The fourfold rotation of phases resembles the ritualized seasons of nature: a springlike era of growth followed by a summerlike era of jubilation, and an autumnal era of fragmentation followed by a wintery death—and regeneration. The final phase evokes the Stoics’ Ekpyrosis (or kataklysmos), the purifying and time-ending fire (or flood) that marks the great discontinuity: the end of one circle and the beginning of the next.
