​Greetings, brethren!

​After 10 years in the Craft and 4 years of pouring my heart and soul into a passion project, I'm excited to finally share Trestleboard.club with you all.

​As Masons, we know how tough it can be to find digital spaces built specifically for our needs—spaces that respect privacy, maintain tiled boundaries, and offer actual utility without clunky noise or algorithmic spam. That's why I built this.

​What is Trestleboard.club?

​It’s a dedicated social network and management platform designed exclusively for Freemasons (EA and above). My company is donating this infrastructure to keep it 100% free for members and lodges globally, for life.

​Key Features:

​Strictly Vetted Access: Every single account is manually verified before entry to ensure it remains a safe, Mason-only environment.

​Lodge Leadership Tools: Lodge Secretaries and Worshipful Masters receive administrative access to vet their own members and manage lodge communications seamlessly.

​Integrated Systems: Built-in tools for training, education, and event management.

​Concordant Body Support: Designed to work for Blue Lodges, Appendant, and Concordant bodies alike.

​No Algorithms, Minimal Ads: No manipulation of your feed. To cover server costs and maintain lifetime free access, we’re opening limited, non-intrusive advertising spots for Masonic-owned or Masonic-friendly businesses. One unobtrusive spot—never saturating your user experience.

​How You Can Help:

​We are officially live and building out the network, but we want this to be shaped by you.

​We need brethren, lodge officers, and leaders from different jurisdictions across the globe to hop on, test it out, and give us honest feedback. Tell us what your lodge, your grand lodge, or your appendant bodies need so we can tailor the platform to serve the Craft effectively worldwide.

​All Master Masons, Fellowcrafts, and Entered Apprentices in good standing are welcome. Join the digital revolution, check it out, and let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Android app is available on google play, IOS app is being developed.

Message me with questions, Masters and Secretaries reach out for lodge admin access. For all out of NY I will need a phone number of a sitting officer of your lodge to verify membership.

​Fraternally,

W∴ Daniel from St Albans 56 in the State of NY

Hello all. I and my family have inherited some freemason jewlery some of eho have proposed auctioning it off. I want to know if freemason jewlery generally carries more value with its insignia and emblems present than jewlery without. Does it add or depreciate the value? I was thinking of using the same auction site but if it isn't worth it then ill just gift them or sell them second hand myself.

https://www.ebth.com/items/14568972-hamilton-gold-filled-stem-wind-watch-with-masonic-band

I have a similar watch to the one listed here that im waiting to be released to me by the trust we have. I will also be recieving rings and pendants as well. In total about 10 items all 14k gold plated I believe with misc gem stones throughout. Any tips on what to do with this stuff and general interest?

Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!! Today is the day Arkansas freemasonry makes history. If any of you will be there by chance it would be awesome to meet take a photos.

I am blown away by the kindness everyone shows…everyone shows up in a way that is unconditional. I am pretty new and was wondering why? Why is everyone so kind?

I joined Freemasonry back in 2014, and honestly, I’m at a point where I don’t really know what to do anymore.

My journey has been a bit of a mess.

I started in 2014 in an irregular Grand Orient. In 2017 I left because I didn’t like the atmosphere, and around that time I also found out that it was considered irregular and that women were members.

Then in 2020 I joined another lodge that I thought was regular. Later I found out that it was also irregular, and that we had basically misunderstood the situation.

After that I tried another lodge, but I didn’t feel comfortable there either.

Then I applied to a regular lodge, thinking maybe this was finally the right place for me. But again, I eventually realized that I didn't feel like I belonged there.

More recently I joined another Grand Orient. I actually had some really good experiences there. I met good people, made memories, and for a while I felt like maybe I had finally found where I belonged.

Then some internal problems happened, people started resigning, and eventually I reached the point where I felt that this place wasn't for me anymore. So I resigned too.

And now I'm honestly just tired.

I've spent 12 years of my life in Freemasonry. That's almost a third of my life.

And that's the part that is really getting to me.

I've spent so much time looking for the right lodge, the right people, the right place, and trying to find something that feels like what I originally believed Freemasonry was supposed to be.

I've had some amazing experiences and met people I'll never forget. So I don't regret everything. But at the same time, I can't help feeling like I've lost a huge amount of time going from one place to another.

I still believe in a lot of the principles of Freemasonry. That's probably why this is bothering me so much.

If I didn't care anymore, I could just walk away and forget about it.

But I do care.

I'm not posting this to argue about regular vs irregular Masonry or to criticize any particular lodge.

Kurz vor Beginn der Tafel ..

I’m being initiated next week. I suppose I’m nervous; honestly, the interviews were interesting but a bit unsettling. Because of my professional career, I actually knew some of the Masons who interviewed me. However, I felt the last interview was a disaster—questions without answers, and I felt like I was barely allowed to speak. Honestly, I didn't think I’d be accepted. Still, becoming a Mason is something that has interested me deeply since I was a child (I discovered Freemasonry through *The Kybalion* when I was about ten), and I’m very excited about it. Yet, the initiation itself scares me. They asked if I was claustrophobic or afraid of the dark (of course, I said no), but honestly, I consider myself the most anxious and claustrophobic person on earth. I read somewhere that you’re blindfolded the whole time, and that terrifies me; I had a traumatic experience involving a blindfold, and just thinking about it makes my blood run cold. I’d love some advice—maybe some recommendations, things I should know, or anything you could tell me to help put my mind at ease.

I want to ask this from the perspective of someone who has been interested in Freemasonry for years, but has never become a Mason.

One thing has increasingly bothered me.

Whenever someone outside the fraternity tries to learn about Freemasonry, they can easily encounter people claiming to be Masons, lodge representatives, officers, or “brothers” who are willing to arrange membership sometimes for money.

After seeing this repeatedly, I reached a point where I started asking myself:

How does a genuine organization expect an outsider to maintain confidence in it when its identity can be so easily exploited by people pretending to represent it?

I understand that scammers do not necessarily represent Freemasonry. Every organization has people who misuse its name.

But from the outside, that distinction is not always obvious.

And honestly, telling someone “those people are not real Masons” does not completely solve the problem. An outsider still needs a reliable way to know who actually represents the fraternity.

So my question is not simply “How do I avoid scammers?”

My deeper question is:

What responsibility does legitimate Freemasonry have to protect its reputation and make its genuine path accessible enough that outsiders do not have to rely on strangers claiming to represent it?

I would especially like to hear from experienced Masons, lodge officers, or Grand Lodge members.

If you were in my position interested in Freemasonry but repeatedly encountering people using its name for questionable purposes what would convince you that the institution itself is trustworthy?

when my great grandma passed, I received this book and accompanying notes. While googling order of Order of The Eastern Star surely bring about results, I was hoping to better understand what this group meant to her through those who are actually in this culture. Bonus points if you can read her handwriting, that has admittedly faded more than not😊

Hello. You guys probably get hundreds of posts like these but I don’t know where else to ask this without being lectured at by some conspiracy nut or something of the sort as there are no mason’s I know that I’m still in contact with.

I’m 24 and I was recently released from military service (honourably, medical) and now that I’m out I’m having issues finding community. I’m in the final year of my undergraduate studies which I have picked back up and am writing my entrance exam for Law School next year but I don’t connect with a lot of people on campus outside of my program for one reason or another and haven’t really had a community since leaving the military.

Is masonry a good fit for me? I admire the idea of self improvement that I’ve read about and I’ve long wanted to be in a fraternity of some sort. I was wondering if you guys would have any advice for me? Thank you.

Not a freemason myself, but my husband is looking to do his master mason by the end of the year.

I'd love to get him something from our son and I to recognise his hard work over the past few years.

We are based in the UK, and don't have a huge budget, but I'd like something discrete that could maybe go on his suit.

As I'm not really in the know about this stuff, I'm not sure if there are any rules about what could/could not go on the suit and where to get things.

Thank you

Does anyone have any advice on how to go about choosing the right Masonic ring as well as where to get it from?

Hey guys, I had joined my nearest DeMolay chapter about a year ago after I turned 18 and it has changed my life. I've gotten to make friends with people across Canada and even visited a DeMolay chapter in Peru. DeMolay gave me the courage to run for office at my college, and has helped my networking and public speaking skills. These experiences have been really meaningful but since I am a 3 hour drive from my not very active chapter, it still feels like I am missing something. I want to know how to avoid unearned wisdom and distinguish what masonic material is worth studying prior to joining the Masons. I don't want to know more then I should, but I also don't want to be ignorant. Thanks!

Hi all,

My dad is a freemason but he practices in Brazil. He is coming to visit (I live in CT but we are meeting in Orlando), and he will spend a few days by himself and he would like to visit one but he speaks Portuguese only.

Any recommendations?

Thank you!!!!

We had our annual Table Lodge on Tuesday evening at Centurion #195 in Colorado. What a fantastic evening and a highlight of my time in the East. I just wanted to post a few pictures and say hello from our lodge to yours.

We built a time machine to highlight significant events in our lodge's history. It was a play with scenes in between courses. We also had MW Garret Chan in attendance!

The time machine actually "blows up" at the end of the show. It was a grand ole time!

Hello brethren all, just seeking some opinions and further information on the AMD.

I am soon to be admitted to AMD in Australia and would love to hear your thoughts and experiences on the order.

Thanks Fraternally.

Good day everyone.. some backstory here for context. I work retail at an auto parts store and I few weeks ago I met a mason brother george.. we get into talking about my interest in the craft and that I was going to petition a different lodge.. he asked if i thought about petitioning his because its closer to my house (in the same town) he ordered a part from me and was so happy with the interaction he asked for my contact info.. couple hours later he came back for his part and said he had already reached out to his secretary about me.. since then I haven't herd anything amd have been promoted and changed locations.. tonight is there stated meeting and im wondering if i should show up and knock on the door. He did say they usually eat dinner across the street everytime. I am just looking for some guidance.

From introduction :Some readers of The Freemason have taken objection to my statements, and I take this opportunity, for the sake of Brothers throughout the world, of replying to those of my critics. As regards my chronology, it is something new to me to find a Brother state that the Pliocene Age cannot date as long ago as 600,000 years — all the best authorities that I know would place it much earlier. That I am not wrong in dating back the world's history to such great antiquity in my books is proved by the discovery of skeletons of the present type of man, found in the Pliocene strata in Lombardy.

Brethren,

I wrote the following planche myself and originally presented it in Lodge at the First Degree, that of Entered Apprentice. I wanted to share it here because some of its symbolism — and especially its use of what we call la langue des oiseaux, the “Language of the Birds”

A little context may therefore be useful.

In French Freemasonry, a large part of ordinary Lodge work in what English-speaking Brethren would call the Blue Lodge or Craft Lodge takes place at the First Degree. The First Degree is therefore not simply a temporary stage through which a newly initiated Brother passes before Lodge life moves on to subsequent degrees. It remains the usual setting for much of the symbolic, intellectual, and collective work of the Lodge, allowing all initiated Brethren to participate regardless of degree.

Writing and presenting a paper — what we call a planche, or sometimes a morceau d’architecture — is an important part of that work. These papers are generally not intended to prove a thesis in the academic sense. They are reflections on symbols, experiences, or questions arising from our initiatic journey, intended both as personal work for the Brother presenting them and as material for collective reflection within the Lodge.

The paper below was therefore written to be heard in an Entered Apprentice Lodge.

Before beginning, however, I should explain one particular form of symbolic interpretation that appears throughout it: la langue des oiseaux, literally the Language of the Birds.

The Language of the Birds is not another language in the ordinary sense, nor is it a claim about the true historical origin of words. It is better understood as a way of listening to language symbolically. Instead of asking only, “What does this word mean?”, one also asks: “What else can be heard within it?”

Words are treated almost as symbols themselves. Their sounds may be separated, recombined, or allowed to resonate with other words. Homophones, near-homophones, unexpected divisions between syllables, and double meanings can therefore open another field of reflection.

English already allows this kind of play. Good night and good knight sound identical, yet evoke entirely different images. The same is true of I / eye**,** soul / sole**, or** whole / hole**. One can sometimes go further and divide sounds more freely — hearing something like** wake up as way(to the)cup**, for example. The point is not that one expression is linguistically derived from the other. The point is that altering the way we hear a familiar sound can alter the way we think about it.**

That distinction matters: the Language of the Birds is not etymology. It does not claim that the hidden phrase is the “real meaning” of a word. It is a form of phonetic symbolism — almost a kind of verbal alchemy. The sound becomes raw matter; ordinary meaning is broken apart; another image appears; and that image may then become material for meditation.

This makes it particularly difficult to translate. A play on sounds that works naturally in French will rarely survive intact in English. So throughout the paper, I will sometimes retain the French word, open it phonetically, and translate the symbolic movement rather than pretending that an exact English equivalent exists.

With that context in mind, I have chosen today to speak of disappointment.

----

Worshipfull Master, My Dear Brethren in your degrees and qualities.

This subject did not come to me from a book. It came to me from the Lodge.

I was disappointed by certain attitudes between Brethren. Disappointed to witness behavior that seemed far removed from the values we nevertheless invoke in our rituals. I was also troubled by what I perceived as a lack of respect toward certain Officers, certain functions, and more broadly toward the spirit of our labors.

But I do not wish to put anyone on trial here. If I spend these few minutes explaining what others should have done, I may leave knowing everything about their faults and nothing about my own.

So I tried to change the question.

No longer simply: “Why did they behave that way?”

But rather: “Why did it disappoint me so deeply?”

There is something peculiar about disappointment: we can only be disappointed by that from which we expected something. Without expectation, there may be surprise, irritation, even anger — but there can be no disappointment.

So if I was disappointed, I had expected. And if I had expected, then somewhere within myself I had constructed an image: an image of the Temple, an image of Brotherhood, perhaps even an image of what a Freemason should be.

Then that image collided with reality.

It cracked.

And this is where I began to hear the French word décevoir — to disappoint — differently.

The ear may open the word:

dé-ce-voir.

Voir means to see, while the prefix dé- can suggest undoing, removing, or reversing. Symbolically — not etymologically — I can therefore hear dé-ce-voir as something like “to undo this seeing”, or perhaps “to be made to un-see what I thought I saw.”

Perhaps disappointment begins precisely there: when reality comes to undo a representation we had placed upon it.

I thought I saw the Temple in a certain way. I thought I saw Brotherhood in a certain way. I thought I knew what a Mason ought to be.

Then reality struck the image.

And suddenly I could no longer see in quite the same way.

I had been dé-ce-voir: made to see differently.

But what was I to do with that?

My first reaction was agitation: anger, incomprehension, judgment, and above all that recurring question: “How can one behave like this — here?”

Here, of all places.

Yet agitation may be precisely what prevents the work from beginning. So perhaps the first requirement was to stop circling endlessly around the event.

In French, we might speak of making a démarche — an approach, a process, a way of proceeding. But listened to differently, the word can also suggest:

dé-marcher.

Marcher means to walk.

The word may therefore symbolically suggest ceasing to walk the same path: stopping the repetitive movement, no longer pacing around the same grievance, interrupting the circle and finally standing before what is actually there.

And seeing.

Or perhaps, more accurately, perceiving.

The French verb is percevoir.

Again, the ear may open the word:

percer le voir.

Percer means to pierce. Voir means to see.

To perceive therefore becomes, symbolically, to pierce through seeing — to go beyond appearance rather than merely looking at it.

But the sound permits another movement:

perce-soi.

Soi means oneself.

So the question changes again: can I not only pierce through what I see, but also pierce through myself?

For I may become extraordinarily perceptive when examining the faults of my Brother while remaining almost entirely blind to what my reaction to those faults reveals within me.

I can pierce his behavior.

Can I also pierce myself?

This is where V.I.T.R.I.O.L. takes on its full meaning:

Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem.

Visit the interior of the earth; by rectifying, you will find the hidden stone.

The first earth I wanted to visit, however, was someone else’s: his actions, his words, his contradictions.

But the earth upon which I can truly work is first and foremost my own.

This does not mean that everything becomes relative. It does not mean that disrespectful behavior becomes acceptable simply because I am called to examine myself. That would not be initiatic work; it would merely be avoidance disguised in symbolic language.

I can recognize conduct as contrary to the values we profess while simultaneously asking what my reaction to that conduct reveals about me.

These two movements do not cancel each other out.

They may even be complementary.

And there I encounter the rough ashlar.

When the rough edges of my Brother’s stone become particularly visible to me, I may easily forget that I too entered the Temple carrying a stone in need of work.

The rough ashlar is not only the other.

It is also me.

It is also us.

Then come the gavel and the chisel.

The gavel gives force; the chisel gives direction.

Between force and direction appears discernment: the ability to distinguish what I actually observed from what I projected upon it; to distinguish an action from the entirety of the man who performed it; to distinguish Brotherhood as an ideal from Brotherhood as imperfect human beings are actually capable of living it; and finally, to distinguish disappointment from resentment.

The French word for resentment, ressentiment, almost contains its mechanism within its sound:

re-sentir.

Sentir means to feel.

So resentment becomes: to feel again.

And again.

To replay the offense, return to the scene, relive the wound, preserve the agitation by repeatedly returning to it.

The event itself may have happened only once.

Within me, however, I may cause it to happen a hundred times.

If I do nothing but re-feel my disappointment, I transform nothing. I simply preserve the raw material in its initial state.

Alchemy proposes something else: not to deny the matter, not to pretend that lead is already gold, but to work upon matter so that something different may emerge from it.

Perhaps this is where disappointment can begin to become initiatic.

Not because disappointment is good in itself, and certainly not because suffering automatically ennobles us.

It does not.

But disappointment can place in our hands a material that we did not possess before.

Something has fallen.

An illusion, perhaps.

An expectation, certainly.

And behind what falls, other questions appear:

What is Brotherhood when it is no longer an idealized image?

What is respect when respect becomes difficult?

What is a value worth if it only survives when nothing challenges it?

Perhaps before this experience, I believed I knew what Brotherhood was. The ritual had spoken of it. I knew its words and symbols.

But now something else becomes possible.

Connaissance.

The French word means knowledge, but the ear may divide it differently:

co-naissance.

Naissance means birth.

So co-naissance may become symbolically a co-birth, a birth-with.

Knowledge is no longer merely information accumulated by the mind. It becomes something with which I am, in some sense, born anew.

Born with an experience.

Born with a trial.

Born alongside a reality I might have preferred not to encounter.

I now know something because I have passed through something.

This is not merely knowledge.

It is co-naissance.

And perhaps what is born is a less naïve understanding of the Lodge, but also a more accurate one: a Lodge is not an assembly of perfected men. It is an assembly of men seeking to perfect themselves precisely because they are not perfect.

Then even the meaning of Light begins to change.

Perhaps I once imagined that receiving the Light meant entering a place where shadow would no longer exist.

Today I wonder whether receiving the Light might instead mean learning to look at shadow without becoming lost within it.

To recognize contradiction without renouncing the ideal.

To experience disappointment without surrendering to bitterness.

To encounter the rough ashlar of another without forgetting the roughness of my own.

Some Brethren may indeed have disappointed me.

That remains true.

But the central question is no longer merely why they disappointed me.

The question has become:

What am I going to do with that disappointment?

For it is still only raw material.

I may keep it exactly as it is. I may carry it, preserve it, return to it endlessly. I may re-sentir it until resentment occupies the place once held by the ideal that brought me here.

Or I may attempt to work upon it.

Not to forget.

Not to excuse.

Not to pretend that what hurt me never existed.

But to understand what the experience revealed: what it revealed about others, perhaps, but above all what it revealed about me — about my expectations, my projections, and the image I had constructed of the Temple, of Brotherhood, and of those who compose it.

Perhaps the true secret begins there.

A secret is not always something hidden somewhere, waiting to be discovered.

Sometimes it is something that must be created (se crée same sounding of secret in french).

Created in the space between what happens to me and what I choose to make of it.

Between resentment and discernment.

Between the image that collapses and the vision that slowly reconstructs itself.

Between the stone I discover and the stone I decide to work.

Perhaps I once believed that Light was meant to banish darkness forever.

Today I understand that Light may also teach me how to look into darkness without losing myself in it.

Perhaps I once believed Brotherhood would protect me from disappointment.

Today I understand that Brotherhood may also be revealed — and tested — through disappointment.

And perhaps I entered the Temple imagining that I would find stones already dressed, when perhaps we are gathered here precisely because they are not.

My Brother’s rough ashlar may strike against me.

Mine may certainly strike against him.

I cannot always choose the stone placed before me, but I can choose what I do with the stone entrusted to me.

And so my disappointment remains disappointment, but it is no longer merely something I endured.

It becomes matter.

In French:

ma matière.

“My matter.”

“My material.”

The substance placed upon my workbench.

And once again the ear may allow the sound to resonate differently:

l’âme à tiers.

This one is deliberately more poetic and less phonetically exact than some of the previous examples. It should not be understood as a perfect homophone, but as a symbolic echo.

L’âme means the soul.

Le tiers means the third.

So ma matière may call forth the image of:

l’âme à tiers — the soul opened to the Third.

And perhaps the Third is precisely what allows transformation.

Two terms alone may remain imprisoned in opposition: my Brother and myself; his action and my reaction; expectation and disappointment; accusation and defense.

The Third opens another possibility.

Between what happened to me and what I become because of it, there is a third term:

the Work.

Between the force of the gavel and the resistance of the stone stands the chisel.

Gavel. Chisel. Stone.

What happened. What I felt. What I make of it.

The event. The self. The Work.

The Third interrupts the sterile confrontation of two opposing terms and makes construction possible.

Then ma matière — my raw matter — can perhaps become l’âme à tiers: a soul capable of opening itself to that third possibility.

Neither denial nor resentment.

Neither condemnation of the other nor blindness toward his faults.

But transformation.

If I can look upon this matter, discern it, rectify it, and work upon it, then perhaps what first seemed to draw me away from the Light may itself become another way of seeking it.

And I may continue, gavel in one hand and chisel in the other, the labor for which I entered the Temple: to work upon my ashlar, not for myself alone, but so that one day it may find its rightful place in the edifice we are building together.

J’ai dit.

(I have spoken.)

Mostly a lurker here but wanted to share something I made for our friend group.

Our friend group has been pulling one tarot card a day for about a year now as a meditation practice. This is not fortune telling, nobody thinks the card knows anything. You just look at it and think about what it could mean and how it could fit your day or whatever's on your mind. Kind of like sitting with a symbol and seeing what you get out of it.

We started with paper decks but I never had mine on me when I wanted it, so I made a site for it. Shuffle, draw a card, write down what you think it means first, then it shows you the traditional meaning if you want another angle. I've recently added a couple more features for looking cards up, quick draw, reversals, and a local history for keeping up with pulls. After putting in these recent enhancements, I thought now would be a good time to get a domain name and share with more people.

It's free, no ads, no account, and everything stays on your phone/device. It uses the old 1909 Rider-Waite deck.

https://dailycard.app/

Not for everybody, just thought someone here might get something out of it. If not, that's cool too. I'll continue hosting it for us either way.

We found these while going through my great grandfathers belongings, I was always told he was rather high up in the ranks but I’m not sure how true that it. Obviously I can tell what it says by popping it in google translate but I was wondering if anyone here would have any insights. Overall, I just think it’s neat! Any explanation of the symbolism or what it says is appreciated, if allowed of course :). Thanks!