Approaching Zion: The Tree of Life

Adventures in Falling

When fishes flew and forests walked
   And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
   Then surely I was born.

   ― G.K. Chesterton, "The Donkey"

Spiritual skydiving is both terrifying and exhilarating.

Over the past few months I have wondered whether my parachute would deploy or if I would hit the ground and go *splat*.

Please don't misunderstand: I'm not talking about skydiving as though I were flying through sunny clouds with eagles, having a great time.

I'm talking about skydiving as plummeting through hell.

But here I am, safe and wind-rushed, thinking how ludicrous it all is, freefalling through archons and angels.

On December 26, 2025 I was feeling the earth's lament, what Paul described as, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain; even we ourselves groan within" (Rom. 8:22-23).

I prayed and a vision opened along the two wings of a butterfly (representing, I perceived, the branching of my maternal and paternal lines) and they stretched on and on and turned inward as a mandala, resolving into a lotus flower of infinite petals.

As I stared at this incredible geometry of genealogy, marveling at God's genetics, the Spirit, helping my infirmity, filled me with a peculiar desire.  "Lord," I said, "show me the Tree of Life."

Because, why not?  And the amazing part, the thing that surprised me most, like a splash of cold water to the face . . . was the fact it had taken me so long to ask.  ​

The Abundance

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
   Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
   I keep my secret still.

​   ― G.K. Chesterton, "The Donkey"

God's intelligence is fecund; the Tree of Life is growing.  Its nature is to fruit new shoots of itself in ever more creative ways. 

Jesus said:

   I am come that they
   might have life,
   and that they might
   have it more 
   abundantly.

(John 10:10)

The Cambridge Dictionary defines 'abundant' as "more than enough."

Over the past couple months I have heard from many of you, and the one thing we all seem to have "more than enough" of . . . is trials.

Some are dealing with degenerative diseases, some have lost their spouse, others are going through divorce, and some of you feel like life has lost its luster and question whether to end it.

Mortal life is all about catalyst ― and nothing catalyzes growth like adversity.  Adversity ("opposition") is great dung for nourishing the roots of the Tree.

Christ is catalytic; His word is a double-edged sword that spears our hearts through, dividing them asunder, making them more abundant, overflowing, expansive, and pure.

A "catalyst" is something that produces change (usually at an accelerated rate).  Add candy to Diet Coke and it will explode.  Add Christ to your heart and it will explode (yes, it's messy).

Our hearts are going from "stony" (Ezekiel 11:19) to "abundant."  But why do we need this "mighty change of heart" (Alma 5:14) at all?

Feel your heart (no, not like in the movie The Temple of Doom).  Sense your heart deep within.

How is your heart doing?  What is your heart whispering? 

​What does your heart need?

The Fruit of the Tree

   The tree of life bare
   twelve manner of fruits,
   and the leaves of the tree
   were for the healing
   of the nations.

(Revelation 22:2)

My first mistake was thinking I could reach out my hand and partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life as if I were grabbing an apple.

The flaming sword that separates us from the Tree, which is to say, flesh from spirit, Father from Son, consciousness from the roots of mind ― this symbolic veil of fire was never meant to keep us away from God, but was always intended to be passed through when we were ready, at last, to 'come to ourselves' (Luke 15:17).

As I approached the Tree I beheld a man standing beneath the boughs calmly waiting.  It dawned on me what Nephi meant, but could not say, when he shared:

   I beheld that he was
   in the form of a man;
   yet nevertheless,
   I knew that it was
   the Spirit of the Lord;
   and he spake unto me
   as a man speaketh
   with another.

(1 Ne. 11:11)

It seemed obvious then, as we communed, that I had not come to take fruit from the Tree, but rather I had come to offer my fruit to the Tree ― that is, my heartseed.

You see, the only way I am aware of to "partake" of the fruit is to become it.  As we return, we discover resurrection is a form of reintegration.

The fruit represents "the love of God" (1 Nephi 11:22) of course, but as I gazed upon the hearts hanging from the Tree, to me they seemed also to contain worlds and eternal lives without number.

I offered my heart and tasted, and knew.

Fruit in Season of Harvest

A daisy, half concealed,
Watched for the fame of that poor field;
And in that flower and suddenly
Earth opened its one eye on me.

   ― G.K. Chesterton, "Cyclopean"

I have good news for those waiting for Christianity to emerge from the dark ages.

I am happy to report we are seeing signs of the Lord bringing about the next great evolutionary leap in our collective consciousness.  

We are witnessing modern spiritual advancements akin to Prometheus giving fire to humanity or the invention of the wheel.  In a world that has given us Goji Citrus Strawberry Mt. Dew, just imagine what heaven is cooking up!

For those paying attention with their subtle senses, you may have noticed our spiritual organs are being positively irradiated with instreaming celestial energies.

Something momentous is happening. 

What is it?  A new heaven and earth are being born!

​But birth can be painful.  We shall experience some inconvenience during this process, which I expect may take longer than we think.  Be patient.

Changelessness carries a kind of static deadness.  We usually tell if something is alive by whether it moves.  Witnessing the heavens and the earth shake (Hag. 2:6) is a relief, for we know something is rousing.  Something is awakening.

God is moving through space and through time, and things are changing.  You're not crazy; we really are being pelted with the signs of the times like rubber balls in a game of dodge ball.

So what exactly is going on?  What is happening with the universe?  We are beholding 'being' itself becoming.  

But becoming implies change and transformation, an evolution of spiritual nature.  There is a kind of death that precedes rebirth, as a snake shedding its skin, and it can be disconcerting for people who want to cling to old garments and old wine bags (Matt. 9:17).

But newness of life is the name-of-the-game during "times of refreshing" (Acts 3:19).

So grab your holy water and garlic, my friends, and dust off that cross, and let us shake the cobwebs from our minds ― for we ride on in the abundance of God's grace.

Becoming what?  What is this wondrous, mysterious thing that IS existence (the 'I AM') ― what the scriptures call 'intelligence' ― what is it all becoming?  

Jehovah introduced Himself to Moses and said His name was "I AM that I AM" ― which due to the nature of Hebrew, can equally be translated, "I AM what I WILL BE."  As in, "WILL BE[come]."

Sometimes change is for the better, sometimes for the worse (as we saw when angels fell from heaven, forsaking their exaltation to become perdition).  The question that occupies my attention is, in the case of God, what will emerge when He completes another "eternal round?"

There is something quite beautiful to me about God's eternal progression.

   I looked and beheld a tree;
   and the beauty thereof
   was far beyond, yea,
   exceeding of all beauty.

(1 Nephi 11:8)

Remember, 'intelligence' inheres to negative as well as positive polarities.

Thus we find ourselves in the midst of a War in Heaven bleeding into our current estate.

Seedlings

I filled my wallet with white stones,
I took three foxgloves in my hand,
I slung my shoes across my back,
And so I went to fairyland.

   ― G.K. Chesterton, "Modern Elfland"

As I became the fruit offering, the heart, it was as if the Tree was partaking of me.

The Tree tasted all I was, and am, and will be.

The Tree's awareness reminded me of a cosmic nervous system, its branches reaching outward like spiritual nerve endings.

How interesting that John depicted the Tree as straddling a river, its roots reaching out to the banks on either side, as the waters flowed between its legs (the water representing the current of temporality). 

   Though the root wax old
   in the earth,
   and the stock thereof die
   in the ground;
   Yet through the scent of water
   it will bud
   and bring forth boughs.

(Job 14:8-9)

The Tree straddles Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, unto the gathering of all generations of time together through the roots, up through the trunk and limbs, into the fruit which contains the precious seed.

We are God's fruit, the seeded, the seed-bearing, fruited from the vine.

As the Tree partook of me, and I became connected to the source, I felt our Condescension, as fruit shaken to the ground by windstorm.

Further in I fell, deeper and deeper, until I found myself within the womb-seed, as if I floated between the stars in space.  I perceived at a great distance a center sun of shaved diamond, black and white, living embers of coal, an alive intelligence of such brilliance and brightness I could not see what lay beyond it.

I was not allowed further at that time, being told, "You have living to do, and what joy is there in living without mystery?"

And so I looked around and saw a thousand and ten thousand smaller suns dazzling in the firmament, all oriented towards the center sun. 

Between the greater light of the central sun and the lesser lights were wild tongues of flame, streaming currents of light like living lava, as the lines in an eye's iris.

I entered the stream of one of the iris-lines, rippling and flowing with life, and was surprised that the fire was filled with water.

In a way that makes no sense, I understood that the water sprung from our tears, and in passage between suns the tear-water shone and reflected a beauty that filled me with a yearning and longing I can only describe as joy, but a joy that hurts so good.

And even now as I write these words the memory has brought new tears to my eyes, along with an aching in my heart that hopes for the reunion of all things, the redemption of all creation, to be joined to the One in love forever and ever.

​Amen.

Fields of Asphodel

"I was cheered when I came first to know
that there were flowers also in hell."

   ― William Carlos Williams

​I drifted
beneath an open page
    heaviness in my tongue

harrowed by Lethe’s current
slipping
    not at once―
    not a stone dropped

           but soundlessly
           Cocytus          crying
 
    No horror matches an open mouth
    from which nothing emerges
    or           enters
 
             maw    man
             mawn  mæn

Worship-words hang    -ing    ing  ing ing
    as a sheet stretched
    across a river
    no hands            without hands
    unhanded   
un-   un               un
    (suffixes all)

O Acheron! Acheron!   mute-echoes

​​life
between
Gihon and Pishon
between
Tigris and Euphrates
between
Eden
              &      Eve's children