I get what you're saying now. I think the long and short of it is that there's a chicken-and-egg problem here: Neptune begets Uranus (since one needs axioms before one can get conclusions), but Uranus begets Neptune (since one need examples to build theories from). Put another way, we can identify a "yang" pole and a "yin" pole easily enough, but yin precedes yang just as yang precedes yin—neither can be said to come "first!" So my past/future analogy confounds more than it clarifies.

One wonders if future and past are even meaningfully distinguished. For example, "north" and "south" have no meaning in any absolute sense, but rather only in relation to each other. Just like some cultures (e.g. Europe) orient themselves relative to "north" and others (e.g. China) orient themselves relative to "south," perhaps some beings orient themselves forwards in time, while others orient themselves backwards in time. These are equivalent, in the sense that it doesn't matter which direction is "up" on your map as long as you know which direction you're facing!

Perhaps the soul's choice of coordinates is what occultists mean when they talk about "involution" and "evolution?" I'll have to consider this further.