has changed and lost its depth. But it may be that it hasn't changed at all, but the illumination has changed and it only appears to be different, the deeper dimensions being now in shadow. Phases of the moon may be an appropriate metaphor for this kind of all too frequent loss of light.