A face is essentially two eyes to see with, a mouth to breathe, eat and speak with, a nose to breathe and smell with. The ears for hearing are on the side. Or a face is essentially two eyes to be seen with, a mouth to kiss someone’s hand and a nose to breathe and smell with (though it is not much good at either). The organs are divided into two – eyes, ears, nostrils – only the mouth is one. One might say that one is enough. Children place their thumb in their mouth when they are little, and that is why the reverse of “mouth” is “thumb”. These four forward-facing circles form the letter Y.

Meanwhile, in language, we are subject to the passions and may lose our “temper”. For this, we should “repent”. “Anger” is a “gangrene” and eats away at us, like another illness, “cancer”. They share the same letters (phonetic pair g-k/c). When we “repent” of our sins, the idea is not to “repeat” them, so in a way “repent” and “repeat” are opposites; a-n is not a pair so much as a progression. But there is also a cycle in life in the seasons: “winter” spells “rewind”, “summer” is “resume”. Each individual is a line, but creation is cyclical as God waits for our repentance. The same can be said of the I/the eye. When the eye is closed, it is a straight line (I), but when it opens, it forms a circle (O) – it counts down (1 to 0). We saw this with “live” and “love”. The same is true of “sin” – when the eyes are opened, we repent and “sin” gives way to “son”.