The Gift Tree

Natural rhythm sets the stage for opposition: … day > night … hot > cold … up > down … alive > dead … here > there.

From sensory experience, we extrapolate: … love > hate … happy > sad … wise > stupid … just > unjust … good > bad.

Between opposites are the grey scales:
… day > morning - midday - afternoon - evening > night
… hot > all kinds of warm - all kinds of cool > cold
… love > like - indifferent - dislike > hate
… happy > content - hanging out - uneasy > sad.

If something doesn't peg absolute polarity but is related to a given duality, it gets a designated spot on middle ground. Perhaps this pattern has something to do with the cross-cultural underpinning of the number 3. I've got that on my list of things to look into; for now, I want to stick with the subject of opposites.

The notion that we have to experience things in opposition to know the things themselves, makes me wonder. I often hear the admonition ~ we're sad because that's the only way we can know joy ~ as rationale for bad things happening to good people. While (1) I don't find it an especially comforting thought and (2) I perceive an undercurrent of arrogance in it, I have to ask: … is it true?

Could we, for example, be happy and stay happy without knowing sorrow? It makes sense to me we could. Conditioned as we are to evaluate in terms of duality, it's difficult to imagine we could rate our degrees of contentment or appreciate our lack of sorrow in the idyllic state. It's likewise easy to assume, without a sliding continuum of opposites, that it would be static. But would we be at loose ends? Would the state really be static?

Let's look at things that don't require opposites. Take trees, for instance. They don't have polar opposties. Sure, there are places where there are no trees ~ regions where trees once stood, treeless areas where they can't or don't take root ~ but non-tree as a polar opposite isn't a viable notion. We perceive trees; we don't perceive negative trees.

Hmmm … tree - no tree vs. happy - sad … one is physical and the other is emotional. We've got 3d trees that don't depend on duality ~ pecan, orange, maple, willow, etc. We use tree analogies to understand and explain what we cannot see. We've got ordained metaphysical trees ~ the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge. Add to these the archetypal World Tree and we've got ourselves a dimensional forest!

I began this blog planning to shift my earlier astral discussion to its proper etheric footing and, as you can see, I got stuck in the bushes. Because I kept getting hung up on duality and the judgment that comes with it, I couldn't help but think something else was trying to manifest. Time to shift focus.

Judgment is a Tree of Knowledge attribute and it points to a Garden of Eden quest. Now, it's not that Eden is verboten or invalid … rather, it’s a traditional concept with baggage. Since my oveall contention is that we need new eyes as humanity moves forward, the idea of getting snagged in a thicket of same-old thought forms was irksome, frustrating. It was identical, however, to what was happening with my blogging attempt.

I noted the parallel but I was still miffed. The plethora of systematized interpretations dealing with the fall of man, the nature of good and evil, free will and the right of choice, the nature of serpents in mythology, even the ontology the intuitive feminine: … hmmm ... Tree of Knowledge branches keeping vision locked in collective place. They were keeping me from blog progress, as well.

Doctrines bind thoughts. They shape and color notions. They project boundaries that are difficult to transcend. Even propositions rooted with good intentions create barriers. The popular adage ~ think out of the box ~ enjoins us to do what is simply one of hardest tasks we can undertake.

However, thorns of indoctrination ~ accepted interpretations that generate patterns of thought and emotional responses ~ are precisely what we have to recognize and question. We need to do this from a non-polarized perspective. Some baggage has outlived its usefulness. Where is the fresh wind? How does it make itself known?

I was daunted, brain-locked, going in circles in the shade of the Tree of Knowledge … when there was a knock at the door. Talk about synchronicity! It was FedEx with a package from an outfit called The GiftTree.

The box contained all the fixin's for a New Year's celebration … all of the ingredients for a party of beginnings! While it arrived two days late as per the calendar, it was flawlessly timed with its message! The Universe offered … I accepted.

The Gift Tree … a new tree in the Garden? a new name for an existing tree? or a new way to envision? I don't have a firm answer but my plan is to tend the symbolism and keep it in the forefront of my consciousness.

The new wind blows! Next time I'm stuck, I'll be making a bee line for The Gift Tree!

Astral Word Morph

Mental, structured awareness of Theosophy
+
Organic, less rigid awareness of Spiritualism
____________________________________________
Awareness Moving Itself into Mass Consciousness

The morph for the term astral went something like this: … in the final quarter of the 1800s, astral was the Theosophical term-of-choice for the plane of reality immediately adjacent the physical. To the movement's founder, H.P. Blavatsky, astral corresponded with the Sanskrit Linga Sharira ~ the refined vehicle of individual consciousness.

Blavatsky's understanding had historical backing but it didn't stand alone for long. Theosophists ~ who felt astral more aptly referred to Kama, the principle of desire ~ and Spiritualists ~ who were deeply concerned with afterlife validation ~ concurrently promoted re-definition. By the 1930s, astral as equivalent to the emotional plane/body was entrenched.

This re-understanding had staying power in no small part because it wasn't removed from accustomed beliefs: … it was a version of Dante's hell, filled with foul and tortured souls. One of the hardest things anyone can do is move her/his perception beyond local and learned confinements.

Standards of duality ~ of here and there, of us and them, of right and wrong, of reward and punishment, of polar opposites ~ are time honored, cross cultural denominators. Tinkering with these mainstays can be the social equivalent of messing with Mother Nature. But forerunners and seekers do it anyway.

Branches on the tree of astral definitions grew outward with ripples in consciousness. The ferment spurring astral re-definition a century ago included the Science of Mind concept of thoughts-as-things … a major tenet that facilitated the feasibility of thoughts ~ from waking and dream states alike ~ as energetic entities.

Reports of the Roswell incident further advanced astral's scope by including the possibility of off-worlders in the unseen population. The paradigm supporting pillar of duality ~ the closed-system, vertically linear model implied by angels & demons ~ became suspect with the inclusion of alien beings.

On the Metaphysical Richter scale, this shift ranks as a 9.7+ quake in perception. The fallout from the upheaval is ongoing: … the astral now presses toward dimensional revision. Consciousness is keeping pace, perhaps setting pace: … beyond the universe, we glimpse the multiverse.

Other than noting that it morphed, continues to morph and means different things to different people, why fret over the definition of astral anything? I'm harping on it is because I highly suspect it is an unacknowledged element of entanglement in modern society.