Kabbalah and the Tree of Life

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Spiritwind
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Kabbalah and the Tree of Life

Post by Spiritwind »

I started studying Kabbalah and working through the tree in 2004. I originally worked with the concepts associated with the Kabbalah as a group with a facilitator as part of a year long class. I went on to study the tree by way of path working with this same facilitator for an additional two years. But I already had a background in Astrology and had been working with the tarot for ten years before this.

I have continued to meditate and read the works of others, and have allowed an intuitive approach to somewhat replace the more formal studies. I taught myself the basics of the Hebrew alphabet as part of expanding my understanding. I have also found my previous experiences of a more shamanic nature have fit right into this, and seem interwoven to me with all of these systems of thinking about the nature of reality and how that influences my interpretation of life as a spiritual being. I have already written a bit about my studies on another forum, and don't want a complete rehash of what I wrote there, but more of a continuation of my thoughts on the subject matter.

There will probably will be an emphasis on water somewhere down the line, so I will copy this part I had previously posted elsewhere in regards to the topic:

Re: My studies on the Tree of Life
I feel the need to point out the why of my emphasis on water. Throughout the 3 years of intense study of The Tree, there were many issues with water. I must say you don't undertake these studies unless you really want to face yourself. It is, to me, a form of shadow work if undertaken the way I did it anyway. All that is in the subconscious that you are largely unaware of will come up for you, and fortunately, not all of it is bad. I was a person who avoided conflict at all costs. I tried to always be nice and wanted everyone to like me. I had problems with authority figures all my life and suddenly I was the authority figure.

About 6 months into my studies my husband and I became managers of our 3rd mobile home community. There were over a hundred homes there. In all three parks there were water problems. The last being the most extreme. This was going on throughout my studies. Over 300 people lived there and my husband and I were the go betweens for the tenants and the owner who looked at it as just a business. So there I had conflict up the wazu. It is a very long story but the universe couldn't have designed it any better to have every possible button pushed for me. Imagine, 300 angry people. It took 3 years to get a new well put in, through no fault of our own. We had to deal with the Dept. of Health, a couple of engineers, a well driller, the owner and, last but not least, the tenants who could not figure how it could possibly take that long just to put a well in.

I also find water fascinating in itself. I am a fan of Masaro Emoto's books as well as Victor Schauberger's work, having read Nature as Teacher. Water holds memory and is alive. Water can carry energy, either positively charged or negatively charged. It knows what love is. You can learn much just from the study of water. It connects to the emotions and held traumas that need to be acknowledged and released. Water can heal.

I have to add here that where we live now also has a problem with lack of water. Funny that, and I am sure there is more learning to go with it.
I see your love shining out from my furry friends faces, when I look into their eyes. I see you in the flower’s smile, the rainbow, and the wind in the trees....
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Re: Kabbalah and the Tree of Life

Post by Spiritwind »

This was originally written on January 17 of this year. I feel the need to include this rather long post to get to where I hope to go with this, so I apologize for the length.

Besides taking a bunch of workshops in 2003, and then my official beginning of my studies of the tree starting the following spring, I also had another element to my studies, which at first may seem unrelated, but in my mind, since I am looking at everything symbolically, everything is related to everything else.

I had a little store for a year in a small town, and sold a variety of items related to my areas of interest. We had a new and used book section, and, among many other things, a deck of Jamie Sams and David Carson’s Medicine Cards for sale in my store. I walked by them every day, wanting to take them off the shelf and start working with them, but kept telling myself I couldn’t keep everything I wanted or I wouldn’t even be able to pay my overhead costs. Now, you can believe this or not, but here is what happened on May 15, 2003, just months before a whole bunch of changes happened in our life and I had to close the store. A young white guy comes in (as in, doesn’t look Native American at all – blond hair, I think blue eyes). He looks around for a few minutes and then picks up the deck I had been walking by every day, and strikes up a conversation. Anyway, I can’t even remember what he said now, but then he left. And I walked over and grabbed them off the shelf and said to myself “I’m going to just go for it and buy another deck for the store and keep them”. I walked to the back of the store, and I’m tearing the wrapper off the deck of cards, and my friend tells me someone is in the store. It’s that guy again. And he tells me this wild story about how I need to have those cards (I had already figured this out), and insisted on paying for them. He told me he was a shaman (I know, eyes roll), and gives me this paper that says on one side: no more Yin Yang, 100% Faith. I never saw him again.

So, besides everything else, astrology and tarot which I had been working with for 10 years, and the beginning of my study of the tree the following year, I was introduced to another form of working with symbols. My experience of working with these has tremendously enriched my life, and so as I worked with them, I realized that some of the meanings astrologically and in working with the tarot, matched up nicely with some of the animal cards and how and when they came up in my life. Huge synchronicities.

I remember I used to get rabbit card a lot when I first started working with this deck. And I often got it when I was already emotionally upset. This card, among other things, represents fear. Getting this card seemed to indicate that I might have a lot of fear. I got this card so much, sometimes I even knew ahead. And sometimes I was already so upset that it made me mad. This may sound funny, but I can remember almost wanting to just give it up, it made me so upset (I can clearly remember fighting the urge to throw them in the trash one day, LOL!). But I didn’t. I kept asking what the fear had to teach me. Most of you have probably watched V for Vendetta. The more you turn around and face your fears, the stronger you become, the less easily controlled and influenced by outside forces. This has been my personal experience.

The next path on the tree is nun, the fish. (Note: I had originally started with the letter mem/water, the hanged man tarot card about half way through the tree) It is represented by the tarot card Death/The Close. It has a connection to the end of the Piscean Age, the age of being immersed in the sea of consciousness, martyrdom, sacrifice, and illusion. From Highlights of the Tarot: “Behind the fearsome and forbidding aspect of this Key lies a world of inspired meaning. In the first place, the scene is not sunset, as you might suppose, but sunrise. The card does not represent the end, but the real meaning of Death, which is change, motion, transformation. Death is but a gateway to a larger life in reality. It is the power represented by this Key that transforms our consciousness and releases it from the trammels and limitations that now hamper it’s free expression…all of our knowledge of Life rests upon it’s continual motion and change, disintegration for the release of energy”.

Some way on our journey to freedom, we must face our own fallibility, we must be willing to allow to die, all that no longer serves our highest good. The next letter Samech, and the tarot Key Temperance/The Guide shows the way out; it takes us down the center of the tree and provides our support through the cultivation of faith, and the certainty of a higher order. It also has to do with the cultivation of trust in the self, and confidence that one can handle whatever comes up in ones path.

I don’t know if any of you have read a book called The Zoo Story, but it has a saying in there: sometimes you have to go a long ways to come back a short distance. The reason all of this has come pouring out of me has to do with the fact that years ago, when I first started working with the Medicine Card deck, one day, about a month after I got them, I chose the Owl card. When I think of owl I think of Pluto and the eight house. Birth, death, sex, other people’s money. Well, on this day my daughter’s pet rat died, and my son’s cat had kittens, one of which has a miracle story of survival. These types of things make me think and feel deeply. As I held that little kitten in my arms I fully accepted that it was out of my power whether he lived or died, but I would do what I could anyway. He did live.

Fast forward to yesterday. Our littlest goat had 2 beautiful kids. The littlest one, a girl, was so fragile we weren’t sure she would make it. I got enough milk from mama to get her started, got her dried off and warmed up, even made a little shirt for her. The other one, a boy, was very robust, and had much thicker fur and was all around healthier appearing in every way. But I couldn’t get him to nurse before I had to leave for work. I made sure he got several helpings of mother’s milk anyway, but he just didn’t seem to be able to figure it out. The little girl was actually nursing well when we had to leave. I couldn’t take the night off because someone got fired at work and there was no one else to cover. I had a friend check on them, who said they seemed fine just about 3 hours before we got home. I had also left a heat lamp near the entrance to help keep out the cold.

Well, when we got home the little guy was not doing well at all. We tried to get him to eat, to no avail. My husband laid with him on his chest until shortly before he passed. We don’t know for sure what happened. We suspect that the mom laid on him because of the way he was laying when we got home, but it also could have been from not getting anything to eat for many hours. We ended up sleeping for several hours with the little girl between us. Now, this is just a little story here. Nothing big, but just to use to illustrate how I don’t just read about the Kabbalah, I apply it. This story involves my fear that I didn’t do enough. Maybe a little guilt mixed in. Relief that the little girl is alive and well.; and a deep and abiding respect for the miracle of life itself. Just as I did 12 years ago when I got the owl card that day (and I have a couple of amazing owl stories besides this one). It’s like coming around to the same place again, and choosing to take the road “between two extreme courses of action”, as represented by Death on the one side of Temperance, and the Devil/Temptation (Ayin-Eye) on the other side. I could choose the path of pushing away the pain of loss, the sadness involved with knowing even after we did all we could, we could not save his life. Or I could have chosen not to care at all I guess (not really).

It was beyond our power. Acceptance of that truth holds the power of grace, the power of choosing to feel all that comes up for review. Relief that the other one lived, that mom is okay, sadness that we could not anticipate what would happen and forgiveness that we made the choice to not let others down at work.

Emotions are not our enemy, but they are often treated as though they are. Who knows, maybe we were genetically tinkered with, maybe some more than others do feel too intensely. But we have a unique ability to also make the choice to not judge, and just see what these emotions, pleasant and unpleasant alike, have to teach us.
I see your love shining out from my furry friends faces, when I look into their eyes. I see you in the flower’s smile, the rainbow, and the wind in the trees....
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Re: Kabbalah and the Tree of Life

Post by Spiritwind »

I had someone message me asking more about Daath. It took me quite a while to answer, but the following was my response. This is actually the direction I wanted to explore further.

What I have to say about Daath is actually kind of hard to put into words. I came at it from a deep meditative self reflective place that kind of goes beyond thought. I also approached from a heart centered place, which I think is the only way you can find the hidden door to what I believe is our true self.

I thought deeply about the tree, and how much of what the tree represents is, in a way, a representation of both our inner and outer world as we respond to our filters, beliefs, and generally programmed and unconscious responses to stimuli. Each aspect of the tree, upon reflection (for me anyway), has revealed a deeper inner world reality that is just as vibrant and real as my outer. Right from Kether at the top, you have the no thing standing behind the something, always asking you to look behind what you see and think. The Fool is the first card but is labeled as zero. The second card, the Magician, is labeled #1, again asking you to look behind to see what you can't at first see. Then the third card, the High Priestess, comes right down the middle through Daath, and is labeled #2. A two is II. When you turn them sideways they look like a one. When you turn the one on it's side and look at it straight on, it looks like a dot.

Again, as you go down the tree, you have Chokmah on the right, represented astrologically by Neptune, which represents consciousness as it expands, in all it's many forms. Then on the left you have Binah, represented by Saturn and everything associated with conservation and restriction (boundaries). Below Chokmah on the right, you have Chesed, represented by Jupiter and expansion (acquisition), then Geburah on the left, represented by Mars, it's opposite and represents our concern with self and any latent aggressive tendencies. Next up, briefly, is Netzach on the right, represented by Venus/desire (physical and sensual), and then Hod on the left, represented by the planet Mercury and the other extreme of intellectual pursuits, like science etc, which can become equally out of balance. And these two sides of the tree with pairs of opposite energies are referred to as the two pillars, Boaz and Joachim.

So, you may wonder what all this has to do with Daath. Well, you have the son/sun represented below Daath on the tree, but where is the daughter? You have the child, represented by the moon, below Tiphareth on the tree, and the Earth/Malkuth below that. So, since we have been dumbed down it makes sense to me that they altered the tree (metaphorically and in reality both), through genetic manipulation so that it would be next to impossible to establish a good connection to your larger more complete self and be able to fully comprehend the truth. They cut off access to part of the tree to do this. I mean, I can go on and on. You can liken it it to your physical body and imagine how hard it would be to get on without one of your organs, or no connection to it. Or, liken it to wiring and imagine what it's like trying to get a dryer that is designed to run on 220 to run on 110. It just doesn't work like it's supposed to.

There is more too, when you look deeply at the numerology involved. They say there are ten spheres, and 22 lines that connect them, making 32 paths of wisdom. But we know both the numbers 33 and 11 are important. I've had these numbers, as well as 22, appear to be very prominent in my life. When you add Daath, you have 11 spheres, and 33 paths of wisdom. I think that is also one of the ways they hide things in plain sight. So, I am sure you are beginning to see that I tend to think this system of understanding was purposefully altered in such a way that the average person, especially one who just went with what is taught by all the mystery schools, would not find the enlightenment they were seeking. It did/does free up energy as you learn to move through it, but unless you channel that energy in a non egoic and heart centered way, it won't really make you a more ethical and well balanced person.

I also think it represents a somewhat finite system, when disconnected from the heart. In science they say (I think it's the law of conservation), the amount of energy in the universe remains constant; there is never more or less of it, it simply changes form. Each and everyone one of us is a system of energy. We generate energy. I believe in this system of energy is a commodity, something of great value. But they don't want us to know that (the hybrid elite who fancy themselves our controller/owners).

But when we connect up with our hidden Daath, our heart center, we begin to realize our freedom, as we no longer rely on the system for energy. It comes from the limitless source of all that is.
I see your love shining out from my furry friends faces, when I look into their eyes. I see you in the flower’s smile, the rainbow, and the wind in the trees....
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