OH, CHRISTMAS TREE! OH, CHRISTMAS TREE!

HOW LOVELY ARE YOUR BRANCHES!

Excerpt from

Sunday Service, December 3, 2006

By Aeptha

There is a very ancient Polynesian myth about the Moon. The story is that there was a great flood upon the earth and that in response a tree grew up from the earth at the calling of the Moon, for she wanted to save the children of the earth.  And so this tree grew tall and it reached so high that its branches reached to the Moon. And so the children of earth climbed the tree to the Moon, where she held them until the time came that the floodwaters receded, and then they could safely climb back down and return to the earth.

Our service this day, in this very sacred season, is one that calls us to deepen in our relationship with the power and the mystery that surrounds us all the time. We have the Moon overhead, and we see it in its phases of change, and yet for most of us, except for a remarkable time like last night when the beams were shining in my room, we may not take the time to honor the Being that operates through this planetary sphere, the outer form of which we call the Moon.

In this season when many celebrate Christmas, they find that the symbols that surround them have become something that are at best tedious, and at worst, annoying. I recently had a conversation with a woman who made the comment that she was not feeling the Spirit of the season. She said that she did not think she wanted to put up a Christmas tree or mistletoe or anything else, because all she had to do was to walk through Wal-Mart where there are 150 trees lined up.

When I was in meditation and asking what it was that we were called to do in this service today, I was told to look out the window. I love the way our house sits because it is like we are sitting in a tree house, and depending on the window you look out of, you see the branches of the trees around you. I looked out the window and the branches were swaying and the last of the leaves were falling off in the wind.  I could see the bare branches of the trees and I heard the spirits of the trees, and so I started researching.

We know from our previous studies that so much of the symbolism that is presented to us at the “Christ-mass” time goes back to pre-Christianity and was taken into the culture and absorbed and utilized in order not only to integrate it, but because the very basis was something so deep that it was carried through whatever vehicle of symbolism it could utilize.  One of the most ancient forms of worship is Tree worship.  The earliest places where they have found signs of altars were at the base of trees.  This was not unknown or unrecognized by the early fathers of the Christian Church, because the early symbol for Yeshua was a tree.  Not only was the tree a symbol of the resurrection of life, the renewal of life, the promise that even in the appearance of death - the bare branches - that there would be new life coming forth; but it was also recognized and believed that the tree touched all the points of the earth simultaneously, no matter where it sat, for all trees are integrated and connected by their roots.

In every culture, there are stories about the World Tree.  In Christianity it is the tree in the Garden of Eden, or rather the two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, that are said to be the axis point, the center point, in the Garden of Eden. The Shamanic culture uses the tree as a vehicle to move consciously into different levels. After getting permission Shamans will move into the base of a tree trunk if they are doing work that requires them to connect with the plane that we understand to be the earth plane. They enter the trunk of the tree and then the Spirit that works through that tree’s consciousness will work with them and carry them wherever they are needed upon the earth. Or they will move into the upper branches of the tree if they are to work with the heavenly sphere. If they are to go into the underworld they go into the roots of the tree.  In this way they travel through the consciousness of the tree in order to do their work.  This is considered one of the most fundamental tools in Shamanism.

We know of the story of the Scandinavian World Tree, but there is an ancient story behind that, where it is said that the Scandinavians taught that there were seven pillars, seven trees, that created humanity, and that early humans were trees.

Many of us are familiar with the Qabbalistic Tree, and that it carries with it some of the most mystical, magical teachings of the Judaic tradition.  At the top of the Tree are the three Supernals which are said to be the transcendent aspect, the aspects that are of the nature of God. And then there are seven lower Sephiroth, the spheres that are associated with the aspect of day-to-day life in humanity and in the earth.

In my research I came across information on what is considered one of the most fundamental prayers in Buddhism, and it is called the Seven Branch Prayer.  Just as Christ is said to have manifested in the form of a tree, so the Buddha manifests in the Bodhi tree and is worshiped and honored at that tree. Now understand when we talk about Bodhi puja which is what I'm speaking of here - and puja is a form of veneration, an honoring, it is prayerful, and it is connecting with the cosmic spirit which operates through the tree - it isn't worshiping the tree itself. It is recognizing the tree as a vehicle of consciousness that Spirit embodies and works through. In the Western tradition we would probably use a similar understanding when we speak of enlivening a god form. This is similar in that the tree agrees to hold a cosmic principle, power, potency and expression of the Divine. The seven-branched Bodhi tree has a connection with the mystical Qabbalah and the seven branches of the Tree of Life.

Tree worship dates back far earlier than Christianity and Buddhism. One of the earliest recognized forms of tree worship, as many of us know, was by the Druids, and the gift of mistletoe is also one of the things that is sacred to the Druids. It is said that the Sanskrit name of the magicians and High Priests of the Druidic tradition refers to tree knowing. As we know they would often choose groves of oak trees in which to do their work.  It wasn't just because they liked a pretty setting. It was because they knew the magic of connecting with the tree Spirit to call to the cosmic power that was needed at that time.  The evergreen tree is associated with a Spirit that comes through that is life giving, and it is said that if you go, in consciousness, to the evergreen, you can connect with this life giving power.

The columns that you see at the back of the sanctuary are like the columns depicted in many of the Egyptian and other traditions. You see depicted one or two columns and later it became primarily two at the entranceways of temples, or built in places that were sacred. You may find a single column, be it in the form of a stone, in the form of a staff, or in the form of an obelisk. These were all renditions of the World Tree which became associated with the Axis Mundi, which is the axis which is connected with the starry realm, the pole star. It was in this consciousness that the ancients understood tree worship, and that you were not bowing to a tree, but as part of cosmic consciousness you could travel, like the Shamans do, to wherever was needed for your well-being or for the well-being of others, and that through the World Tree you could travel to heaven itself.

And it is this ancient vehicle that has resulted in what we know of as our Christmas trees.  It was understood that the Christmas tree was a vehicle through which you could connect with the source of everlasting life, the Christ Consciousness, and that you could go to the branches, oftentimes depicted as seven branches, not only to receive what you might need, but also to return the energy in the form of your prayers and supplications for the world and for the solar system.

On this seven-branched Bodhi tree (referring to the tree on the central altar) we have made an offering, a puja, to the Spirit of the tree. This offering is in the traditional form of rice milk. The story is that the Buddha - which is a title - the Buddha or Gautama, had been in austerity for six years, and he recognized that this was one way to move consciousness, but it was not the vehicle to obtain enlightenment. On the eve of his enlightenment he was sitting underneath the tree and one of the women from the village came and she thought he was a tree spirit.  Part of the ancient tradition was that the trees were given offerings as petitions were released to them. This woman gave her offering of rice milk because she thought that Siddhartha, he who was to be the Buddha, was a tree spirit. And he accepted the offering and he drank it. And it was said that because of the purity and the love of the offering that it gave him the strength and the focus of will to sit at the base of that tree and to proclaim, “I will not move from this place until I have achieved enlightenment.” Now I would like to tell you that at that moment it happened, but it didn’t. He was challenged with maya, with illusions, and when that didn’t work he was challenged with anything and everything that could possibly tempt or distract him. And he stayed and he proclaimed that he would not leave, and he did achieve enlightenment. He sat for seven days at the base of the tree, and then he did a seven day walking meditation, and then he returned again to the tree for seven days.

I feel so strongly the call, the pull, of the World Tree, and we are the fruit of that tree. The original Bodhi tree was purposely destroyed.  Actually the story goes that the tree was destroyed four different times, and there was a miracle about how the tree regained its life, but it is said that from the tree there were 40 offshoots.  Does that sound familiar? Forty - another magical number.  These offshoots were taken and placed in temples and each time a worshiper went to the tree they were to recognize that not only were they before Buddha, but that they themselves were called to become Buddha.  I wonder what it would be like for us if every time we had a vision of a tree, or came across one, that we thought of the Christ; not only thought of the Christ, but that then we were reminded and called to become the Christ, which was the call of Buddha to those who follow that path.

This season is purposeful. We may have forgotten the ancient magic, but the ancient magic is still there. Why do you think Santa Claus comes down the chimney and not through the front door? I’m asking a reasonable question. Why do you think that? Santa Claus, Father Winter, is coming down the Axis of the tree, for the Axis of the tree is the vertical arm of the cross. It is the down-pouring of grace, of wisdom. That is what the trunk of the tree is: it is the manifestation, the reminder, the call to each and every one of us that when we look upon the tree, that we become the tree! We become the vertical arm of the cross. And then we raise our arms out to the side, extending our hands, which are our purpose, how we give and take in the world, and we become the horizontal arm of the cross. We take that which is received through the vertical and we give it out, and we receive in the spirit of that which is truth.  We are called to become the Christmas tree, the tree of everlasting life, the tree of hope fulfilled. 

We may see Christmas just as a commercial enterprise but the wisdom and the truth of it is that not only do you give but you also receive.  The truth of the matter is that most of us do not believe that we receive when we pray.  We see through eyes that are filled with illusion and so we feel that what we receive is not what we have asked for and we lament at circumstances in our life that we find to be distressful. And so what we’re saying is that we do not believe that there is order in the universe, or we feel that the Divine doesn’t know what the Divine is doing.  The truth of the matter is that everything that we have drawn to us we have drawn in accordance with the Laws of Karma and so we have asked for it.  Now some of us find that disturbing because we may say that if we didn’t even know we were asking for it, then what do we do?

I find it comforting, because what it also tells you is that being the God/Goddess-being that you are, that in every moment you can make a choice to change everything instantaneously, in the blinking of an eye. Does that also sound like a Christian concept that is associated with Christmas? “The twinkling of an eye”.  Santa comes and brings you everything that your heart desires in the twinkling of an eye.  Where do you think that came from?  Very old, old, grimoire texts, old magical texts, because in the twinkling of an eye, in an instant, when you accept that you have created everything – I mean really accept it – then you can also change it. You change by going into the Axis of the tree, into the trunk, and then you have access to the seven realms to bring forth into manifestation from the Divine, from the vertical arm of cross, that which is needed and wanted; and your wish is fulfilled. In the truest, deepest sense, that is what the understanding of tree worship was. You went to the tree, the cosmic receptacle or vehicle, which was like an athanor. You placed yourself in the vertical arm and then you moved to the seven branches, which on another level are the seven Planetary Spirits, the seven Angels, the seven cycles of time. And you did this to retrieve that which is needed, or to give back that which is completed. And then you reemerged back out of the tree trunk, and in the twinkling of an eye, everything has changed.  But this can only happen when you accept that what was there to begin with is what you created.

Another aspect of this season is that there are certain portals or gateways. There are the outward ones which you know, the Solstices and the Equinoxes; but there are other gateways which are connected with certain astrological alignments. In early temple training each season was used to train the initiate, the neophyte, in ways that they could then start to move consciously. There are certain things that can and should be accomplished in this winter season that are not supposed to be accomplished, and cannot be accomplished, in a cosmic way, in the summer. The moon is the most ancient of time-givers and there were things that you did at certain points in the cycle of the moon, and there were other things you didn't do at that particular point in the cycle of the moon, because it was more effective to do it at the proper point. On the outer level this season has become convoluted, but the bottom line is that on inner levels it is just fine, and we’re going to look at our Christmas trees in a whole different way.

I invite and encourage us all to spend some time at the trunk of the World Tree.  And how do you do that?  Go to any tree, for they are all children of the World Tree, as we are its children, for it is all a living part of life. Place your back up against the trunk of that tree, feel that pillar, that vertical axis.  Father Winter would go to the heavenly realm and then would journey down the vertical axis to bring to the children of the earth their heartfelt desires, for the children of the earth were in great turmoil. And so in response was born the Return of the Light to bring to humanity a reminder, a promise, a hope fulfilled. And so perhaps we should go to the tree and sit and know ourselves as the vertical arm of the Divine, and then that which we give and receive will be in perfect balance, upheld by Divine Law.

Pathworking

I would invite you to call to the spirits of the trees in their myriad of forms, and if you feel so called, I invite you to hear the spirit of the tree that is calling you now. It may be one that you have known from your past; it may be one you know now; it may be one that even appears to you in that which is to come. Go to this tree, and open your heart as you stand before it.

And we call now and we ask for the blessings of the Buddha, we ask for the sustaining of the Christ, we ask for the love of the Great Mothers.  I invite us now to sit with our tree, with our back, our spine, our Axis Mundi, against the back of this great Being, and as your spine connects with the vertical shaft of your tree, you and the tree and the Cosmic Principal, the Spiritual Consciousness that it embodies, are beginning to merge.  And even as your consciousness expands to the height of the tree, as well as to the roots, as you feel yourself above and below and all around, so you too become aware that there are seven mighty branches that grow from this tree. You may feel yourself called to stay at the trunk, or you may feel yourself called to go to any one of the seven branches, or perhaps even more than one. And so your consciousness moves in the way it needs to move. You may be experiencing feelings or thoughts, you may have images, and if you feel that you have drifted away from the tree, simply reconnect back with your spine, and feel your spine pressed against the trunk of the tree.

And this is the season of magic, the return of the Light, the time of blessings given and blessings received, and so we are asked to send our gift of Love as the gift that we give through the Tree of Life, through its branches, through its roots, to above and below and all around.

And now ask for that which you desire for yourself.