When our first daughter was born we were given a poem by George MacDonald that starts out with "Where do you come from, baby dear? Out of the Everywhere into the Here." "Everywhere" is a somewhat nebulous but very magical place. It is also an all-inclusive term for everything that isn't "Here", and one that Science says "prove it!" Well! It can in a manner of speaking be proven. You are not in New York are you? No. You are not in San Francisco are you? No. Well, if you are not in New York or San Francisco, then you must be someplace else. Yes. If you are some place else then you are not here. Ha-Ha, science! But for those of us that believe in "Everywhere", then that is also where we go when we leave "Here". Everywhere is Nowhere that we can see in this world!

"Everywhere" is also "Nowhere" in Qabalistic language. Qabalah speaks of the Universe as Manifestation emerging from "the Unmanifest" (aspect) of the Godhead, also called "Negative Light". I think that this is a bit like science's "dark matter" which seems to account for most of the universe. You, of course, can't see it but it seems to be having a huge effect. In spiritual terms, you might associate the everywhere/nowhere concept or negative light of your existence with names like karma, the unconscious, past/parallel lives, other dimensions, parallel universes. Charque and I have even called it "the underworld" of your mind. That isn't completely original either. In Nordic cosmology, they talk of the nine worlds existing on three levels of consciousness: the gods, the world, and the underworld.

Last week we explored taking up ownership...of self, your life, your world. This week I would add to this the idea of taking up ownership of your everywhere/nowhere, bigger, multidimensional self which also means ownership of your karma, your unconscious, your past/parallel lives etc. The Justice card in Tarot is about alignment with that self and taking responsibility for or correcting past misperceptions. In the first Tarot deck that we ever used, (the Aquarian Deck and Palladini's first deck), the Justice card is pictured with only one pan of the scales visible. The teaching here is that you don't necessarily see or know what it is that you are a balancing against. But it is surely there....as sure as the existence that you are conscious of and are seeing.

Baby grows up into adult self. Growing up means taking up ownership. Babies are subject to control. They are subject to the teaching of the Hierophant in Tarot, which at its best provide guidelines, but at its worst pronounces rules that are absolute. Babies are also protected. Protection and nurturing come under the domain of the Empress card in Tarot. The Empress both seeks to birth, as well as nurture the birthing process, whatever it is, and it isn't always about birthing babies. But following the birthing and nurturing of the immature, juvenile but emerging being, comes the adult ownership of that being. That is the Emperor in Tarot. Your formative years or time are over. You are now what you have become. That is what you have to work with. That is what you need to own. It is all a product of your own free will choices as a soul, based on your past life desires and judgements. It isn't anyone else's responsibility: no saviours, no rules or institutions, no mamas, no one to hide under or to blame. Ultimately you have to take ownership of the everywhere/nowhere of self, of light and negative light, of the seen and the hidden, of the conscious and the unconscious. It is an exciting prospect, but also one we all tend to balk at....too many judgements in the mind, too many misconceptions producing too much ignorance, in turn producing too much fear, or too much anger and victimhood. These are all symptoms of the disease we have to work to heal. To quote TS Eliot:

"The wounded surgeon plies the steel,
That questions the distempered parts.
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart"
(from "The Four Quartets: East Coker".)