I can in context see what you mean, about tamping formless things down to one symbol, down to a form, and how that reduction breaks off other possible meanings, the way one might strip branches from a twig.

The reduction is real, but I'm not sure that I think of it as a breaking. I feel like there's no reason why the entire rest of the becoming shouldn't still be going on around you while you pin one aspect of it--more like catching one snowflake from a storm of thousands than holding a snowglobe.