'The Fifth Principle'

The Kybalion — the text attributed to the mysterious “Three Initiates,” published in 1908 but claiming to encode teachings from ancient Hermetic tradition — describes seven principles of the universe. The fifth is the Principle of Rhythm: “Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything.” There is no permanent high. There is no permanent low. The swing is the law. The Hermetic practitioner learns to use the swing rather than resist it — to go with the tide inward, knowing the tide always turns outward again.

The garden after the bloom demonstrates this with complete equanimity. After the applause — the color, the fragrance, the abundance — comes the withdrawal. The seed formation. The dying back. The silence. Most people stop paying attention here. They turn away from the garden in winter as if withdrawal were failure. The garden is not failing. It is completing a cycle that does not end at the obvious place. It is doing the essential work that makes the next flowering possible.

The fifth principle does not promise that things will improve because you deserve it. It says things will change because they always change. The floor of the arc is a position, not a destination.

This is for the woman who knows she is in the part of the cycle that looks like nothing — and knows what always comes next.