The Tree of Life is the fundamental expression of a mystic paradigm referred to as the Kabbalah*. Its origins are obscure, most likely following an oral tradition for many thousands of years before first being documented in the Middle Ages. The Tree of Life is a glyph, a symbol – a metaphoric expression of a complex and intricate concept. Its use and application are left to the individual’s discretion, but it contains within it the potential to be a bridge between your awareness as a physical, "isolated" being and the complete unity of all creation. The Tree represents the processes of Creation in its entirety; not the beginning and the end, but the eternal cycling of being and becoming that is the expression of life in which we all participate. It is a universal glyph, reflecting the microcosm and macrocosm simultaneously. It reveals the inner workings of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions and simultaneously expresses the unfolding of all creation within the same paradigm. As a tool of exploration and understanding, the Tree may be utilized to understand the relationships that define our existence. We cannot exist in a vacuum. Even if we remove ourselves to an isolated mountaintop without human contact, we would still have the inner dialogue to feed and sustain us. We would still have to interact with our environment to gather food and create shelter. The nature of those interactions – internal and external – are the foundation of our expression of our lives. It is the evolution of those relationships and the nature of our expression through them that the Tree of Live serves to illuminate. The glyph is comprised of 10 spheres called Sephiroth (the singular form of the word is Sephirah) connected by 22 lines or paths. This simple representation can be approached from many perspectives, but for the purpose of this document, we will focus on 5 basic interpretive models: |
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| The Sephiroth the key points of the glyph expressed as colored spheres |
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| The Paths the lines of connection between the Sephiroth, expressed by Major Arcana trumps |
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| The Pillars three columns of Sephiroth, each with a distinct quality |
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| The Worlds groups of Sephiroth that are expressions of one of the four Hebrew "worlds" |
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| The Triangles three Sephiroth that express an inner cycle of awareness within the glyph. |
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*There are many "accepted" spellings of that word, including Qabala, Caballah, and others. I make no claim of authority as to the "correct" spelling... the focus, I feel is better spent on the content rather than the label
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