A Mason's Work

At the systemic level, the Fellow Craft begins to see how all learning connects. This episode explores the architecture of understanding — how knowledge, skill, and experience integrate into a coherent structure. True mastery emerges not from accumulation, but from alignment: when what you know, what you do, and who you are begin to support one another like the stones of a well-built temple.
🔑 Key Takeaways
  • Systemic understanding is the craft of integrating new knowledge into existing frameworks.
  • Mastery depends on harmony — aligning thought, action, and awareness.
  • The Fellow Craft’s wisdom is architectural: each insight supports the structure of the whole.
💬 Featured Quotes
  • 0:00:13 — “In the Fellow Craft degree, as in all of Masonry, there’s a behavioral, relational, and philosophical perspective.”
  • 0:00:25 — “At the systemic level, the Fellow Craft’s perspective is really about integration.”
  • 0:00:49 — “You take new information and add it to the repository of what you already know.”
  • 0:01:03 — “You’re constantly testing what you know versus what you’re learning — integrating new skill into the existing set.”
Dynamic Inserts

Creators and Guests

Host
Brian Mattocks
Host and Founder of A Mason's Work - a podcast designed to help you use symbolism to grow. He's been working in the craft for over a decade and served as WM, trustee, and sat in every appointed chair in a lodge - at least once :D

What is A Mason's Work?

In this show we discuss the practical applications of masonic symbolism and how the working tools can be used to better yourself, your family, your lodge, and your community. We help good freemasons become better men through honest self development. We talk quite a bit about mental health and men's issues related to emotional and intellectual growth as well.

At level three of the sort of telegraph, and this is more of a systemic broader philosophical interpretation, you know, we've talked about in the

Enter apprentice Mace's degree as well as the telegraph Mace's degree and throughout the resembles a free masonry there may be a behavioral perspective or a relational perspective and then more of a philosophical systemic perspective.

In the telegraph case, the systemic perspective is really about integration. And so as you acquire information or knowledge of any sort, there is a integrative process where you take that information and you add it to the sort of repository, if you will, the list of stuff you already know.

You are testing what you know already versus what you're learning in the process and back and forth in vice versa to figure out how the new information you're getting and the new skill you're developing integrates to the existing set.

As that integration sort of happens, a couple of wonderful things will emerge. One of the things that will happen fairly quickly is you'll begin to see parallels between what it is you're learning and the things you've already learned.

So you'll begin to find the similarities between, you know, playing different instruments or you'll be, you know, begin to find the similarities between whole domains of different experiences.

So, you know, if you are working in a service based business, for example, you'll find that there is a lot more similarities between plumbing and insurance than you might expect.

Some of those kind of emergent properties of sameness, again, will emerge through the fellow craft sort of cycle of integrating new knowledge.

And what will happen there as well as you take on that sort of external understanding and relationships and the sort of feedback process behavioral stuff.

You'll start to really begin to build a meaningful approach to this integration and stints of this where you are setting the foundation for the creation of new knowledge.

So it's about reconciling what you're picking up as you learn and develop and creating that foundation for opportunity. Now you may remember in the last episode we talked a little bit about finding your voice and what happens when you start to really begin to understand the role of the work kind of in the environment.

You begin to develop and cultivate a bit of a personality and that kind of thing.

The same thing is true here at this level, except for what you're really talking about when you're talking about finding your voice at this systemic level or the philosophical level is you're talking about your sort of role in the world.

You find your role in the world through all of the different works that you undertake.

Now you may find that for example as you learn a new skill, this is not something you want to do.

You have zero interest in it long term, but you need to acquire the skill for the short term because you know there's some important outcome you're trying to drive to.

But at the systemic level for a lot of these skills, again, as you cultivate that voice and that sort of deeper understanding that comes with that integration.

You begin to understand as well how you can express yourself through the work and how the work expresses itself through you.

It is a process that is that is a two way street.

And again, with the fellow craft kind of whole model, you're really talking about understanding that relationship will give more into master Mason sort of approach to things about how perfection and how new knowledge generation really starts to take hold.

But in the context of the fellow craft Mason's approach or perspective, you're really getting to that.

That finding your voice and reconciling the existing knowledge base through the stuff you already know or the new information that you're taking in as a fellow craft through what you already know.

And synthesizing that information in a way in a context that you understand and have value for that's largely what you're going to be doing at kind of a level three interpretation of the fellow craft Mason's perspective.