The tree of life is one of the most well-known symbols of our journey on the planet. It is expressed in almost every culture. Most recently in the archelogicical discovery of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, lo and behold they have found the Tree of Life again, a constant message to humanity for twelve thousand years!
Tree of Life found at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.
Although it would be overwhelming to explain all meanings of the Tree of Life in every culture there are common themes that we can take from its significance.
The Roots:
This is the place where we are born and begin our first connection with Earth. No wonder that before we can walk we must crawl, building our attachment to the foundation of the planet and realizing the stability that this connection will provide. Here we are nourished by our family and those who love us. We receive the nutrients of our tribe. We develop a trust and our sense of place and safety. We bond, we attach and we have a sense of life and living. Like the roots we receive warmth and comfort from our parents and family. Whether we succeed as infants and children depends on the support system we have available to us here. Have we built a firm foundation for our life, do we feel safe and are we ready to move forward with being alive? This is probably the most important place on our human journey. If we have built a life on a flimsy root system, life can be a struggle. Our family determines how we form the territory around us. If we have not been nurtured we may never be sure of ourselves emotionally. Our fear of falling can disconnect us from the sense of security in the world, unable to weather the storms. Many of us need a new structure, a new root system to enable us to unfold into an infinite trust that does not threaten and create a lifetime of anxiety.
The Trunk:
This is the place of our formation. With every year, we are expanding our knowledge of the outside world. As we move into the growth patterns of the trunk we start to feel the flow of our feelings through the body. We gather the sensations and emotions that form us. We realize the energies of our sexuality as it penetrates our nervous system. As we continue up the tree trunk we realize who we are, we become an individual and start to express our will and develop a sense of self. We take this energy and create our power. If we are unfortunate to have experienced trauma, and abuses we can end up in fear, rigidity with poor social skills, excess and a lack of balance. We will suffer being ruled by our emotions, poor boundries, obessions and moods. We will fear change making it difficult to move about the branches and realize our full potential.
The Branches:
By now we have left our nourishing roots and arrived at a place hopefully with balance and love. We are ready to reach out and fully develop our personality. If we have traveled the trunk with sufficient nutrients from our family and friends we will be whole, accepting ourselves and others. We are now in a place of harmony with the rest of the trees in the forest, in a natural place sharing the nutrients of the earth and wind with those who have grown along side of us. This is the person that will walk in the world and navigate the branches that are spread out and prepared for our learning. We now have our social identity and formation to express ourselves and create our hopes and dreams. Each intersection of the branches is a choice on our karmic map. Teachers arrive and we are ready to learn the lessons along the way. As the branches grow wider and thicker the wisdom evolves and gives us a clearer and more stable picture of our journey. We interact with our presence and begin to know the way as our intuition sparkles through our navigation. If we are reluctant we have not learned to feel safe, our emotional security has been compromised through neglect. We lack energy because we have a limited self-esteem and authority over our natural expression of self. We will struggle with being who we are. We may need to go back to the trunk, find ourselves and our unique destiny and overcome internalized aspects we have wrongly inherited and embrace a larger world of personal responsibility.
Leaves: Each leaf is a lesson in life. With the right resonance and inner guidance we jump from branch to branch and leaf to leaf with our intuition guiding us along along the way. Each leaf is an adventure beyond the boundaries of our trunk. As we grow into our self-expression and creativity we see a world waiting to experience. The leaves are not mistakes but lessons. We emerge into the sunshine with the essence of who we are. We realize the beauty and expression of our deepest being. We transcend our connection to the outside world yet remain strong in our foundation of the natural world. If we are navigating the world through suffering, we have grown up in a weak structure and it will be a tumultuous journey to where the universe and the individual meet, because it is here there is balance. If we have not accepted our uniqueness and sense of self we can be overwhelmed with the choices and never get to the heart. The embracing of ourselves for who we are is part of the mystery of our transformation and is the secret to the tree of life. This leads us into being re-born again in an ever renewing cycle.
So how can we unlock this secret, get better results and arrive at a deeper place and meaning on our journey?
The solution to much of our confusion and suffering is that we need to go back and restructure our root system to transgress into the boundless potential of who we are. Going into the roots and the trunk and unifying our personal dynamics can change the outcome of our life’s path. Digging deep into what we think is impossible we are able to extract hope and invest in possibility. Here we can produce a new field and re-program ourselves. This may require a re-birth, back to the roots and starting over.
The way we are brought up in the world we pay a lot of attention to what is around us. But going inside we can remove egoic consciousness that separates us from vibrant growth. Accessing this awareness you can influence through your inner-self a graceful way in which to interact with the world. You will have more and more of an influence as you come from a deeper place to find the answers you seek. There is great value in discovering what “programming” is limiting you.
With full awareness we can now build our nest knowing that with a healthy root system we can rely on all of the healthy layers and boundaries. We can live in a place of grace, secure from the winds and the disease of the toxic thoughts and influence of others. From this place we can reestablish ourselves in the coherency of the natural world and fly into the infinity of the tree of life and it’s natural symbol of life and death. Through the significance of our human experience we can live with multiple hopes and possibilities in a life of learning. Leaf by leaf we stop, we learn, we listen, we accept and we trust as we reach the state of fulfillment on our journey.
