What is the God-Force doing in and with Creation? How does Creation come about? What is the function of Nature as an expression of the God-Force? What exactly is going on here that you might need to put some thought into?

You all know what it is like to have your head full of theories and ideas that keep swimming around but never actually take shape. Well, frankly, it can drive you crazy. But, since nothing is taking shape, there is really nothing to do or say or experience, and maybe also nothing to live on! (The latter can often be the catalyst to actually doing something,) You might be called an "idle dreamer". You might be said to have "a lot of potential". Your friends and relatives might also get tired of your theories and wish you'd stop thinking and talking, and do something. They might also worry about your inability to create a physical platform for yourself. In Tarot, we say that you need to get your Magician upright and begin to live. You need to take up time, space and existence in the world. You also need to learn to use the resources at hand, pictured on the Tarot Magician card in the symbols of the four suits: cups, wands, swords, and pentacles, usually on the table in front of the Magician. You need to take all of the energy and ideas on the inside i.e. your creative potential and do something with it. You could say that you need to turn yourself inside out.

When "God" created the universe, He did just that. He took his creative potential and turned Himself inside out. He brought Himself out to the surface where He (also She and It) could be seen and experienced. In Genesis, it says "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." In Qabalistic language, God-the-Unmanifest becomes manifest. No-thingness becomes some-thingness. Nothing becomes something. There is a Latin phrase that says: "Ex nihil omnes est", from nothing everything emerges. Creation is the Creator turned inside out. The Big Bang is the Creator exploding from nothing i.e the unmanifest into the billions of parts of creation, so that we can see and experience both them and the God-Force. It is the externalisation of the Creator's consciousness. It is God-in-action, God in diversity, God in everything. What a stupendous feat!

Creation, of which Nature is a part, including us humans, or homo sapiens, shows us the face of the Creator or the God-Force which otherwise we should not be able to look upon. "Look upon the face of God and die", so the saying goes. The voltage is too high! Admittedly, there are aspects of Nature that can scare you to death also. Not everything in Nature is sunny days or quiet woodland haunts. But Nature is a language you can learn to understand. It is a technology through which you can begin to see and experience the diverse aspects of the God-Force. It embodies the principles of the Creator in his Creation. It is the meeting place of mysticism and science.

Nature has much to show and teach you, if you could only take the time to observe and experience. It is not just a backdrop for your own self indulgence, not just one big, enormous factory or playground, put out there for the benefit of the now dominant species, humans. You can learn to work with the language and experience of animals and birds; plants and trees; rocks, rivers and raging storms; mountains and meadows; desert, tundra and oceans. You can see the God-Force in action. In the experiences of Nature, you can begin to find your own healing and wholeness, as well as a reconnection with your Divine Source. Many powerful spiritual and shamanic practices engage the forces of Nature in ways that we are not used to in Western society and often feel threatened by. But healing and wholeness is available within these and other explorations of Nature. Last week in this email missive and in the subsequent class, we explored the Shekinah, the Presence of the God-Force up close and personal. We humans need to recognize this presence in Nature, otherwise we are prone to disregarding it and seeing it as merely an appendage to our own existence. This is at best a fragmented perception and at worst hugely ignorant and destructive. Recognizing the Presence of God in all things not only teaches you respect; it teaches you wholeness. It begins to heal the fractured psyche and the fractured world, which are one and the same. Nature is a part of the God expression. It is a part of the whole. It is a part of you. You are a part of it