Many people who understand the importance of May each year for human existence and the events that follow strive to withdraw from material concerns in the last three days of the month. They give it the attention it deserves and draw abundantly from the power and blessings flowing from the Throne of Grace. The Month of May, known for its unique and glorious blessings, is closing its cycle on Saturday, handing over to the ever-refreshing month of June, which in our region is characterized by heavy rain. It is a time when rains do not just fall but pour in buckets, challenging the notion of climate change. Rains increase, reaching a climax in June, what geographers call the first maximum in the equatorial belt. Before we can catch our breath, the wonderful Month of May has come and is closing its cycle, saying goodbye to us tomorrow.
The Significance of May
There is so much to say about May. It is a month of lightning and thunder, a natural phenomenon that, when it strikes, despite thunder arrestors and modern technology, makes us dash for cover, shaken to our core. Yet, lightning and thunder are necessary to moderate temperature imbalances in temperate and tropical atmospheres. May is a month of restoration. It brings weather that is a mixture of rain and sunshine, a signal foreshadowing the rainy days ahead. During this time, electricity distribution companies like EKDC and its counterparts in Ikeja, Ibadan, Benin, Enugu, or Kaduna do not receive as much criticism as they do in January or February, or as their predecessors ECN and NEPA did, which my boss and Editor-in-Chief, Allah-De, wrote about 61 years ago. In May, not cowed by climate change, day and night can be refreshingly cool.
May and the Law of Numbers
There is more to the Month of May. As the fifth month of the year, May aligns with the Law of Numbers as the month of love. Numerologists, who study the science of numbers, say that the number 5 represents love. It is powered by the force of love and swings in love. It is no surprise that the Son of God Almighty, Jesus, has five letters in His name, for He is the Love Part of the Father. Meanwhile, Imanuel, the Justice Arm of God, aligns with the number 7, which represents perfection. Thus, the Justice and Will of God manifest in the Divine Laws, also called the Laws of Creation or the Laws of Nature, which are perfect. These living and perfect laws, self-acting and self-enforcing, irrevocable, immutable, automatic, and unceasing, govern the whole of Creation.
Sandwiched between April, the fourth month which symbolizes awakening and sprouting, and June, the month of power, the love of May is not to be interpreted narrowly. Love is not indulgence; it is severity. The releasing power of love gives everyone what is beneficial to them. True love gives benefit, not comfort. Ultimately, in benefit lies comfort. The tongue of fire, as I have illustrated before, is beautiful and attractive. A child finding it irresistible only needs to touch it once to learn the lesson. In experiencing lies knowledge, and knowledge rightly applied leads to maturity and development. Experiencing the struggle with materiality breaks us within, brings us to awakening, affords us knowledge, and gives our souls polish and refinement.
Renewal in May
In May, out of love, the Almighty Creator renews His Creation through an outpouring of Power from On High. The Lord Christ said to His disciples, “Be ye gathered in Jerusalem and ye shall be endued with Power from the Holy Spirit.” This event has been taking place since the beginning of Creation. If this renewal does not occur in any year, Creation will shrivel and wither, and all creatures, animate and inanimate, denied energy, will go extinct. We can see why in May, regeneration in Nature, a gift of love, drives everything relentlessly towards its climax, especially towards the end of the month. In this driving towards blossoming, everything is animated, regenerating both good and bad, bringing to their authors the bountiful harvest of their labor. It is also the month of protests by youths, the month of Aluta Continua.
Many people who understand the importance of May strive to withdraw from material encumbrances in the last three days of the month to give it attention and draw from the power and blessings from the Throne of Grace. Many do not know that we are tiny parts of a mighty whole, and this mighty whole is microscopically present in each of us. If we consider that the heart beats about 72 times per minute and the blood circulates in the body, and reflect on this microscopic event in relation to the gigantic universe, we get a picture of what is happening in the mighty whole, the universe. One begins to wonder: Does the universe have a heart that beats and pumps “blood” around it? If so, what significance does it have for the existence of every creature, including man, in the universe? For many, this concept is hard to disentangle because the instrument for it is stunted from lack of development and use, making man an unbalanced being unable to simultaneously experience material and immaterial existence.
The Two Brains
I refer to the hind brain, the cerebellum, which is the spiritually receptive part of the two brains. The frontal brain, the cerebrum, the seat of the intellect, has outpaced the hind brain due to over-cultivation, making it evidently the big brain. However, both are meant to be equally developed. While the cerebrum is the sharpest instrument of the material world and celebrated, the cerebellum is the connection point with the immaterial, invisible world. As we learn in revealed knowledge, the average earthman knows only his physical environment and nothing else. Yet, the other exists and is tangible to whoever connects to it. Earthly affairs—political, social, economic, and so on—are upside down solely because many of us can no longer connect with the immaterial world. This is why the government distances itself from the hunters at Ogbomoso who volunteered to bring out children in captivity from the National Park. The government does not know where they come from. Are they Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmole? Over to our own Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate.
The immaterial world, from which we are now distant, should govern our activities in the material world. Revealed knowledge and what knowledge is, is a subject for another day. In the meantime, we may reflect on the hint from our language about the lopsided development of our brains. We do not speak of a small eye and big eye, nor a big hand and a small hand. Both lobes of the ear are symmetrically positioned and physically apportioned. So, something must be wrong with the conception of a big brain and a small brain. This imbalance makes governments, citizens, and professions unable to think straight when it comes to doing things the way the universe expects us to conduct ourselves.
Nature and Humanity
Back to the subject of May and Nature. This reminds me of the memorable thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the agent of reform of the old Soviet Union and the liberation of its peoples. Mr. Gorbachev said in 1994: “As an ongoing re-evaluation of values is basic to the evolution of civilization. In its early history, mankind treated Nature with reverence. People were afraid of Nature, regarding it as something superior and unfathomable; they worshipped Nature as a kind of deity. Harming Nature was a deadly sin. Later, as man accumulated knowledge and practical skills, he began to see himself as superior to Nature, setting himself the goal of conquering it and subordinating it to his own interests. Soon, it became apparent that the arrogance of technical knowledge scars nature with wounds that will not heal.” Mr. Gorbachev went on to blame the problem in the relationship between man and nature on “a crisis of spirit.” He urged the world to recognize the urgent need to reconsider old views and attitudes towards nature and reach a new level in learning the laws that govern the system that incorporates man and nature.
What then is Nature? This brings us back to the fundamental issue Mr. Gorbachev raised. What is Mother Nature? Like many human words that have lost their original meaning, the concept of Nature remains vague for many people today. Many long to be close to nature. They throng the seashore for its refreshing spectacle, the rippling of waters, the undertows, the sheer breathtaking expanse of the ocean that bows the spirit; tides rising and falling. Some wander in the woods for the oozing of insects, the ruffling of leaves, for refreshing air and the enrapturing beauty of the forest. Some head towards the mountains for their indefinable rarefying effects on the spirit, and others to simply behold undulating hills. Many long to be close to Nature when they are tormented by plastic city life and flee to the beautiful greens of the invigorating countryside, even if only for a short while. These days, it has suddenly become wise to be natural for the sake of good health. Medicine is advancing, but has it not created two problems where it sought to solve one? Natural spring water is thus the vogue, and there is a return in droves to herbal remedies once contemptuously discarded as having no place in modern medicine. Talk of beautiful nature fills the air. We speak of natural beauty, and everyone is enraptured and uplifted by beauty that is natural, which has moved away from artificiality. We are enchanted by the former, which bears life, but repelled by artificiality that is dead.
Yet man has not shown signs of being tired of tinkering before the works of Nature he is forced to bow. Any talk of nature today is likely to evoke images of coarse forms, outward appearances. Pictures of landscape arise, as do those of all that are perceivable by the physical senses. At best, this picture conceives of the earth as belonging to Nature. In a sense, this would not be an altogether false or incomplete picture if the manifestations often called Nature are seen as mere outward visible effects of intricate natural activities behind which lie some beings. Yes, some beings! To be certain, Nature is the undistorted material effects of the activities of Nature Beings. Matter has no life of its own. It assumes a living form only when it has been glowed through. These forms, glowing, warm, and active, are then able to unite with other forms to produce power and evidently stronger forms. When the animating glow withdraws, matter collapses or dies and returns to its primeval state. It is the same with man. The human body falls away when that which glows in him withdraws—the spirit, the real man. That which animates him gives him life. This glow is a healthy union of radiations and distinguishes what belongs to Nature. Inherent in the works of Nature also are the capacity for self-strengthening and propagation. In the end, we all become aware that all of life is radiations, and the visible life is nothing other than the coarse replicas of a fine animating core.
Radiations and Roles
It stands to reason, therefore, that man and woman are bundles of different radiations. It is thus revealed in higher knowledge that a woman is defined by the nature of her activity, as man is by the nature of his. This means that differences in the world must prescribe differences in roles. Thus, it is Nature that assigns roles to both genders, and the roles are not interchangeable. At the peak of Paradise stands a Temple—a peak but beneath the Divine Temple of the 16 Elders like an annex. In this Temple at the peak of Paradise, there is a vessel. It is from this vessel that all the worlds below receive Power from the Almighty Creator for their continued existence, flowering, and fruiting. Once a year, in earthly terms, power is poured out to the creations below for their maintenance. The outpouring is akin to the pumping of blood by the human heart to all parts of the body. When the heart fails, death stalks at the gate. So, we are told, as Above, so below. In other words, if there is no outpouring of Divine Power by the Holy Spirit from the Chalice in the Highest Temple at the peak of Paradise, Creation would become deprived of energy and would shrivel, wither, and die.
Thus, the tones in the radiations of the Month of May, most importantly the special Power that streams out from On High, drive the month in an all-encompassing, invigorating love. So it is that we stand encompassed in the unrelenting driving power of May. In the grip of its radiance, of that unfathomable love, we rejoice. As this period approaches in Paradise, the Knights of the Temple Who guard the Chalice beseech the Holy Spirit for this love, and there is rejoicing in the Temple when the Holy Dove appears over the Chalice. It is the spiritually visible form of the Holy Spirit. Clairvoyants sighted the Holy Dove above the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ as the revelation of His Divine identity, and the four-equal arm Cross behind Him, the Cross of Truth that He embodied. Joseph, His earthly father, would sight the signs only on his death bed when the Lord Jesus stood beside him. So moved was he, we are told, that he exclaimed, “So Thou Art He After All!” All doubts departed from him. The Dove above the Head of the Lord Jesus is evidence that like His Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit, He and the Father are One in their Activities—and with the Holy Spirit in Holy Trinity.
May 30 and Pentecost
May 30 has remained the peak of Pentecost. The trouble is that this power is received by many people today, but not consciously as the Disciples absorbed it. It drives not many people towards beautiful ends as it did the Disciples. Some bubble while a great many use it for ignoble ends. At this period, the soil yields crops in abundance. Fruits and vegetables beckon in manifolds. Traditionally, on the other hand, it is the season of outbursts, not only in Nigeria but globally. It is the season of protests, turmoil of Aluta Continua in our land, with youths raising clenched fists to hit the air if the sky is unattainable. The period is easily put to ill-use and not for upbuilding as it is ideally meant. It is a period laden with flashpoints if we run our minds through history, whether it is the Second World War (1938-1945) and the events that preceded it, the invasion of Poland by Germany, or the Biafran War (1967-1970) after the declaration of Biafra on May 27, 1967. One would not know what informed the shifting of the swearing-in of the Nigerian President from October 1, Nigeria’s Independence Day, to May 29, a previously quiet date on the Nigerian calendar. Whatever the reason, our prayer is that our country may attract blessings that help us recognize the unswerving Will of the Almighty Creator and fulfill it. For that alone can renew the land, heal wounds, and restore genuine peace in this beleaguered land.
