Maen
The Fifth Cantref
This past week our focus was on the Fifth Cantref, Maen. Maen has a number of connotations in the Dolmen Arch which are:
Among elements the Spirit Below, Among seasons Time Past, Among times of the day Night, Among beast the White Dragon, Among Gods Ced the Earthmother, Among days Saturday, Among laws the Law of Vibration, Among planets Saturn, Among directions Below, Among colors Orange, Among trees the Yew, Among angels Sandalphon, Among powers Intuition, and Among grades Gwyddon y Ffordd.
Spirit Below is the source of the Telluric current, that energy which emanates from the core of the earth. The Telluric current has direct connections to the Earth’s magnetic field, which emanates from it’s molten core. Hades and Hel, the deities of the Underworld, are thought of when thinking of Spirit Below and chthonic deities. When I was using Greek Gods and Goddesses, I attributed Spirit Below to Demeter, as the Goddess of Agriculture and the one who controls the seasons, whose daughter Persephone was the bride of Hades in the Underworld.
The color Orange I always associated with lava, which is like the life blood of the earth. It is the color of Hod on the Tree of Life, which represents vibrancy and is the sphere of conscious thought and intellect, which can be related to Intuition in Maen. It is the Sephirah of the 2nd degree in Freemasonry (Netzach, it’s opposite being the 1st degree - learn to subdue your passions, and Yesod being the 3rd degree). Saturn, as Maen, has a moon named Titan while is Orange in color. Orange vibrates around 480-510 terahertz and hits the A Major note in music.
In eastern philosophy, it is associated with the navel chakra and is the source of our creativity and emotions. In Daoist/Taoist circles, the color Orange is associated with cultivation and transformation. Known as the “Dan”, orange symbolizes one’s cultivation toward immortality, primarily through one’s cultivation of one’s own inner alchemy. As stated in the Daozang, “refine the form to become holy, transform the body into orange.” This alludes to the changes of one’s internal structure to enter the “heavenly realm.”
Sandalphon is the Angel of Music and master of the heavenly song, which fits into the Law of Vibration. He is also the Angel of Malkuth on the Tree of Life, which is the lowest Sephirah. Music is simply the most obvious perception we have of vibration, which is present in all things. This made me think of the 7 Liberal Arts and Sciences, which are important in the Freemasonic degrees, and which of them relate to which Cantref. Meditating on this, I have come up with the following connections:
Awyr is Logic (Air is the mind and thought and seems to directly relate to Logic, which is reasoning).
Dwr is Grammar (Our ability to speak comes from Memory, which associates everything in the world with words).
Ufel is Rhetoric (As Ufel relates to the Will and Polarity, I see Rhetoric as its art and science, because Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, which is exercising your Will to convince others).
Daear is Arithmetic (I see this connection from the Law of Causation, which states that the result must have a cause, which is what Arithmetic is designed to show for mathematics).
Maen is Music (Connects to Sandalphon and Law of Vibration).
Nef is Astrology (Connects to Spirit Above and Law of Connection - from the Heavens to the Earth).
Byw is Geometry (Geometry is the foundation of many of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and is the physical manifestation of Mathematics).
This sparked some discussion in our Discord, as Nef, via Metatron, was seen as Geometry by some. This comes from the depictions of Metatron’s Cube (pictured below) which shows some amazing geometry to it. There were also some connections that could be made from our discussion on the Theology of Arithmetic (of which we discussed the Tetrad this week), which would place the four foundations of Wisdom with their numbers: 1 - Arithmetic, 2 - Music, 3 - Geometry, 4 - Astrology.
For the Norse pantheon, I will be using Jord for Spirit Below. There are some important connections there with Maen that can be drawn. Jord’s mother is Nott (the night) which is the time of day of Maen. She represents the primordial earth, similar to Gaia of the Greeks, but also the fertility of the land, similar to Demeter.
Also among the Norse, are the Norns, of which Time Past would be represented by Urd. Representing the Past as well as the inescapable power of Fate, she can be connected through Maen to Saturn.
From our reading of "The Theology of Arithmetic" on the Pentad today. There are five classic planets. The fifth Sephiroth on the tree of life is Geburah and represents Strength and Severity. Geometrically is it the Pentagon and Pentagram (the blazing star in Freemasonry). There are five Platonic Solids - representing the 4 elements and the fifth is the aether/spirit. This is the first representation of life, as we are a combination of all these five elements.
The Pentad is also highly expressive of justice, and justice comprehends all other virtues as it is the middle point of the Decad. An interesting connection to justice, Arithmetic says that equal times equal (ie, squaring a number) is justice. In Freemasonry, we talk of the masonic Square being an emblem of justice, "Squaring our actions." The Pentad shows through in injustices as well, because no longer is each given equal, but one gets more and one gets less. But the scales will always seek to balance via Karma.
"When men are wronged, they want the Gods to exist, but when they commit wrong, they do not want the Gods to exist; hence they are wronged so that they may want the Gods to exist. For if they do not want the Gods to exist, they do not persevere. Therefore, if the cause of men's perseverance is their wanting the Gods to exist, and if they want the Gods to exist when they are wronged, and if wrong though an evil, still looks to Nature's advantage, and whatever looks to Nature's advantage is good, and Nature is good, and Providence is the same, then evil happens to men by Providence." - Nicomachus.