A great force in the human soul is the capacity to trust. This capacity is abundant in children. It arises out of the tremendous forces of life that pour into the embryo and then into the growing child. At the age of 21 the growth forces that form the life organs have completed their task and the challenge for human development is to somehow keep growing. Since the biological forces have completed their work there is no biological imperative to grow in the biography of the human being. The formative tasks that were governed by the growth process must now be consciously directed by the will forces of the individual. The age of 21 years signals the need for each person to form a spiritual embryo in his or her own soul. The spiritual embryo must have sheathes and organs like the biological embryo except that the sheathes and organs will be made in the consciousness of the individual and not the physical body.

For the development of the physical sheaths and organs a mother is necessary to act as a focus for the growth patterns of the physical embryo. For the formation of sheaths and organs of the spiritual embryo a mother is also necessary. In the esoteric language this mother is called the Black Madonna. This being is the mother of the spirit embryo that is conceived in the soul of every seeker. The sheaths and organs of the embryo are the stages of consciousness of the adept in search of self-transformation. The patterns for the formation of these sheaths and organs are based on the transformation of the very forces of life that built the physical organs in the physical womb of the mother of each individual. The central task in this activity is to learn to reverse the self-centered and acquisitive impulses that sustain the physical life of the embryo as it makes demands on the life forces of the mother, into altruism and trust.

This is not such easy work. However there is a fundamental principle that allows this work to advance. That principle is trust in life. Trust in life is the special domain of the Black Madonna. In the ancient times the Black Madonna was the patron of mothers in the birth process. This process requires a complete surrender to the wisdom of the physical body. This surrender is the hallmark of the capacity to trust in life. At the fundament of the trust in life is the ability to attend to the small things in life. This does not refer to attention to detail, although that is a prerequisite. The idea of attending to small things refers to the esoteric capacity to notice how seemingly small events are the seeds of much larger patterns in life. This has great import when circumstances seem to be careening out of control and the tendency for the soul is to shift to a consciousness of blame and shame.