Friday 23 December 2022

The Web of Life (H.P. Blavatsky, Walt Whitman, Mundaka Upanishad)

The seven sons were not yet born from the web of light. Darkness alone was father-mother, Svabhavat; and Svabhavat was in darkness.

These two are the Germ, and the Germ is one. The Universe was still concealed in the Divine thought and the Divine bosom. . . . (H.P. Blavatsky, The Stanzas of Dzyan, 2 5-6, The Secret Doctrine)

Light is cold flame, and flame is fire, and fire produces heat, which yields water: the water of life in the great mother.

Father-Mother spin a web whose upper end is fastened to spirit — the light of the one darkness — and the lower one to its shadowy end, matter; and this web is the universe spun out of the two substances made in one, which is Svabhavat.

It expands when the breath of fire is upon it; it contracts when the breath of the mother touches it. Then the sons dissociate and scatter, to return into their mother’s bosom at the end of the great day, and re-become one with her; when it is cooling it becomes radiant, and the sons expand and contract through their own selves and hearts; they embrace infinitude.

Then Svabhavat sends Fohat to harden the atoms. Each is a part of the web. Reflecting the “Self-Existent Lord” like a mirror, each becomes in turn a world.  (Stanzas 3, 9-12)

 
As a spider ejects and retracts (the threads),
As the plants shoot forth on the earth,
As the hairs on the head and body of the living man,
So from the Imperishable, all that is here.
As the sparks from the well-kindled fire,
In nature akin to it, spring forth in their thousands;
So, my dear sir, from the Imperishable
Living beings of many kinds go forth,
And again return into him.
(Mundaka Upanishad, 1.1.7)
 
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
(Walt Whitman)
 
But they believed in destiny or Karma, which from birth to death every man is weaving thread by thread around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided by that presence termed by some the guardian angel, or our more intimate astral inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the man of flesh or the personality. Both these lead on Man, but one of them must prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and implacable law of compensation and retribution steps in and takes its course, following faithfully the fluctuating of the conflict. When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly enwrapped in the network of his own doing, then he finds himself completely under the empire of this self-made destiny. It then either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or like a feather carries him away in a whirlwind raised by his own actions. 
(H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Vol. II, 593)
 
Macrocosm & Microcosm Correspondence? As above, so below?' Some observations from recent scientific studies:
 
'Then Svabhavat sends Fohat to harden the atoms. Each is a part of the web'. (Blavatsky, Stanzas of Dzyan 3, 12) (Fohat is cosmic electricity)
New research suggests that spider webs can lure their prey using, literally, electric attraction (Megan Garber, 2013) https://www.theatlantic.com/.../confirmed-spiders.../277544/

The study, published Thursday in the journal Current Biology, found that when spiders are in a chamber with no wind, but a small electric field, they are likely to prep for take-off, or even fly. Plus, the sensory hairs covering the spiders’ bodies move when the electric field is turned on — much like your own hair stands up due to static electricity. This “spidey sense” could be how the creatures know it’s time to fly. (Amanda Grennel, 2018)
 
golden orbweaver spider has 7 kinds of silk glands & each 1 creates its own liquid protein & solidified & combined in numerous ways, released as silk from 6 spinnerets (Krista Carothers, 14 of the Most Elaborate Spider Webs Ever Found in Nature, 2018/2022) https://www.rd.com/list/elaborate-spider-webs/
 

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