Excerpts from 'THE JEWEL OF PARADOX:

CLIMBING THE COSMIC TREE OF THE CHAKRAS

I've walked this glade of ancient, mystical trees many times. Usually I admire and sample a variety of them, living antennas radiating nature's splendor. But today, I'm strongly drawn to the one called the Cosmic Tree, an especially huge and venerable one. I've recently been initiated as a Dreamer and am anxious to try out my new gifts, excited with thoughts of using these higher senses to truly experience the Cosmic Tree to its fullest. With my senses attuned to these new realms of being, I sometimes perceive them as easily as I do the physical ones.

The Tree of Life, Center Pole of the Universe, I've also heard people call it. I've watched them go to touch it, to rest their palms on it, to sit for a while with their backs resting on it, apparently with deep pleasure and renewal. Till now I've just observed all this going on around the Tree, but now, I'm drawn to examine it closely, to enjoy the wonders of my new perceiving. Now I can truly get to know it. I weave my way through to the center of the copse of trees to find it. Standing before the Cosmic Tree's formidable presence some while, I ease into deeper awareness of it, thrilled with its encompassing aliveness. It flourishes on so many levels. Its roots must seek down to some primal water bed to feed it's full vigor.

Walking round and round it, I pass my hands over its bark, deeply gnarled and scarred with the assaults of time. First I walk around it counterclockwise, then clockwise. I do this as an honoring and discovery as I begin to experience other dimensions of it. Perhaps it really is the center and pivot of the universe, I begin to sense and believe. A way of passing between the worlds.
How venerable this Cosmic Tree is. The trunk is three, nearly four feet across. I let my eyes climb as it rises straight up some 80 or 90 feet. Seven huge limbs radiate out around it every 10 or 15 feet. Each of the seven branches is well twigged with broad, pointed leaves in fan-like spreads that I can't identify. The late-noon sky above it is all glare. The shadowless wisps of cloud seem not to move.

Pulled by the Tree's soaring, I imagine what it would be like to climb it. The burrs of its bark are huge and I can imagine someone might find finger and toe holds in it. But it's straight up. And the lowest of the seven branches is at least 25 feet up. There are stumps of lower branches that apparently died or were broken off over the millennia. To me, it looks like a pretty difficult if not impossible climb.

Instead, I'm drawn to hug the Tree closer, into penetrating it deeper, my palms pressing the surface of its crinkled and rough bark. I close my eyes and the Tree's energy grows more penetrating. My Dreamer's awareness expands to merge with it. I'm taken into the very core of the trunk, then down into the mammoth webbings of its roots, the layers of earth they weave through. That earth-feel fills me. My legs extend into the roots. I draw from the rawest earth for sustenance. My blood is of the Tree's sap that ebbs and flows with the seasons.

I'm deliciously real to myself, so solid in my being. Present, realer than I've ever felt to myself before. So immensely gifted by the Tree, I'm touched and thankful. "Revelations will come as you ascend to the top of the Tree," the inner Dreamer wisdom assures me, "gifts of your Calling."

I absorb into even fuller resonance with the Tree, awakening in myself the same quality of consciousness. So merged with the Cosmic Tree's being, I know it truly is the Pole Center, the Pivot of the Cosmos. And at the base of my spine there is fiery corresponding tingle. The current of groundedness that flows up into me gives substance to my soul. I awaken to myself as a primal living being. Staying grounded, my awareness merged with the Tree's, as it expands upward it takes me with it. As I'm moved up through its limbs, I'm also moved up through levels of my lightbody, ascending up through my chakras.

At this First Branch, in my lightbody I awaken to the Root Chakra at the base of my spine. Through it, I savor the aliveness of my earthy body. I learn what the stones know about the sanctity of just being a thing. My 'I-sayer' consciousness affirms, "I am this body-thing." That tangible self-knowing fills me to the tips of my toes and fingers till I'm utterly, ecstatically present.
Another wave of exaltation takes me on up to the Tree's Second Branch. Here the taste of soil evolves into the green tang of vegetation. My energies go up a harmonic from the simple state of physical being and into a vast range of organic possibilities, capacities and paradigms. A fountain of nature's bountifulness opens in my belly. I feel a deep gratitude for the Cosmic Tree's nurturing this realm of my aliveness. My 'I-sayer'celebrates, "I am fecund."

Now I'm swept up into the next realm at the Tree's Third Branch. Here I awaken to very active powers in me. Like a lion's. Like fire's. "I am the doer," a very empowered I-sayer says. My Solar Plexus fills with and radiates heat. Surges of potency pulsate out through it.

Another rush of life-force surges up through me and I'm flung up to the Tree's Forth Limb. The first three levels of being -earth, vegetation and animal- now fuse and leap into a new level of being that creates in me a sense of self. It creates a vessel for my personhood. Through my heart, I'm opened to the center of my being and the universe. I listen for the voice of my 'I-sayer'. "I am all things that I feel," it affirms. I'm shown glimpse of the Heart dimensions in things I never suspected.

It feels like an exaltation as I'm raised up to the Fifth Limb. My inner senses are startled as if by reverberations from a celestial gong. It awakens fresh glimpses of the magic in perception and expression. The richness of the sights, sounds and smells of my lifetime gather, join in jubilant song and celebration. "I perceive and commune", my 'I-sayer' exclaims as my soul fills with these bounties of my senses, physical and beyond.

Bursts of light and illumination soar through my Third Eye Center at the Tree's Sixth Branch. I recognize the realm my visions birth from, its knowing as fundamental and unique as the Heart's. As I come to experience it now, merged with the Tree's rootedness and fully embodied in myself, I can participate in it with greater resource and potency. Containment opens it to infinite freedom.
Now, at the topmost reaching of the Tree, the Seventh Limb, I awake to the Crown Chakra Center atop my head. Heavenly radiance flows in, Solar and Divine. At this subtle culmination of all the Chakra Centers, ethereal consciousness flows into mine and lets me perceive the spiritual matrix within all that I experience. I taste the purity of Source within and beyond my own purposes and intentions. As I drink in this ultimate, lucent knowing, in full resonance with the Tree, I recognize I am the Cosmic Man. In this I experience the fullness of my being, every level, every aspect. Here I know the Unity. I too am the Pole Center of the Universe.
For a long, long while I hug the Cosmic Tree to the center of my being, bliss filled as my seven Chakra centers spin with splendid rainbowed light.

Return to top

Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2003