This node of the Codex is about an essential aspect of Reality, beyond the Salaam Matrix. This reality, however, is operative not just in the lived world, but can also be used for diagnostic purposes in The Salaam Matrix, which is after all a map of reality adjusted for a person or group (i.e. the slice of Reality that they witness and occupy).
This page was originally written as a blog and therefore retinas its tone.
THE DUALITY OF EXISTENCE
POLARITIES.
This word describes the basic nature of existence that is seemingly and demonstrably divided along the lines of entities and forces that are at once both paired, and yet opposite or complementary—which is to say they occur together, but they play often diagrammatically opposite or alternate roles, never duplicating each other exactly but also not enemies.
Other words for “Polarities” are “Binaries”, “Duality” and similar words when used in context. Specific world traditions also give Polarities stylized names, such as “yin/yang”.
Additionally, due to the appropriation of the term POLARITIES by the online coaching circuits for GENDER-based discourse, ‘Non-Gendered Polarities’ is Ramala Hubb’Allah’s coinage for the study of polar pairs and oppositional elements and forces in contexts other than that of human binary genders or their relations.
Examples of Non-Gendered Polarities include:
- Capitalism and Communism (Business along solves needs vs. Control & Community solve needs)
- Able and Disabled
- People of the Southern and people of the Northern Hemisphere
- Eastern vs. Western religions and cultures
- Isolationism vs. Communalism
- Structured vs. Non-Structured Delivery and Supply lines
- Formal and Informal markets
- Daytime and Nighttime social and economic activities
- Rush hour and slow hour
- Uptime and downtime
- Borders and migrations
- Regulations and liberties
- Youth and Aging
- Rural and Urban regions, lives and policy
- … and so on!
The study of contrasts, movement, flows, reversal, renewal, regeneration.
The backbone of flux and exchange in Life.
This is term that Ramala has used to publish her video series: Non-Gendered Polarities and the Future of Nations on YouTube.
A Cosmic Balance:
Ancient Teachings on Polarities
People of faith may recognize that polarities are not a new or novel concept. Ancient scriptures and wisdom traditions from East and West speak extensively of the paired nature of existence, that yields the ever-shifting phenomena, as the foundational characteristic of reality.
The scriptures and world oral traditions of wisdom speak of the gendered and the energetic duality pairs and complimentary archetypes. Attention is repeatedly called to the interplay of forces, and to eventually to zoom out of them. This is so that humans can master the cycles and work with them, rather than be trapped by them and left in perpetual fear of “why things are changing”?
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A Selection of Readings about Polarities (or Duality)
From Key Sacred Texts
“And of all things We created two mates (pairs), that you may reflect.”
— Qur’an 51:49
“Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.”
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 2
“To everything there is a season,
and a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, and a time to die…
A time to weep, and a time to laugh…
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:1
And finally, the invitation to look beyond the dual nature of existence, because the final task is to cultivate mastery and inner state of stability than to remain enawed or overwhelmed by the tides of phenomenon.
“Be free from the pairs of opposites.”
— Bhagavad Gita 2:45
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UNDERSTANDING DUALITY
What Polarities Are Not!
First, it is important to remove the reigning misconceptions about duality, since these unsaid scripts and ideas are tainting our view of the dual nature of Life.
We must understand that “opposition” in the polar pairs does not mean animosity, but rather in the strictly mathematical and spatial sense, to be “opposite” means to be in the other direction, on the far side. The Other is also part of a pair that contains the two opposites (Self & Other)! The other important understanding is that “pair” does not mean clone, duplicate, twin, or exact same.
A pumpkin and a knife are a pair, but they are not the same.
A healer and a patient form a duality, a pairing—but are on the two different sides of the act of healing.
A shopkeeper and a buyer at the shop are also a pair, but on the opposite sides of a transaction.
A performer and the audience are also a pair, and there is reciprocal giving and taking between the two: The performer delivers the act and the art which the audience consumes; the audience gives the cheers or the boos and the feedback, which trains the able performer and grows them if they know how to make use of the feedback.
Notice that in this last example, we demonstrate that the feedback itself can contain a duality: the approval and the disapproval… and finally, there is a space and spectrum between the binary opposites, much as there is a whole Earth between the South Pole and the North Pole… where gradations of North-South lie.
What Polarities Are
Polarities, in their most essential form, are dual extremities along an axis, quality or attribute of Existence, whether they be natural phenomena or human-made constructs—such as weather, gender, moods, stock markets, work roles, lunar and solar cycles, or aging. In between the dual (binary) extremes are packed the variations of that attribute or phenomenon.
Multiple types of polarities could be attributed to a person, situation or field. A person for example has dualities of wealth, age, gender, intellect, work performance, or geolocation attached to them, to name a few. The effect, interactions, and stresses of these polarities impact, define and shape that person, situation or field.
Some polarities generate from, or are contained in, a subject and many more impact that subject. For example, in a family of a single parent and child, both the people are themselves polar pairs (parent-child) but also subject to polarities of temperature, wealth, health and so on.
Polarities are not merely an abstraction. They are our lived reality.
But the human mind, which is far more likely to perceive binary extremes than what is within those extremes, sees only the polar ends and forget that they are only the parameters.
In reality, the detail of existence is packed and layered within the two extremes, in much the same way as an ordinary hamburger contains the meat, sauces and salad in between its two buns (the extremes)—to give an everyday example.
The “buns” are the ends and the container; the actual business of the hamburger takes places between the two extremes. To see this “between space” in an era of radicalization and polarization takes commitment, patience and practice.
The polar extremes help us locate the axis. The real work of life is to notice what lies between the extremes: the variations, movements, interactions and outcomes that render and layer our lives.
To better understand Polarities, we will now see them in action through everyday instances and acquaint ourselves with their behavior and impact.
1. Polarities are Interdependent and Mutually Supportive
Like two dancers in an act, the polar opposite pair are mutually supportive of one another and of the field around them—which is to say that they are not there only for one another but that their interactive actions are to create a world around them.
The polar pair are most attracted to one another and hold each other in regards, but also interact with other elements around them, with the primary bonding or tension between the pair. The rise and fall of a river, the opening and closing of grocery shops are internally support of each other (the period of rest supports the period of operation and flow), but also the river and the grocery shops do not exist for themselves.
Note also that one entity or person or force could have multiple polar relationships along various facets. A single woman is in the daughter-mother polarity, buyer-seller polarity, taxpayer-collector polarity, and so on. A vegetable path experiences the hot & cold polarity, and fruiting or dormany polarity at once.
2. Polarities Contains Multitudes, and Yield Spectrums
Ever laid down a plan for a rectangular room? You mark the four corners and mark their place on Earth. The points are the far extremes of the room and demarcations of the extent to which the walls will be built. Then the walls are built; the eastern wall ‘opposes’ the western, the northern wall is at the far end of the southern. Apparently oppositional, they are in fact connected. And not just that, they contain space and coordinates within them.
This means that polarities are not just extreme ends with nothing in between. They are, in fact, the birthing place of ever-shifting phenomenon.
Japanese 72 Seasons Calendar:
A Spectrum of Seasons In Between “Hot” and “Cold”
As a child, I knew of only “two hot and two cool” seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Life was marked by academic and work calendars that spanned 3, 4 or 6 months. There seemed to be a monotony that was supposed to last for the entire semester or seasonal quadrant, with no finer gradations in between.
Yet, in the otherwise temperate Karachi where I lived by the oceanside, we waited every winter for the notorious and the beloved “Siberian winds” (later rebranded “Qandahar” and “Quetta” winds as the locus moved closer home and became more politically corrected!), which brought a much-needed cold blast where the winter chic-starved Karachiites finally brought our coats, blazers, blankets and dried fruit and winter treats out. This allowed us to put on new fashions.
I also learned that all parts of Spring and Summer are not the same from the rise and fall of fruits such Mangoes and Cherry. For the nature-disconnected urban person, seasonality and its micro windows often appear to be a hidden force. We do not understand that all three Gregorian months of Spring and Autumn are not the same, that the trees sprout and turn color week by week in the pertinent seasons, almond blossoms thrive but for a couple of weeks, and what you see at the beginning is not what you find in the mid or end!
⛩️ Enter: The Japanese 72 Seasons Calendar. A finely calibrated tracker of shifts through a year, with approximately 5-day long micro-seasons with which observers can watch the incremental changes that take place through the span of a year in East Asia. The seasons have beautiful names, based on the key natural phenomenon of the time. A selection of some of the 72 micro-seasons reads like an ebbing and flowing poem:
Bush warblers start singing in the mountains (February 9–13)
Grass sprouts, trees bud (March 1–5); Caterpillars become butterflies (March 16–20)
Peonies bloom (April 30–May 4) 🌺
Safflowers bloom (May 26–30)
Rotten grass becomes fireflies (June 11–15)
Hawks learn to fly (July 17–22)
Great rains sometimes fall (August 3–7)
Wagtails sing (September 13–17); Swallows leave (September 18–22)
Chrysanthemums bloom (October 13–17); Maple leaves and ivy turn yellow (November 2–6)
Land starts to freeze (November 12–16)
Tachibana citrus tree leaves start to turn yellow (December 2–6)
Deer shed antlers (December 27–31)
Hens start laying eggs (January 30–February 3)
Source: Japan’s 72 Microseasons | Nippon.com
All this rise and fall, this symphony of seasons and shifts, takes place between the extremes of hot and cold, winter and summer, autumn and spring. Between the two equinoxes and two solstices. It is through the dance an interplay of seasons, and the elements (algae, trees, rivers, Sun, mountains…) that makes the seasons which gives rises to such intensely variated phenomenon. 🌺
Source: TheSalaamMatrix.org
3. Polarities Create the Cycles & Rhythms of Life
Polarities create movement, seasons, cycles. Polarity is why people turn up for work on Mondays and await their paychecks at the end of the month and pay bills. Polarities are why conception leads to gestation leads to birth leads to upbringing. Polarities are why gates close at night, and flowers bloom in sunlight. Polarities if why waterways are drained, cleaned and recharged. Polarities are why wall paint peels of and needs to be refreshed. Polarities are why you harvest the cucumbers and cabbages and then plant new vines and scatter new seeds.
In a field we can observe many polarities at play: The play and study of children, the start and end of the lecture by a teacher, the teaching and examination weeks of a class, the joining and the leaving of a principal all take place in a school.
In a MasterChef kitchen, the constants learn some and practice some, the pantry is stocked and used, teams form and teams disband, the judges teach a technique and test the contestants on it, you can meet the family, and you get isolated in the content space. Many rhythms and cycles, all rendering one system.
4. Supremacy vs. Primacy in the Polar Relationships
The unspoken but often assumed falsehood about polarities is that one is better than the other. This is factually incorrect, as the nature of their interaction and interdependence should reveal that both polarities along any attribute or axis (for example of wealth, time, season, river flow) actually support, move and enable one another. The difference is in spacing, place and turn—the way you take turns sleeping and being awake and then asleep again.
That said, one polarity seems to have an edge over the other or initiates the other in the models that we study. Sometimes, this starting point is arbitrary, and at other times, it is rendered from an intellectual perspective or observer’s point-of-view.
My suggestion is that primacy is attributed to the Polar opposite that gives more and kickstarts the cycle. This is also useful for the human perspective so that we can focus our intellect and rigor on giving and contribution as a moral code.
In the water cycle, where rain falling down on Earth is the polar pair of evaporation from the oceans, I choose to pick rain as the point of inception, whereas evaporation returns what rain sent to it. Rain, as opposed to evaporation, is also less abstract from a human utility perspective, and something that humans get more invested in. Rain and resultant water systems are what human can see and measure. If managed well, they almost guarantee a good precipitation, a “rainback” to the total water cycle.
WHY POLARITIES MATTER
The Binaries Are Just the Beginning
Know that the binary pairs are just the beginning of the Polarity studies and analysis.
After establishing the binaries, we study the spectrum, the movements, the place and location, the primacy and the latency (who makes the first move, where is the point of origin). We discover the products of the polarities.
What weathers, patterns, dynamics and the real tangible outcomes they yield? What happens when they come together? What occurs when they grow apart? For how long? Why? What are their other relations? How do the relations relate with and dance with one another?
This is not mere abstraction.
This is demonstrable design, study, architecture and engineering.
This is what determines the weather systems, and the ebb and flow of ocean waves.
This is what determines the patterns of stock markets.
This is why you are sometimes in a high mood and sometimes you are low.
This is why traffic patterns shift.
On and off.
Ebb and flow.
Rise and fall.
Here and there.
That and this.
Polarities.
The eternal seesaw of existence: moving this way and then that.
The reason we see movement, change, flow, energy, and how we obtain the sensations that out Planet on the outside and our inner world on the inside is sentient and alive.
A World Without Polarities: a Sci-Fi Horror
While we marvel at Polarities, it is useful to run a short mental simulation that asks: “But what would life look like without this polarities business? What if things remain the same? What if there is no flux, no shift? Is this not… irritating or taxing? Is this expensive? Could we get a hold of this and control it?”
I doubt that one blog post has the capacity to answer this question in the detail or with the awe that it deserves to be answered in. The short and correct answer is, without Polarities at play, we may experience near instant total annihilation of Planetary life and systems, human or otherwise, as we know and see them.
Procreation will stop and populations will collapse.
The weather systems will get jammed, and water in the rivers will stop flowing.
You will not be able to bob in your inflated tubes over sedentary ocean waves: the ocean will stand still.
The Earth will stop spinning and come to a halt, birds will fall from the sky, animals on land and in oceans will get disoriented and collapse or stampede (if we can hold the Earth from collapsing while the slow-motion smaller events take place).
Stock markets will crash and heart rates will flat-line.
Lovers would not leave beds and would not start the business of the day nor return the next night.
Birds would not build nests for the seasons, and whales would not migrate.
Trees will not grow upwards, and tomatoes will fall from the vine.
Wealthy people will not tip their jars over into charity, and workers will not provide service.
Computers will not be able to think without 0s and 1s.
The prices of commodities could not be established, and supply lines will crash.
Buyers will not buy and producers will not make.
Stocks will pile up in place and become short in others.
The seesaw in the playground will suspend operating correctly.
A Earth out of balance.
Earth in catastrophe.
THIS is the value and function of Polarities that sit underneath life as we know it.
Take A Look Around!
An Invitation to Witnessing
To wake up and witness Polarities at work all around you—
in nature,
in primal Earth before humans ever arrived and before species as we know them emerged,
in the solar day,
in the variations of the solar and lunar calendars,
in human reproductive cycles,
and in the human systems of stocking and selling,
resting and working,
feeling attracted and needing space—
is to become initiated to a source of constant awe, wonder, and knowing that infuses you at the most primal level.
Invite yourself to moments of committed reflection for the next few days.
Take a look around:
Watch the birds make nests and take flight.
Notice the shops open in the morning and close for the night.
Hear the ocean tide advance and retreat, bringing gifts of shell.
Trace the growth patterns as your children become adults.
Watch your orchard trees flower, fruit, and turn to firewood.
Feel your breath going in and out.
Listen for the silence and the spoken in your friend’s conversation.
Discern between signal and noise.
Observe the giving and receiving in daily transactions.
The world and its movements have not changed.
Only your way of seeing them has deepened.
For once you begin noticing Polarities…
…you may find them almost everywhere.
Seeing is only the beginning.
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Further Exploration
Ramala Hubb’Allah created this series of lectures on Non-Gendered Polarities and the Future of Nations that speaks comprehensively about the ecological factors and systemic pressures that are advancing and shaping the future of nations.
Study notes on the series will be available in time.
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Note: All rights are reserved by the author, and no parts of this text except for the lines from scriptures may be quoted, published or distributed without permission and credit. Thank you.