Doorway Two – Enneagram Two, chakra: second, trigram: Kuen (Earth), primary idea: Life, subtle body: etheric (vital), sephira: Binah, element: Water, Tarot symbols: II. HIGH PRIESTESS i XII. HANGING MAN

The river is flowing
Flowing and growing
The river is flowing
Down to the sea
Mother, carry me
Your child I will always be
Mother, carry me
Down to the sea
traditional pagan chant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwIUuSZ01f4

It's one thing, the way things are or seem to be. (Mass. or rather what we name so)

It's quite another how social convention and personal will compels people to be what they are not! (Life, or rather what we call it)

Is Life a problem?

It's a very common view, that a mother and daughter are discussing something, while the man enters and asks matter-of-factly:

„What's the problem?”

„I've got this kind of a problem” is a very „male” statement. It denotes an objective situation that is, allegedly, there. We called it Mass (Matter). What's the matter? we say. This is a very logical thing to ask, very straighforward too.. It is the male part of our brain that aims to define problems. The female just does not view it that way. The female is simply not used to seeing Life as problem. What a blunt, brutal approach! For her it is more of a situation that needs to be talked about and understood, in other words – lived.. Instead of „What's the problem?” she would ask: „How are you today?”

The feminine sees the thing not so much as „objective truth”, valid once and for all, but as relationship of living beings with Life itself. For example, if you cry, I show sympathy. This is a commonly accepted pattern. If you are thirsty, I offer lemonade. If you are tired, here, there's a sofa, rest. If I skip it, and ask „What's the problem?” you might feel misunderstood. There, there's Life going. I don't need you to explain anything or ask questions – I just want to float with you awhile on the same rugged raft enjoying the time.

The Great River and the Great Goddess

The darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime.
There you are – cased in clean bark you drift
through weaving rushes, fields flooded with cotton.
You are free. The river films with lilies,
shrubs appear, shoots thicken into palm. And now
all fear gives way: the light
looks after you, you feel the waves' goodwill
as arms widen over the water; Love

the key is turned. Extend yourself -
it is the Nile, the sun is shining,
everywhere you turn is luck.

Louise Gluck, The Undertaking

The woman in us shows that we live in a warm, interpersonal environment, known as Life, rather than a impersonal theatre of tasks, that we call Matter.

In that way Mass and Life are two sides of the same coin. First is there, in the Cosmos, cold and rational, and by definition, masculine. Second is here, on Earth, warm and intuitive, typical to the female style.

In the Chinese philosophy they are Ch'ien (Sky) and Kuen (Earth). In Quabbalah they are Father (Chokhmah) and Mother (Binah). In the Zen Oxherding Picures we have the first two – Matter and Life. With the theory of subtle bodies we have the physical and vital bodies of Man. In Indian chakra philosophy we are talking about the Root (1) and Sex (2) Chakra.

Whereas Mass told us what we are, Life tells us not to bother.

The Life is value in itself, there's no reason to explain. Giving names is upsetting the quiet, deep waters of unnamed Reality below. Let them be. Breathe. Enjoy.

Thinking

When we think, it's usually when we feel we are lacking something. We are judged by others and persuaded, that if we don't behave appropriately, we will be excluded. If we don't reach the goals that the society (or we ourselves!) set, we are given all the right reasons to feel faulty. That fear of faultiness is the basic reason why we think.

I feel faulty, because others, or I myself, declared me bad. I haven't played my part according to rules. My belly is tense now. There is something wrong. There is something missing.

Of course I am sure it's my obligation to perform actions that would REMEDY the situation. It's sheer necessity that I try to HELP myself! I must go and think what next! I must exert my will !

What if I am already being helped? Right now?

Heaven
I'm in heaven
And the cares
That hung around me
Through the week
Seem to vanish
Like a gamblers
Lucky streak
When we're out together
Dancing cheek to cheek (...)

Cheek to cheek, here performed by Louis Armstrong (ennea 2) and Ella Fitzgerald

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeisCvjwBMo

But what if the Lifestream is already helping me? What if it is happening right now? Without me needing to add a single thing? How about I just completely lose my stomach and -

UNWIND?

How about my bowels, my belly? Are they trying to tell me somthing now? Are they getting tense? Life is alive, not a machine, not a control mechanism. The social convention, as well as the willpower makes us freeze.in a given form, and follow an itinerary. But Life has no Itinerary. We forget it all too often in the contemporaray dehumanized society. We forget that Life has no Mass, and thus it cannot be held in place. It slips away. It surprises us and carries eternally somewhere ... else.

Que sera sera

When I was just a little boy
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be happy, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me

Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be

Que Ser Sera, a song written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and first famously performed by Doris Day (ennea 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc

Oh, how stuffy it is when we become predictable, even if only unto ourselves. We are so focued on work, on will, on controllin plans and results, but when are we going to find time to actually be alive? When am I going to invite that excitation that tells me I don't know what happens next? Embrace the Life which is already good, not only when I dutifully perform its rites and rituals?

Maybe there ain't no duties that are more important than Life itself? What if the whole feeling of tense stomach that we all suffer from, comes from us not listening to the LAUGHING ZORBA inside? We would lie our plans aside and give ourselves to the tenderness of that rocking and rolling, waxing and waning, ebbing and flowing, rising and falling of the Great Womb. Wouldn't it make more sense than ... the boring willpower?

The Great Godess sees Life as eternal now – in the sense that she trusts it. Her sweet belly remains powerfully relaxed and she knows that from non-doing all doing arises, as well as – the doing dissolves into non doing.

No thing comes by willpower, and all come through allowing.

This is the great motto, of Great Mother. Life is already fulfilled. It does not need us do add things to the perfection that it is.