Reflecting on this now. I listening to it on a road trip that lasted from Outer Banks to Virginia, and just remembering that brings it all back. But what stands out is the through the rap and perspective the play is alchemy in that it takes the historical story (the objective story) and through the magic of the rap as 1st person, also make the play subjective, so that you feel you are Hamilton. The metaphor is I am Hamilton; I am not Hamilton. By holding these to contradiction together as One art, the play becomes an energy generating power play that is transformative. This is the true healing of the wound of separation…through art as metaphor.

Metaphor in art creates a transcending unity that includes both 3rd person (IT) and first person (I am). This is why Joseph Campbell kept saying religion and myth are metaphor. When Jesus is seen as metaphor the 3rd person (Jesus is a historical IT) and the 1st person I am are held together as a tension that is energy generative and creative….this energy is available for the break through or realization, the energy a rocket ship needs to break free of earth gravity.

The gravity of earth (metaphor) is that everything comes in pairs of opposites and through our survival logic we have to choose from one of the two. But healing of the wound of separation of the two that can’t be One comes through the alchemical power of Metaphor that holds two contradictory but mutually dependent reality or view together. The two incompatible views or realties are 1st person and 3rd person. I am that I am is first person. Everything is an IT is third person. The metaphor transcends duality and creates a mediator the unites the two opposing points of view. So the metaphor is Hamilton is: I am Hamilton (I feel the life of Hamilton as my own life) and I am not Hamilton because he existed in another time and place. The metaphor is ambiguous;; the two that is One. You are the ONE that is both first and third person…that is both I AM as the creator of the universe, and I as an IT that is created by the universe. I am creator/created….and that is liberation from the gravity of earth.