The role that causality plays in our culture has its counterpart in the role played by analogy among the Meso-Americans. Causality is open, successive, and more or less infinite: a cause produces an effect, which in turn engenders another. Analogy or correspondence, by contrast, is close and cyclical: the phenomena evolve and are repeated as in a play of mirrors. Each image changes, fuses with its contrary, disengages itself, forms another image, and in the end returns to the starting point. Rhythm is the agent of change in this case. The key expressions of change are, as in poetry, metamorphosis and mask.
Octavio Paz, Laughter and Penitence
I thought that happiness was mine
Dressed in silk and drinking wine.
Now I’m face to face with me,
I look around, and suddenly
I’ve changed—yes I have—
I’m a brand new beggar.
I’ve changed—
I’m a brand new beggar.
“Brand New Beggar”