The ever glorious month of May

Before we could catch our breath, the ever so glorious Month of May has come and is closing its cycle today.

It is a month of lightning and thunder. It is a month of restoration.

When lightning and thunder strike, we dash shaken to our marrows for whatever can give us that momentary cover.

Yet, there must be lightning and thunder to moderate temperate and tropical atmospheric temperature imbalance.

May comes with a weather that is a mixture of rain and sunshine, a signal to the rainy days ahead.

In these times, the failings of EKDC and its Ikeja or Ibadan and Benin, Enugu or Kaduna counterparts, do not get as much trumpeted on rooftops as they are accustomed to receiving in January or February —the day and night can be refreshingly cool!

May, as the fifth month of the year swings in the law of numbers as the month of love.

Sandwiched between April, the fourth month, which swings in Nature featuring awakening and sprouting, and June, the month of power, the love of May is not to be interpreted in the narrow sense.

For love is not indulgence. It is severity. The releasing power of love gives to everyone that which is of benefit to him. Thus, it is said true love gives benefit, not comfort. Ultimately in benefit lies comfort.

The tongue of fire in a furnace, for example, is beautiful and attractive. A child finding it irresistible only needs to touch it once in his life to learn the right lesson!

In experiencing, therefore, lies knowledge, and knowledge rightly applied leads to maturity and development. Instantly, the hearty, unburdened laughter of the child turns to a loud outcry!

In May, regeneration in Nature, a gift of love, drives everything relentlessly towards its climax, particularly towards the end of the month.

In this driving or forcing towards blossom, everything is animated and it regenerates the good and the bad, to bring to their authors, in justice, the bountiful harvest of their labour.

This May ending today, what can we say has been amiss? Practically everything, some would say. If anything, the standard of living has taken more heartless bashings and dipped beyond last year’s levels.

Never mind President Buhari beating of his chest on the catalogue of his magic achievements on the occasion of the third anniversary of his ascension to the throne.

In the area of security, we have never had it this bad since the civil war. But thank goodness, life still goes on. Perhaps in hope. Hope of a better tomorrow only if we ourselves change for the better.

For only a completely different people who can produce a completely different leader, thus a completely different nation since the people can only give what they have.

In a democratic setting such as the world clamours for, leaders rise through the ranks of the populace to brandish before our gaze our mirror which they constitute. Who has heard of cocoa being harvested where a seed of oranges was planted?

Who has not heard of the law of sowing and reaping? This column has stated repeatedly that our world is governed. We supply the thread for the weaving of our carpet of fate.

This, for example, is the season of mango. A very reflective person may not easily discountenance the fact that one mango seed holds the promise of hundreds of thousands of mango fruits.

Maize is returning to town in large quantities soon. Anyone may venture to count the number of ears of corn on a cob of maize.

Upon reflecting that there may sometimes be as many as five cobs on a stalk, and as many as four hundred ears of corn to a cob, we see that the lesson rings home powerfully that there may be as many as 2, 000 ears of corn generated from an only one. Then the picture: whatever a man soweth that shall he reap many times over.

Back to the subject of May and Nature reminds me of the memorable thoughts of Mikhail Gorbachev, the agent of reform of the old Soviet Union and liberation of its various peoples who constituted from the unnatural Union.

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 the spirit.”

He urged the world to recognize the urgent need to reconsider the 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 in his profound perception.

What is Mother Nature? Like many human words which have lost their original meaning in human perception long ago, the concept of Nature remains nothing but a vague expression for many people today. Many long to be close to nature.

They throng the sea shore for its refreshing spectacle, the rippling of the waters, the undertows, the sheer breath-taking expanse of the ocean that bow the spirit; tides rising and falling.

Some wander in the woods for oozing of insects, the ruffling of leaves.

Some head towards the mountains for their rarifying effects on the spirit and others to behold undulating hills.

Many long to be close to Nature when they are tormented by the plastic city life and flee to the beautiful greens of the invigorating countryside, even if only for a short while.

These days it also has suddenly become wise to be natural for the sake of good health. Medicine is advancing all right. But has it not created two problems where it solves 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 by beauty that is natural, which has moved away from artificiality.

We are enchanted by the former which bears life, but repelled by the artificiality that is not animated, that is dead.

Yet, simultaneously, man has not evinced signs of being tired to tinker with the conquest of Nature although before the works of Nature he still is forced to bow.

Any talk of nature today is likely to evoke no more than images of coarse forms, that is, outward appearances.

Pictures of landscapes automatically arise as do those of all that are perceivable by the physical senses. At best, this picture conceives of the earth or the galaxy or the entire subsequent Creation as belonging to Nature.

In a sense this would not be an altogether false or incomplete picture if these manifestations often called Nature are seen as no more than mere outward visible effects of the intricate natural activities behind which lie some beings.

Yes, some beings! But not perchance human beings. To be certain, Nature is the undistorted material effects of the activities of these Nature Beings. Matter, it must be remembered 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 even stronger forms. When the animating glow withdraws, matter collapses or dies and returns to its primeval state.

Which human body, as an example, will not fall away when that which glows in him withdraws? That which animates him, giving him life.

This glow is a healthy union of radiations and distinguishes what belongs to Nature. Engrained in the works of Nature also are capacity for self-strengthening and propagation.

In the end we will become aware that all of life is radiations and that the visible life is nothing other than the coarse replicas of fine animating core. It stands to reason, therefore, that man and woman are bundles of different radiations.

It is thus revealed in higher knowledge spreading on earth today that a woman is defined by the nature of her activity as man is by the nature of his own activity as well.

This then means that difference in the words must prescribe differences in the roles. These roles are not interchangeable.

Thus, the tones in the radiations of the Month of May, most importantly of the special Power from On High, drive the month in an all encompassing invigorating love. So is it that we stand encompassed in the unrelenting driving power of May.

In the grip of its radiance, of that unfathomable love, we rejoice. It is love, which, in unswerving justice, lays upon no one nothing more than he has taken upon himself.

When we look at the world, every country and possibly as many men and as many women, the signs of the nature of the harvest of the future of our world are already self-evident, even today.

The Month of May closes its cycle today and we are handed over to the month of June, with rains rising and reaching out to a climax, what geographers call the first maximum in the equatorial belt. Glorious May, the month of love, bye for now!