The Tree of Imagination

Heavens: Above All Things, Part 2

The term “imaginal realm” . . . is more an archetype than an idea. It separates the visible world from realms invisible but still perceivable through the eye of the heart. In fact, this is what the word “imagination” specifically implies in its original Islamic context: direct perception through this inner eye, not mental reflection or fantasy. The imaginal penetrates this denser world in much the same way as the fragrance of perfume penetrates an entire room, subtly enlivening and harmonizing.—Cynthia Bourgeault

Islamic mystics recognized a real plane of imagination and called it the ‘al-mithal, the world of image, or the ‘alam-i-mala- kut, the world of imagination. They believed it to be “an intermediary realm, existing between, and interpenetrating the realms of intellect and sense perception,” a plane between the physical, material world and the spiritual world. According to this definition, imagination is the central means of the soul by which the senses and intellect, mind and body, spirit and matter, are able to interrelate.

The need to connect one’s purpose and identity through the thread of imagination to the outside world, in order to describe and make sense of reality, is universal. By imaginary I do not mean pretend, but as Cynthia Bourgeault describes in the epigraph, a special way of seeing, a different but real plane of experience. This plane, termed “visionary” in our world, is most often associated with illusory or subjective realms of internal perceptions that carry little weight in our highly secularized and scientific world. Our increasing dependence on technological advances and empirical evidence seems to render this type of seeing secondary, leaving us disconnected from a fundamental mode of understanding, a lost art of perception and memory.

“Like the Tree, imagination is the source of endless regeneration.”

The tree of imagination is the structure of imagination itself. Like the tree, imagination serves to unite heaven and earth. Its branches and accompanying fruit represent “the fact that a single archetypal image . . . can produce throughout space and time such an abundant flowering and branching of images.” Thoughts germinate like seeds, rise in the nourishment of wisdom and light-intelligence, feeding root and stem to bear fruit that will, in turn, produce more creative beginnings.

The tree of imagination is not stationary or fixed. It continues to evolve and represents a reimagining of our origin and destiny. Being both old and young, with autumns and springs, it discards old meanings and creeds and enables us to shed and dress the tree in eternal truths, to discard archaic imagery and more fully and actively participate in the present.

I am discovering, as poet Jorie Graham describes, that “imagination is a bodily sense. Imagination is not an intellectual capacity.” We are here to experience the full measure of embodiment, and yet our reality has been thinned down by our technology. Images and ideas are now relegated to “data”—they used to be more sensorially connected. We rely now almost entirely on visual information and calculation or measurement. What does it mean to embody truth, rather than simply read or hear information? How do we incorporate light and truth? Can the Mother—found in every moment we strive for integration of heart, mind, and body—along with the Spirit and our covenantal commitments, call us to daily practices of communion with the actual, material world? Can the fragrance of Her presence awaken us to our shared memory of Wisdom, gained before this mortal life, including the interconnections that literally make us who we are? To come back into the wisdom of embodiment, we have to uncollapse our lives from the superficial present to which they have been reduced in our information age. Returning to the sounds and senses of the natural world, not images or ideas alone, awakens our capacity to feel what is lasting and to love it, desperately.

This kind of imagination brings us to Wisdom.

We enter the final portion of our journey together holding questions sparked in the imaginal realm: How do we show up in the world after we have tasted who the Mother is? What does it look like to live into the reality of Mother God expressed in you? What would it be like to have Her return to the core of our teachings? Let us consider two examples of how summoning the imaginal realm leads to real fruit: the first from the Book of Alma, and the second from the Gospel of Mary. Each not only reveals the paramount and central role of the tree in the psyche of ancient prophets and peoples but also illustrates the individual struggle and determination necessary to arise and awake through all the vulnerabilities of love.

Alma’s Imaginal Tree of Life

The prophet Alma uses the tree as an ascension image to describe an inward journey of spiritual transformation (Alma 32). The seed, planted in the heart, is compared to the utterances of God. If accepted in the heart, the inward phenomenon of nour- ishing the word-seed brings lifeexponentially—branches spring up into everlasting life—a brilliant expansion of spirit, heart, and mind.

For the seed of our tree to take root, we must “exercise a particle of faith,” meaning that we need only the desire to believe (Alma 32:27). I take this to mean two important things. First, the power of our agency begins with our summoning of the imaginal realm. We can relate the process to the notion presented in our temple ritual: every living soul was first imagined, sketched before entering the earthly realm. Second, faith is what we form. Faith is choosing to act rather than to be acted upon. As Alma teaches, is it not a complete knowledge but our chosen relationship with the world. Like the Mother Tree, we adapt, bend, and respond to each moment with our whole souls. Faith is the ecstatic space between the realized and the yet to be.

The path to deity, to becoming, is as much a path toward the numinous as it is a path toward enlightenment—two sides of the same whole. As we make more connections and embody more understanding, we simultaneously become more aware of the vastness of what is unknown to us. It is a continuous weaving. Alma teaches that it is our destiny to grow in abundance, to flow in this river of intuition. So the fruit we produce may satisfy. It is the imagining, an eye of faith in so many potentialities, that allows for our hearts to expand into the reality of our material and spiritual substance—to alchemize new understanding into cellular change.

Becoming a constant gardener of our internal tree requires a love for who we are and where we are in the present moment. We remain fully open to the possibility of what we can’t yet see—the tree growing—realizing truth is responsive and keeps us in motion. We pray ceaselessly (1 Thes. 5:17–18).

As Alma teaches, “Because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good” (Alma 32:33). We reach a point where there is no longer a question as to the goodness and rightness of the tree, of its ability to survive and thrive, or of our ability to care for it; we are the tree. Through the tending and nurturing of the tree, we have tended to and nurtured ourselves, expanding our capacity for oneness and surrender, confirming our allegiance to life, and rejecting messengers of darkness and destruction.

What fascinates me the most about Alma’s description of the mature soul-tree is that its fruit is available to us in this life: “And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst” (Alma 32:42). Making room in our hearts for Wisdom to nurture our roots and strengthen our limbs, we see the planes of the sacred and profane merging: heaven is now. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell has put it so beautifully, “We need to concentrate on what has been called ‘the holy presence,’ for now is sacred. The holy gift of life always takes the form of now.”

We find a strikingly similar description of spiritual ascent in the lesser-known extracanonical texts—the Gospel of Mary of Magdalene and the Gospel of the Beloved Companion. Here, Mary also relates a vision of the inner journey and reveals more about the final manifestation of all our efforts.

Mary’s Imaginal Tree of Life

In the gnostic Gospel of Mary of Magdala, Mary Magdalene shares a vision with the twelve disciples after Christ’s resurrection. It is an ascension vision in which she meets and surpasses seven demons on her way to self-actualization. Each demon claims that Mary belongs to the world below and to them, the Powers who control it. In each dialogue between Mary and the Powers, it becomes clear that their domination is founded on lies, their ignorance of God, and their lust for power. She turns away from each in succession: darkness, desire, ignorance, zeal for death, realm of the flesh, false peace, and wrath.

In another version of Mary’s vision, from the Gospel of the Beloved Companion, Mary’s soul journey is symbolized as an ascent through the boughs of a tree. The tree consists of seven layers or levels of boughs. Before she may ascend into each subsequent level, she must eat the associated fruit. As she climbs, she eats the fruit of love and compassion, wisdom and understanding, honor and humility, strength and courage, clarity and truth, power and healing, and light and goodness. She is allowed to receive the fruit only after she passes the gatekeeper who guards it. These gatekeepers challenge those who try to pass.

After eating the seventh fruit, she ascends to the crown of the tree where she receives Grace and Beauty. And then she sees an arresting figure: “In the light, I beheld a woman of extraordinary beauty, clothed in garments of brilliant white. The figure extended its arms, and I felt my soul drawn into its embrace, and in that moment I was freed from the world, and I realized that the fetter of forgetfulness was temporary.” Then the voice of Jesus tells her that she has become the “completion of completions” or the “completeness of I Am,” having known the truth of herself.

We know seven is a number of significance. According to the creation texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it is the number of days the Gods needed to create Earth. In many traditions it is associated with apotheosis, or divinization. That Mary Magdalene overcame seven devils is seen by most of Christianity as a remarkable and rare transformation. Elder Bruce R. McConkie writes, “Hers was no ordinary illness, and we cannot do other than to suppose that she underwent some great spiritual test—a personal Gethsemane, a personal temptation in the wilderness for forty days, as it were—which she overcame and rose above—all preparatory to the great mission and work she was destined to perform.”

These accounts of imaginal trees of life from scripture add incredible depth to the idea that we carry the kingdom inside us (Luke 17:21). Our celestial home is not only a future, glorified Earth; “heaven is . . . a state into which we are invited now.”

Eternity is now.

We see the divine and sacred woven throughout all of creation. We move closer to seeing as the Gods, with “all present before our eyes” (D&C 38:2). We fulfill prophecy: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17). We trust our imaginations. In this sense we are beginning to rise above all things. We become free from the desires of a telestial realm.

Discussion Question:

How do we show up in the world after we have tasted who the Mother is? What does it look like to live into the reality of Mother God expressed in you?

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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.

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.

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