Chapter 3, Verse 5


5. Three mothers: Aleph-Mem-Shin, in the year are the hot, the cold, and the temperate. The hot is created from fire, the cold is created from water, and the temperature, from breath, decides between them.

Here we find the subdivision of time into a triad. Obviously, the cold winter corresponds to watery Mem, the hot summer to firey Shin, and temperate breezes of Fall and Spring to Aleph. Another subdivision we can make of time, however, is into past, present, and future. Traditionally, the past is associated with the male since men often reminisce about the things they enjoyed in the past. The future, on the other hand, is associated with the female since a pregnant woman naturally has to look ahead in order to prepare for the birth of the child. The present mediates between the past and the future. Interestingly, quantum physics offers explanations of how the present can be not only a causal consequence of the past, but also the result of "echos" from the future that cause quantum wave functions to collapse retroactively (the so-called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox). Thus, the present truly is the connection and interaction between the past and future.