“As above, so below,” we often hear in spiritual and esoteric circles. That is, the events and evolution of heaven and earth are believed to reflect one another. This expression implies that there are two worlds: The “above,”—or heaven, “up there,” the vast, radiant realms of the angels and the moon, planets, sun and stars. And the “below”—here on earth, the place of matter and time, of birth, death and rebirth.
But we can broaden and deepen our understanding if we think more about the “below.” Is it here, now, the surface world of the everyday? Or is it “down there,” under our feet, within the body of the land? These are two distinct realms, called by some the middle world, or day world; and the lower world or underworld. In ancestral times the underworld was known to be a fertile, light-filled place full of wisdom and beauty, and populated with many orders of spiritual beings who could and sometimes did ally themselves with humanity.
Thus, it seems to better reflect the reality of Gaia and her many Queendoms, her vast Matrix, to speak of 3 worlds, not 2: There is the Day World, with its beautiful forests and oceans and its myriad creatures, as well as the works, both wonderful and terrible, of humanity. And this Day World, this middle world, is held between the Above, with its infinite heavenly light and all the associated angelic beings; and the Below, the underworld, within the body of the sacred land, also luminous and light-filled, also full of spiritual beings of many levels and kinds.
The Matrix of Gaia includes all these worlds, from the stars above to the stars at the center of the Earth. (For the earth herself, and all of us, are made from star-matter.) So everything we do, from obvious things like agriculture and building, to the most subtle ways we think and respond to the world, will succeed best when we set out to nourish and honor this entire Matrix.
We have matrix, matter, and mother—all from the same root word: the ancient “mater,” which denotes Mother in a wide variety of languages. Mother Gaia knows, and shows all of us who pay attention, that all of Her—her entire Matrix, her matter as well as her spirit—is sacred. And it is all held by Her in constant interaction, transformation and regeneration.
Our task as humans is simple. It is to go “with the grain” of Gaia, by attuning with her multiple rhythms of sky, surface and depths. Mother Gaia herself, and the creatures and plants, the forests and waters, as well as the sacred beings of Nature—which primal peoples refer to as Faeries, or Kachinas, or Orixás, or by myriad other terms—they all gladly recognize those humans, those women and men, who know ourselves as part of Gaia’s Matrix.
When we nest our being in this Matrix, we can become completely ourselves in a way that we never can when we try to place ourselves outside it. For we humans are OF Gaia. It is only through linking with Gaia—Her vibrant life and radiant light, Her great love and life-honoring laws, and all of Her material and spiritual worlds—that we can inhabit our true human greatness and become fully who we are.