Poèmandrès VI

The Flower of Life

For indeed God/Creator was exceedingly enamored of his own form or shape, and delivered unto his work, all of his own creations.

But the workman, seeing and understanding the creation of himself in the whole, would need as well also himself to fall to work, and so, was separated from the father, being in the sphere of generation or operation.

The Workman and The Sphere of Generation

. . .Having all power, he considered the operations or workmanship of the seven; but they loved him, and every one made him partaker of his/her own order.

The Seven Governors

And he learning diligently, and understanding their essence, and partaking of their nature, resolved to pierce and break through the Veil and the circumference of the circles, to understand the power of Him (Sol) that sits upon the fire.

And having already all power of mortal things, of the living, and of the unreasonable creatures of the world, stooped down and peered through the harmony, and breaking through the strength of the circles, so showed and made manifest the downward-born nature, the fair and beautiful shape or form of God.

Which, when he saw, having in itself the insatiable beauty, and all the operations of the seven governors, and the form or shape of God – he smiled for love; as if he had seen the shape or likeness in the water, or the shadow upon the Earth, or the fairest human form.

And seeing in the water a shape, a shape unto himself, in himself he loved it, and would cohabit with it, and immediately upon the resolution ensued the operation, and brought forth the unreasonable image or shape.

Fortune/Fate/Destiny
Nature

Nature, presently laying hold of what it so much loved, did wholly wrap herself about it, and they were mingled, for they loved one another.

and from this cause – man above all things, that live upon Earth are double:

Mortal, because of his body.

and immortal, because of the substantial man.

For being immortal, and having power of all things, he yet suffers mortal things, and such as are, are also subject to fate or destiny.

And therefore being above all harmony, he is made to become a servant to harmony. he is therefore hermaphrodite; male and female, and watchful. ANd he is governed by and subjected to a father, that is both male and female, and also watchful.