Adjustment

*This post was originally written 5/6/2011 and never posted as I was still contemplating and playing with it. I found it recently and it syncs with life both outwardly and inwardly right now so I thought it was time to put it out there! Here we go...

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Let's explore some words, looking at their etymology and meanings we've derived from symbols in previous posts.

Maat = the creative divine feminine order

Weighed = moved, lifted, carried, a vessel/carriage

Heart = center, middle

Against = opposite, toward

Feather = wings (breath, scent, sense, faculty of perception, to travel, know, feel, journey, to go), rush, fly, drive back or down, petition, seek, go forward, pray, request or require, desire, wish


under- = beneath, between or among

-world = mankind, human existence

law = layer, measure, to put down (lay)

judgement = discern, separate, divide, perceive

I've had judgment and the underworld on the brain. I'm attempting to dive deeper into the meaning of Maat weighing the heart against her feather. I think this is commonly interpreted as a comparison of the purity (lightness) of the heart with that of a feather, but this has me imagine the scenario similar to facing judgement before the pearly gates of heaven. This traditional image is just unsatisfactory to me. I find myself wondering, "Why? and What for? What purpose does this serve in the natural order of things?" So I've started breaking down the meaning of the words to get a bigger picture that can be interpreted in more ways, as for some reason having more questions, and having more options of paths to run down is what brings me peace and understanding. So here is one such scenario I have come up with so far:

The feminine divine ordering principle of the universe (Maat) : carried (weighed) the wish (feather) toward and from (against) one's center (heart).

To me, using these alternate words brings new meaning to the symbol. A symbol of the law of creation, that what we dwell on we also dwell in. That what we see, think, feel, and do is informing an inner part of us on what to make manifest.

"When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those to love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true"

*Interesting that the above song is from Disney's Pinocchio, about a wooden boy who longs to be REAL and his nose grows when he tells a lie/untruth.

By the way, I'm not saying that the above IS the meaning, or is THE meaning, but as usual I am just exploring meanings and possibilities surrounding Maat, the goddess of Truth.

What we deem as "true" is what we perceive as real, something that appears well formed, accurately shaped, and as steadfast and true as a tree. Truth is an exchange of faithfulness. Because the truth has proven to be faithful/constant we believe and trust in the truth, which perpetuates the truth, and the cycle continues. In fact, the FACTs that we believe are true, are really actions, events, occurrences, doings, experiences, and even "evil" deeds that have taken place. Evil is bad and wicked. But BAD is just being inferior in quality. When we look at the hierarchy in the process of creation: inspired from the all pervading mindstuff, to feeling, to thought and finally to the physical/material (as expressed by the Tetragrammaton), the material is actually just the lowest, most inferior piece of the puzzle. Below the superior inspiration and design. Wicked is a word derived from wizard. A magician uses the divine principles of creation to bring wishes into form. We are all wizards, witches and magicians, most of us are just casting our spells unconsciously. So a fact is a magical act.

The universe was created when god spoke. So what god had to say was really important to what was to be formed.  What are you saying in your own life? It's interesting that the word "addiction" means devotion, tendencies, habits. You could call it ritual. Even more revealing is that it comes from "ad- "to" + dicere "say, declare". This is important, because it shows that anything that you devote yourself to is an "addiction", it is what you continually, habitually perform, think, hold dear and thus becomes what you are saying because it yields results in the formation of your life.

We create our universe, and yet what we have created is simultaneously creating us.  I was looking at trees (trues?) the other day, thinking about how the direction they grow is based upon their environment - the way the wind blows, what is blockading them from growth in a certain place - such as a structure of some sort, dependent on the quality of the soil where they are located, how much sunlight and rain they take in, etc. But trees influence their environment too, their growth changes the landscape, their life creates oxygen which is crucial to the life of all other things.  We are the same way, we grow where the energy flows, if there is a blockage of some sort, our growth is stunted in that area and we will grow in another. Growth doesn't always imply a "betterment" either, it's just a building upon wherever the most energy is placed. Yet we are creating and shaping our environment all of the time too. There you have it, you are as divine as a tree. That's the truth.

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Food for thought. It's 2017 and I'm contemplating this all once more. Questions I'm facing are - Where have my "facts" that inform my life come from? What is my source? Have I learned from experience, by action and work? Or have I only listened and read the experience of others and attempted to create based not on my own physical, first hand, inner knowing but on the truth of others?
To be continued...

the element of water: a reflection

"...Water shows us through science that our thoughts have an effect on our external reality. Imagine the possibilities when people realize their own potential for creativity..." Deepak Chopra

We are all, at the very least, partially aware of the pollution and destruction of our most precious resource. And most of us have heard that our body's water content mimics the Earth's own composition. I think most of us learned in elementary school that there is a certain amount of water on our planet and it follows a certain cycle. And we know that all living things on the Earth need some amount of water for survival. These are the basics of water, of which we take for granted most of the time, but there are many other qualities of water that most of us are not conscious of. The documentary Water: The Great Mystery probes the common element further, with insights from researchers and scientists from all over the world who are finding and showing many facets of water that we did not see before. Most intriguing to me is that water has memory, contains information, and it is something that we all share.

Dr. Gabriel Cousens touches on the work of a number of scientific researchers that support the statements of the above mentioned documentary in his book Spiritual Nutrition. In summary he states that "water: (1) can carry both positive and negative information; (2) has a memory; (3) has a memory that can be erased; and (4) can transfer that vibrational information." Dr. Cousens goes on to write about the "Cosmic Meaning of Water":
  "In essence, water is like the Divine Presence in living creatures. It vibrates within all life as the blood of Nature that takes on many forms: a glass of water, the vast oceans, turbulent mountain streams, or even the blood in our bodies. Water and life are synonymous. Yet playing different roles, it remains one essence - moving as the play of consciousness. Symbolically, water may be considered the movement of consciousness on the planet. It is the foundation of life on the Earth and resonates in constant harmony with the universe, holding the solar energy of the sun and stars, the lunar energies, and the energies of the Earth. In that process, water changes its properties. Depending on what energies it absorbs and carries, water can be either a benifit or a harm to people, making them well or ill. It can give off positive or negative energy, healing or disease-producing energy."

So what are we doing to the water? It seems to me that the corruption of our water is the most direct attack on ourselves, for if the water is polluted than so are we. What we drink and what we bathe in no doubt has an effect on the health and well being of our body, mind and soul. But now we are seeing that what we think, feel and do has an effect on the water that permeates almost everything in our lives. Which can make one think, what came first, the pollution of our water or the pollution of our mind/heart/soul/desire/intentions?

My previous posts listen to your heart and the heart of the matter also relate here, for as we know, water is related to the Moon, and those posts describe the connections of the Moon to the heart as well. Through the gravitational interaction between the Moon and the Earth we see the tides of the oceans fluctuate, rise and fall. We can see further connections in looking at symbolism as well. In the Tarot, the suit of Cups is associated with the element of water. The cards of this suit describe emotional and intuitive experience, and our unconscious, private self. In astrology, the 12 signs of the zodiac fall under the ruling of one of the four elements, with Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces being the water signs. Each sign also has a ruling planet; Cancer is ruled by the Moon, Scorpio is ruled by Pluto, and Pisces is ruled by Neptune. All of these planets associated with the water signs share some astrological associations such as intuition, emotions, and sort of the hidden undercurrent of everything (pun intended). There are also 12 houses in the astrological natal chart that represent the different realms of experience in life. The houses also have elemental qualities, with the 4th, 8th, and 12th houses being the water houses and thus ruled by Cancer/Moon (4th house), Scorpio/ Pluto (8th house), and Pisces/Neptune (12th house). For more in-depth explanation, Stephen Arroyo's books Chart Interpretation Handbook and Astrology, Psychology and the Four Elements, both serve as great sources  for understanding the connections to the elements in astrology. It could take a very long time to explore each of the signs, planets and houses, so let's just take a surface look at the Moon, Cancer, and 4th house in connection to water for now. The Moon represents our past, memories, predisposition, the experiences that have shaped us and imprinted us (a quality we share with water as mentioned above). The sign that we find the Moon in at the time of our birth shows how we express our instincts, and what makes us feel secure - based on our previous experience. The Moon represents the subconscious part of ourselves, the way that we instinctively operate and act without consciously thinking. In connection to the Moon and the sign of Cancer, the 4th house represents the realm of experience in our lives that has to do with our home base, where we are coming from. In our personal birth chart, any planet in this house would show subconscious energies, possibly things that we have formed an attachment to and need to assimilate and let go of. Looking at symbolism helps us to see a direct connection between water, our emotions and our subconscious. Our own tears show us this connection very well. Even if we cannot wrap our minds around the meaning of the connections, we can see that they are definitely there.

If you watched any of the videos or listened to the interviews with Dr. Bruce Lipton in my last post, he talks about how our beliefs create health or disease, not only within us, but everything around us as well. He also speaks of learning to be more conscious, rather than living out of our subconscious. Living out of the subconscious continuously, without thinking, creates more of the same. However we can live with the conscious intention to change ourselves and our environment and eventually, through living out those actions, it will become second nature, creating a whole new reality. It has been scientifically proven that the observer affects the experiment, it seems it is just taking a little while for everyone to accept this as truth, just as it took hundreds of years for people to acknowledge that the Earth wasn't flat. We like to feel secure, so we think and act based on what we "know", but one of the fundamental "laws" of nature is that it is always changing, so what we "know" is not permanent. We need to become more flexible and mutable, to flow harmoniously with nature. However we can only do this through intention and effort, to continuously make conscious choices, balancing and creating. Water is reflecting more than our mere physical image when we gaze into it. The quality of the Earth's water is our subconscious staring back at us, showing us what we are doing to ourselves. The deterioration is a direct result of our patterns of destruction. But the beauty of water is that it has a built in balancing process, and if we can make the conscious effort to change our patterns of behavior, to treat water with respect and love - with the return to the natural state of water, we return to our natural, healthy state as well. And that is empowering. Of course this is something that requires so much more exploration, but it is truly exciting and inspiring.