Gate 12: Aleth-Mem (אם)

א - Aleph - Air, Strength, Silence, Separation, Mirror, and Union.

מ - Mem - Water, Wisdom, Womb, Love, One, and Pregnancy.

אֵם - 'em - Mother of humans, figurative mother of the people (Deborah), mother of animals, point of departure or division
אִם - 'im - if (conditional), no or not in oaths, if, whether, when, whenever, since, but rather
לְאֹם - leom - a people, nation (Lamed as a prefix is to/for; for the mother, people or nation)
אָמָה - 'amah - maid-servant, female slave, maid, handmaid, concubine. (Heh as a suffix makes a pronoun; pronoun of mother rather than the mother herself)
אַמָּה - 'ammah - cubit, distance the length of the forearm, 18 inches.  Metaphorically beginning, head, foundation of a thing.  "Mother of the Arm", forearm.
אֻמָּה - 'ummah - people, tribe, nation
אֲמָם - 'Amam - their mother
נָאַם - na'am - to prophecy, utter a prophecy, speak as prophet, say
נְאֻם - neum - utterance, declaration, revelation
אָמַן - 'aman - to support, confirm, be faithful, uphold, nourish, foster-father, foster-mother, nurse, pillars, supporters of the door, to be established, be carried, make firm, sure, lasting, verified, to trust, to believe in.
אָמַן - 'aman - to take the right hand, to turn right, choose to the right, go to the right, use the right hand
אָמָן - 'aman - master-workman, artist, steady-handed one, artisan
אָמֵן - 'amen - verily, truly, amen, so be it
אֹמֶן - 'omen - faithfulness
אֱמֶת - 'emeth - firmness, faithfulness, truth, sureness, reliability, stability, continuance, true testimony, true judgement, divine instruction, truth as a body of ethical or religious knowledge, true doctrine.
אָיֹם - 'ayom - terrible, dreadful
אָמִי - 'Amiy - bond-servant, descendant of Amon, Solomon's servant.
מָא - ma' - (Aramaic of Hebrew מָה, mah) what, how, of what king, whatsoever, whatever, how now, why, wherein, whereby, wherewith, by what means, because of what, the like of what, how much, how many, how often, for how long, for what reason, to what purpose, until when, how long, upon what, wherefore, anything, aught, what may
שַׁמָּא - Shamma' - desert
מֵאָה - me'ah - hundred, 1/100th
מְאָה - ma'ah - hundred, one hundred
מָאן - ma'n - vessel, utensil
מָאֵן - ma'en - to refuse
מָאֵן - ma'en - refusing, unwilling to obey
מֵאֵן - me'en - refusing

The core of the gate is אֵם, 'em, mother.  Aleph-Mem, is like Gate 1, Aleph-Beit, Ab, Father, ox-house, strength of the house.  'em, Mother, ox-womb, is strength of the womb.  The point of departure or division is the lips parting to reveal the womb, strength of the womb shown in childbirth.  Mother.  Or, looking differently, Aleph is separation, and Mem the womb, bringing the idea of the point of departure or division.  A people or tribe or nation, leom and 'ummah, is the fruit of the womb and the mother, those that come from her.  The use of Aleph-Mem as metaphorical mother, the mother of a thing, is important.  We see this in the vocal words, na'am and neum, prophecy and utterance.  Speech is the beginning, the mother, of action.  "God said...and it was so."  In 'aman, we find meanings of nourishment, commonly seen as part of what it is to be a mother.  A craftsman, 'aman, can be seen as the mother of his or her art.  In 'amen, so be it, we see the commitment to something, and that commitment is the mother of it.  Reversed, the core is מָא, ma', though this is the Aramaic form.  Ma' is questions and exclamations.  This links well with mother, for questions are the mother of discovery, and exclamations bring forth.  In a way, ma'en/me'en, to refuse, refusing, unwilling to obey, are the opposite of their anagram, na'am/neum, prophecy, and the opposite of the point of departure/division of 'em.  But this isn't quite true.  Refusal and unwillingness to obey is it's own departure and division from the authority that is refused, and this act is the mother of what comes of it.  Ma'n, vessel or utensil, relates well make to the womb, for the womb is a vessel.  Mystically, Nun is a servant or vessel of the divine.  Ma'n can be seen as "Who is the vessel of the divine?"  The vessel of the divine is filled with the divine in the same way the womb is filled with the unborn baby.  Or ma'n with the anagramic meaning, 'em, could be the mother of the vessel, or the vessel that is of the mother, the womb.  Shamma', desert, is a bit harder. Shin is the tooth, and symbolically, this is nourishment.  But desert?  The desert by definition isn't nourishing.  But Shin as a prefix changes a verb into the doer, so Shin-Mem-Aleph, Shamma', would be One Who Mem-Alephs.  One Who Questions?  That Which Questions?  Does this imply the desert is that which brings questions?  I'm not sure.  It is interesting that the word is made from the Three Mothers, from Shin, Fire, Mem, Water, and Aleph, Air.  Me'ah/ma'ah, hundred/hundredth, is problematic as well.

Aleph (1) + Mem (40) = 41.  Or, with the final Mem, Mem is 600, so 601.  In addition to 'em, 41 is fecundity, ram, force, hart, My God, to fail or cease, Divine Majesty, terminus, to burn, terror, to go round in a circle.  601 isn't anything by 'em.  41 reduces to 5, Heh, and 601 reduces to 7, Zayin.  Heh is the window, and mystically the first breath.  Zayin is a weapon, and mystically marriage.  5 is also mist, vapour, back, food, elevation, top, pit, water-hole.  7 is also lost, ruined, desire, good fortune, was weary, riches, power, fish.  Fecundity fits well, productiveness in offspring, vegetation, intellectual pursuits, basically to be good at giving birth.  The others are harder.  The destructive and ending words from 41 seem to be the opposite of birth and motherhood.  Same with many from 7.  But marriage fits well.  And a water-hole could easily be seen as a womb.

The 12th Gate is definitely the Gate of the Mother.  It is akin to the 1st Gate, the Gate of the Father, but a different type of strength.  The 1st Gate is about protecting, the 12th about nourishing.  While not every male is a protector and not every female is a nourisher (and in fact the reverse can be true), the role of the Father is as protector and the role of the Mother is as nourisher.  The Gate of the Mother is the Gate of Nourishment.  The lesson to learn, to cross the gate, is how to nourish those things we create, those things we give birth to, in our lives.

FFF,

~Muninn's Kiss

June: The Time of Water, of Rain, of Flooding

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it. ~Lao Tzu

The sun setting over the Laramie River

If there's anything to define June in Laramie, it's water.  This is the season of rain and melt off, green and flooding.  May is the last snow fall most years and usually buds and the beginning of green, but June in Wyoming is gorgeous.  The temperatures finally stay in the high 60s during the day and seldom drop below 50 at night.  Snow is replaced by rain.  No more frozen narrow rivers, the banks are flooded.

The mountains, and hence my working site, are still off limits right now, because the snow is still too deep and all the roads are closed.  The pass through the Snowys from Centennial to Saratoga is usually open by Memorial Day (May 30 this year), but this year they say it might not open at all.  There's still ten feet of snow up there, and every night what they plowed, from both sides, the day before is filled back in.  It was quite a winter.

Across the Laramie River from
the bridge, normally 10 feet across,
now about 50.

And boy is the water running off that snow melt.  At the point near the bridge by the park (see picture), it is currently about 50 feet across.  Normal in August is about 10.  No fear of forest fires for a while in this area.  It's just too wet.  It rains most afternoons, and sometimes all day.  The hills and plains are bright green, and the florescent purple glow of lupin is gorgeous.  And the willows, the aspen, and the cottonwoods are loving it.

Down by the riverside.

Yes, this is the time of water, the wettest part of the year, if you don't count snow fall.  And I guess it's not surprising, since we've moved into Cancer now, which is a water sign.  We just moved out of Gemini, and air sign, but the end of Gemini was definitely already water here in Wyoming.

Laramie River at dusk.

Water is fluid (obviously).  It's ever moving, liminal.  It is never the same.  Water is often associated with the feminine.  As is earth.  Earth is stable, though still dynamic, though we often see it as static.  But the plates move, soil and rock erode, the ground up-heaves in winter.  Earth moves and changes, but slowly, and usually we don't notice the change.  Water moves faster, changes faster.  Water can work it's way through granite, and maybe even diamond just through single drops, one at a time, persistent, patient.  Or it can take out a hillside or carve a huge valley in minutes given enough water and enough pressure and gravity.  Water is an agent of change.  Water is emotion, both the calm peaceful joy of a gentle stream or a light rain, and the anger and passion of the rapids in flood season or the deluge of a monsoon or hurricane.  Water is the subconscious and intuition, Fetch, Nefesh.  It is the World of Forms, Yetzurah, the Great Sea of Mem, which is the Womb.  It is Binah, Understanding, the Upper Sea, the Mother.  Water is life.  The surface of the earth is about 70% water, and the human body is 50% to 80% water.  Without water, there would be no life as we know it on Earth.  And there certainly would not be mammals or humans.  The human body can go about forty days without food, but only about three without water.

So, here I am in Laramie, in the Time of Water.  And it is glorious and gorgeous here.


FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss