Pneuma

A great many comments about this song are essentially correct, but I would like put a finer point on a few things coming from someone who has nearly identical philosophical / spiritual beliefs as Maynard (et al).

"We are spirit bound to this flesh We go round one foot nailed down"

Pretty straightforward; we are spirits partially manifested into a 'fleshy' physical form. 'One foot nailed down' refers to the relative limitations of being in this level of reality.

"But bound to reach out and beyond this flesh Become Pneuma"

But there is an inherent drive to not stagnate which (eventually) manifests as 'reaching out' into spiritual seeking, or 'remembering' as Tool sometimes refers to it as.

"We are will and wonder Bound to recall, remember [...] Child, wake up [..] Bound to this flesh This guise, this mask This dream Wake up remember"

The speaker begs the listener to remember that we are in fact all one being experiencing Itself subjectively. 'Child' is a figurative term that is actually referring to anyone who has not remembered the nature of reality, not a literal infant.

'This guise this mask' is another metaphor for our minds and bodies manifested into this physical reality.

"We are born of one breath, one word We are all one spark, sun becoming"

This refers to the 'beginning' and 'end' of creation, or to translate it into scientific terms, the big bang and the big crunch. This represents the inhale and exhale of the creation.

I know this song meaning will be hard to swallow for many atheist / agnostic Tool fans. I should know - I used to be one of them. But now that I have remembered all of this, this song becomes too hyper-specific to be a coincidence or be some abstract psychedelic trip.

It's very difficult to explain this to someone who has no context for this.Plato's Allegory of the Cave is the perfect analogy for my difficulty: It's nearly impossible to describing what it's like being outside the cave to someone that only knows the shadows cast on the wall.