She suggests that the experience of one thing in terms of another, the isophor, is the means by which we map domain to domain and that our consciousness of this meta-action, when we observe ourselves experiencing this, lies at the heart of cognition. She has postulated the development of an epistemology of newness in which learning is the perception of newness and cognition depends on a disposition for wonder leading to this domain of conception-perception interactions. She argues that the notion of metaphor is commonly understood to mean the description of one thing in terms of another. This notion presupposes an objective reality. Symbols are the powers that resist change or open the way to creative change when it is needed.
Symbols are, in fact, metaphoric events that arise through the poetic powers of the human species.
This reification of the higher order realities that are mediated in symbolization is the peculiar idolatry of the modern age. With all their promise, Western symbols have revealed their corruption. To transcend the crisis of Western spirituality and the imminent destruction of non-Western peoples, at least on the level of understanding and ideology, a new paradigm and spiritual foundation are required. Metaphors are bridges that order the nature of our collective and individual humanity. Metaphor provides the reality to the pattern language of thought for it is the mechanism of ordering newness.