November 1st 2012
In the midst of one of Nature's wilder moments with this three-way weather system that has just pounded the East coast, I came to questioning "The Mother" about the why's and wherefore's of such a happening, since "Mother" is the Guardian of Form and therefore of all things material. (It is worth noting here that the Latin word for mother is "Mater" which gives rise to many of our words that have to do with form and foundation: material, materialism, matrix, as well as of course maternal, matriarchy and matrilinear.) It would seem that we have a very casual, superficial and somewhat ignorant relationship with The Mother, mostly based on the idea that we can control "her". Qabalah teaches the limiting, pruning principle of Geburah as a complimentary and balance to the expansive, building principal of Chesed.
My initial question was: does Mother discipline? (I don't really like or believe in the concept of punishment.) The answer: "Mother teaches. But the curriculum may be vaster than you think." So then I questioned all this low pressure, low millibars weather system. The message: "Mother periodically gathers up all the negative energy and expels it." But the word "expel" also contained a concept of breathing or breathing out AND and a concept of sweeping up or sweeping clean. Then I questioned: what is negative? The answer: "the unworked, unaccessed, unused, hidden, buried, unconscious, underground, unknown, dark (matter)." This had the distinct feel of Krishnamurti's statement: "Evil is that in the universe that you don't understand and don't have a name for." Next question: does Mother choose when to expel? The answer: "it is an interactive process". Basically, there is a building up and expelling process. It is the way the physical plane works and always has worked. Synchronistically, which still never ceases to amaze me, I was later on in the day reading "Blackfoot Physics" by F. David Peat, who is himself a physicist. He makes this statement in the book: "Even our own Western science has its trickster: entropy, or disorder. Thermodynamics tells us that for nature to continue in her work, she must metaphorically defecate. In scientist's terms the overall entropy of the system and its environment must increase or, to put it another way, if we insist upon generating order, this can only be done at the expense of creating disorder somewhere else." And that's science, not spirituality!
With our limited concepts of order and its effects, must one not then be cautious? It's all about the balance of polarising forces which we need to continue to learn about. There are many teachings and systems prevalent that do not pay enough attention to the concept of balance, but focus rather on the concept of control: mind control, physical control, religious control, control of diet, weight, finances, health, education, relationship, job, prosperity, ad infinitum and ad nauseam. Consider rather the advice of The Tao Te Ching:"When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other." (Tae Te Ching, Stanza 2)
The discipline put into control needs to go more toward focus, observation and understanding, instead of what might be termed "mindless control" based on ignorance or shortsightedness. It is a practice for all of us and there are no shortcuts, except for some all embracing, all-consuming experience of love which mostly we still seem to be very far away from. In the meantime, we had better start wrapping our minds around the concept of "entropy" and reading signs (the gifts of The Mother or Mother communicating with us), rather than attempting an exclusive practice of control.