EZEKIEL SAW A WHEEL . . . .

“Ezekiel saw the wheel, way up in the middle of the air.”
(Negro spiritual)

Actually, he saw two wheels, one inside the other (Ezekiel 1:16). When two wheels are set inside each other they are made to turn together, in the same direction, in harmony. And Ezekiel tells us that where the living creatures went, the wheels went. These wheels are united inside one another, turning in the same direction, with similar purpose. Working together favors life.

In contrast, William Blake wrote, in his poem “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time” (second stanza only presented here):
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
What mill wheels did he reference? It is generally thought that he spoke of a wheel outside of a wheel, as found in an industrial mill of his day: the two wheels in opposition to each other. In this arrangement, one wheel turns the other by inter-meshing cogs. These two wheels are divided in space, direction of rotation and purpose. And this image he found “Satanic”.

The word “control” literally means to roll against. It is interesting that as a mechanical principle, opposing wheels are excellent forms of control. But as a metaphor for a culture, or a person, it suggests that sometime after Ezekiel, man began to see himself as turning, not with the forces of creation and God, but against it.