Communion and Consciousness

Heavens: Above All Things, Part 3

Is sorrow the true wild?
And if it is—and if we join them—your wild to mine—
what’s that?
For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation. 
What if we joined our sorrows, I’m saying. 
I’m saying: What if that is joy?
—Ross Gay

She is the recognition of sorrow as the true wild. Our Mother Tree teaches us that sorrow, fear, loss, death, dissolution, and decay make joy, love, connection, and rebirth possible. She teaches us how to go to the grief and to not turn our back on it. She teaches us that our imagination catalyzes compassion. Our ability to bridge our intellectual and sensorial experiences of life into an empathetic imagining of another’s sorrow binds us together in tender acknowledgment and reverence. We surrender to heartbreak, knowing that it is in sorrow with someone else that we truly learn what is worth living for. In love for all that is tender inside ourselves and the world, we find that life and death are two hands folded together. She is with us as we learn how sorrow sustains and roots us to ourselves. She asks for us to feel past all our intellectual work of making the world into a series of symbols, to just be in presence with the sentient beings all around. She knows that in this sacred space of consciousness with all creation, we will find integrity. And through integrity, communion. She sets us on the path toward the profound and saving compassion that Jesus perfectly embodies.

Through the whisperings of Lady Wisdom, I have come to see enlightenment as intimacy with all things. My covenantal commitment to mourn with those who mourn and to comfort those who stand in need of comfort is the only path to illumination and, thus, joy. For it is only in going to the place of sorrow with those who are sorrowing that I can truly mourn with. It is a joining of sorrows, a weaving of roots, a tender turning to each other that bears the fruit of love. Seeing ourselves in each other, my sorrow as your sorrow, yours as mine, is love. And in that love is the only joy. This kind of joining is the only path to knowing Mother and Father God. And that knowing is life eternal. That knowing is joy.

With all that the tree symbolizes—immortality, the divine center and source of life, sustenance of life, life everlasting, wisdom, the abode of the gods, the ascension of the soul—we learn what it means to uncover our true identities, to be healed and whole, sovereign children of the Divine Father and the Divine Mother. Access to this path of healing is offered to us through the grace of Christ’s atonement, which is the result of the fully integrated love and power of the feminine and masculine powers of creation and being.

As children of God, it is in our nature to seek soul work and communion. The essence of goodness inside each of us yearns for the wisdom of our Mother, for unity and love, because we know intuitively, instinctually, that we are nothing alone. Without love we are nothing. Without connection we are unable to feel. It is only through others that we learn patience, sorrow, anger, frustration, and regret. As hooks states, “When we choose to love we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other.”

The Mother teaches me that love is the fabric of creation, the only true power and authority. I feel this truth reverberate inside me, and Iconsider creation made of the same love that literally runs through each of us. At times we may wonder, as Alfred Lord Tennyson did, if nature is nothing but “red in tooth and claw,” unfeeling and indifferent to our existence, not to mention our hopes and dreams. It is my belief that love runs through the workings of creation as a law, even if we, like Job, are unable to see it or comprehend its purposes. In a fallen world, it may be even harder to fathom. The great energy force inside of all creation, because it is the creation of God, drives toward eternal purposes, love, balance, and compassion. Living this truth, in our bodies, is the greatest gift we can give each other and the world. It is the greatest expression of charity. It is the final expression of charity. If we master it individually and collectively, it will bring us to Zion and will return us all, in the bond of the covenant of peace, back to our heavenly home. Your tree of life grows inside you, manifesting your eternal soul to yourself. Manifesting the divine inside yourself—a vision of the cosmos. You are a vision of the cosmos.

The Ascension Path, an Upward Spiral

Terms like “ground” and “source” stand in contrast to the terms used for the transcendent biblical God of history who is known as a supreme king, a father, a creator, a judge, a maker. When he creates the world, he does so as do males, producing something external to himself. He remains essentially outside of and judges the creative processes he has initiated. As ground and source, God creates as does a mother, in and through her own very substance. As ground of being, God participates in all the joys and sorrows of the drama of creation which is, at the same time, the deepest expression of the divine life. God’s unchanging unitary life and that of the cosmos’ ever-changing, dynamic multiplicity ultimately reflect a single unitary reality. —Richard L. Rubenstein

Like the structure of a tree’s canopy, in Mother God’s pattern of spiritual growth is repetition with variety: We are repeatedly asked to break our hearts open so that they may grow and accept more and more love, though each specific way we come to that breaking point changes over the course of our lives. Feminine wisdom interweaves the necessity for cyclical ascents and descents into the realm of the roots with the more masculine movement of linear progression. United, they create an upward spiral of transformation. If we picture in our minds a tree in profile, we can see the repetition of the tree’s layered branches mimicking the shape of an upward spiral, while the trunk forms a straight vertical line. We see another iteration of the united feminine and masculine aspects in the rod and serpent motif. The feminine is symbolized as the undulating, sensual form of the snake wrapped around the straight line of the rod, the masculine aspect. This is an image of health, wholeness, and power to this day.

In contrast, we see many attempting a purely upward trajectory, demarcated by performative markers. This futile path, described in scripture as “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim. 3:7), is exemplified by the Pharisees of the New Testament and in the story of the Tower of Babel. Those invested in the tower tried, as many have, to get to heaven without doing the radical (and radial) soul work required. They attempted to build an outward manifestation of what they should have been cultivating inside: communion with God. Thinking they could climb to heaven, they rejected their own transformation path, their hearts, and God Themselves in the process.

As expressed in the conceptualization of yin and yang, the feminine and masculine reside inside each of us.¹ As children of divine parents, we each hold within ourselves the potential of a full realization of feminine and masculine qualities. And because we are all unique individuals, unique expressions are expected. There isn’t a prescribed way to manifest these parts of us or the expectation that we must relate with all iterations on an infinite spectrum. Part of coming to know deity (and ourselves) is being able to sift out what true femininity and true masculinity are for us as opposed to traditions or cultural constructs. It takes a balance of perspectives and gifts to fully actualize our potential. It requires that the masculine awakes from the slumber of the Garden and remembers wholeness is not without the feminine, and that the feminine in turn learns to recognize and trust healthy expressions of the masculine. It is a never-ending journey toward a more integral form of self that develops sovereignty and true power, anchored in generosity.

Just as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was insufficient to save Eve and Adam, the knowledge alone of good and evil in our lives is not enough to save us. All the sets of dualities of the tree of knowledge transform by purpose and love through the tree of life, the tree of wisdom. Described by Nephi as the fruit of the tree of life, the offspring of the Mother, Jesus is reborn through His reconciliation of the disparities of this world. We, in turning to the tree of life, awaken to the reality that we must also become the reconciliation. It is our destiny also to become whole through the tree of life.

As we see so perfectly manifest in Jesus, in His balancing of the feminine and masculine principles of spiritual growth, it is impossible to have unity with ourselves and God without submitting to the mysteries of God’s hidden world. It feels more than possible that Mother God taught Her son, Jesus, how to “contain multitudes.” Multitudes of souls, identities, ideas, and perspectives—all the shades of darkness and light necessary to embody every living soul and so then be empowered to know the world wholly. In this knowing is the power to harmonize the world, to grow Her children, to push them to the edge of their knowledge and then teach them how to weave new patterns: how to co-create the world anew alongside the Gods.

Real faith ruptures boundaries.

Finding our individual balance of the feminine and masculine wisdom that our Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father have allows for our souls’ rest. Now. In this life.

Divine Rest in the Fragrant Tree

When our rising love and joyful gratitude meet the shower of mercy and love from the Savior and from our heavenly parents, in that contact is the pure radiance and the brilliant light of glory.—Chieko Okazaki

On Enoch’s visionary journey in heaven, recorded in the Book of Enoch, he saw a great tree by the throne, “whose fragrance was beyond all fragrance, and whose leaves and blossoms and wood never wither or rot” (1 Enoch 24:4). As Barker describes, “No mortal could touch the tree until after the great judgement, when its fruit would be given to the chosen ones, and the tree itself transplanted again into the temple.” The fruit of the tree is compared to the clusters on a palm or to grapes. The most stunning image to me is in Enoch’s revelation that the tree is the place where the Lord rests when He is in Paradise: “I saw Paradise, and in the midst, the tree of life, at that place where the Lord takes his rest when he goes (up) to Paradise.”

Even the Father finds rest with the Mother Tree.

As we find described in scripture, including the Book of Mormon, the tree is more pleasant, fragrant, and beautiful than any other created thing: “Its appearance is gold and crimson and with the form of fire” (2 Enoch 8:4). “In an account of the life of Eve and Adam written at the end of the Second Temple period, when God returns to Paradise, the chariot throne rests at the tree of life and all the flowers bloom.”

The tree is shown as inseparable from the throne. The synagogue at Dura-Europos depicts a king enthroned in a tree. The Letter of Barnabas says that the royal kingdom of Jesus is founded on a tree. “In the Book of Revelation, faithful Christians [are] promised that they will eat the fruit of the tree of life (Rev. 2:7; 22:14), which [stands] by the throne of God-and-the-Lamb, watered by the river of life.”

Nephi was right: The Mother Tree is love. Love that is piercing, all-knowing, unapologetic, painful, expansive, omnipresent, all-powerful, and binding. The laws of the universe and the laws of the soul. The wisdom of healthy boundaries and intuition, adjusting for circumstances and the ever-changing dynamics of the pulsing and breathing and never-static realms of the universe. She opens our eyes and loosens our tongues so that we become Her children, able to prophesy and testify, able to stand as witnesses of Her unifying and healing powers in the last days. In Her boughs the Father rests. In Her boughs the Son continues to be nurtured. In Her boughs the Son waits for us to partake of Him. We also can find true rest in Her true embrace.

Discussion Question:

How has the symbolism of the Tree of Life as the Divine Feminine enriched your understanding of the cosmic significance of the feminine? ("Your tree of life grows inside you, manifesting your eternal soul to yourself. Manifesting the divine inside yourself—a vision of the cosmos. You are a vision of the cosmos.")

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Watch for details about The Mother Tree gathering on Zoom! Join Kathryn Knight Sonntag and Zachary Davis on Thursday, May 8th at 7:00pm MT.

Kathryn Knight Sonntag is the Poetry Editor for Wayfare and the author of The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother and The Tree at the Center.

Art by Hilma af Klint.

Keep Reading

1. Japanese in-yō. In Eastern thought, yin and yang are the two complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life. “Yin is a symbol of earth, femaleness, darkness, passivity, and absorption. It is present in even numbers, in valleys and streams, and is represented by the tiger, the color orange, and a broken line. Yangis conceived of as heaven, maleness, light, activity, and penetration. It is present in odd numbers, in mountains, and is represented by the dragon, the colour azure, and an unbroken line. The two are both said to proceed from the Great Ultimate, their interplay on one another (as one increases the other decreases) being a description of the actual process of the universe and all that is in it. In harmony, the two are depicted as the light and dark halves of a circle.” Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. “yinyang.”