The Holding Pen of the Calf is the ordering principle by which The Eight Angels are balanced against one another. Each angel, the Herd teaches, can enchant reality on its own, but only in a diluted, ruinous form: Madness unchecked dissolves the structures that allow for nourishment and growth; each faculty, alone, curdles. The Holding Pen is the design within which the passions are held in intelligent relation, so that they enliven rather than destroy. It is associated with the body of the Calf itself — the metaphysical boundary, or Severity, that contains the angels' energies.