I am sure you all know that a tree has the ability to eat
the light of a star, our Sun!
So let us go into a love story about Trees and Stars based
on ancient Hebrew texts canonical and midrashic. Are you familiar with he Song
of Songs, Shir HaShirim?
According to Rabbi Akiba it is the holiest of all the ketubim/writings.
He said it is the the very Holy of holies itself, that the whole world is not
the worth the day that Shir haShirim was given to people of Yisrael.” He said it contains the whole history of the
Jewish people from exile to freedom including the great Sabbath of a world at
Peace.
The song lists seven different varieties of special trees in
its few short chapters. These are Nut trees, palm trees, fruit trees, lumber
yielding trees, spice trees, incense trees and the oil yielding olive trees.
The song holds the story of two lovers whose identities have
been explored by many commentators and which we are told by kabbalists holds
the greatest secret of our wisdom tradition. Trees can be our guide in lifting
the veil on their identities just a little tonight.
Now when HaShem created the upper Eden which held a spirit
ocean called the lake of Tears, This was surrounded by several of these stately
beautiful trees. What if the lovers of
the song were two of those trees who sensed each others wafting fragrance and fell
passionately in love? They may have been the apple and the Palm tree known a the Tafuach and Tamar in the song. This was a new fiery kind of Love that caused
all the trees to flower, to shake and shimmer and the waters to start rippling
and it shook the entire creation and the waters began to flow into four mighty rivers
manifesting the entire physical olamim or worlds. We read about that in the
beginning of Sefer Bereishis,Genesis when it says that the waters above and
below were divided.
In the first verse of the song we hear of Shlomo, the King
whose name is Peace but commentators tell us that is a cover for the divine Source,
The Holy One. And in chapter seven we are given the name of his lover as the
Shulamite, a name whose root also means Peace. Could they be ancient tree spirits?
Many different Earth based indigenous wisdom traditions
honor the Trees as, helpful, wise and providential spirits often related to
spirits called kachinas here in New Mexico born out of the different forms of
water such as rivers, springs, lakes and oceans. These interface with our human
world in that some inspire us to develop the arts and wisdom sciences that have
fueled our developing cultural journeys throughout history.
There are three ancient beings in European legend known as
the original archaic muses, who inspire beauty and balance in our lives.
One is said to have been born from the movement of water.
The second one emerged from the vibration of air in a column
of wood .
An the third sprang from the vibration of the human voice.
In ancient images the muse Terpsichore carries a chelys, a
special kind of lyre made from a turtle shell with two strings. Just two
strings. These two strings are another way of expressing that the entire
creation is made from the dance of two lovers whose desire for each other has
actually caused the Holy one to create the dance of polarity: shamayim,-the
heavens; and the aretz- the Earth. The Tohu and Bohu, the light and dark, the
day and night and the morning and evening. These five pairs were all manifested
on the yom echad, the day One in the very first words of Torah and like the
circle of ten hidden in the heart of the apple they are dancing our world into
being every moment. It is the dancing turning of the Earth globe that gives us
these ten original players of our daily and nightly experience. We just need to
consciously join their dance with our
minds, our hearts and our modechka, the power of our souls.
Consider Genesis 2:9: And out of the ground made HaShem to
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of
life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and
the not good. Are these two trees the original lovers?
From the song:
“AS an apple tree
among the tree of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great
delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”(II-3)
One of the two lovers says as they dance:
‘Behold you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely, our
couch is Raeinanah-freshness and renewing life.”(I-16)
The prayer of our human voice sings from the holiest of
songs:
“Who is that coming up from the wilderness, the midbar,
leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you, there your
mother was in travail with you, there she who bore you was in travail.” “Set me
as a seal on your heart , as a seal upon your arm for love is as strong as
death,… Its flashes are flashes of fire, the fire of the daughter of yah
shalhevetyah.(raising the seal in the core of the apple)
SHOOVI----SHOOVI---SHULAMITE- Return, return, O Shulammite;
Return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulammite?
As it were a dance of two companies.
Shoovi, shoovi, shoovi Return oh Shulamite, you who dance
the dance of Peace and Caring, you who shake the world with power and passion and
bring us to our knees so that we honor each other, the creation and the Source
of Love.
May this one whose names means Peace bless our Earth and all
her peoples, and bless the trees, who call us to awareness of the great love
that made the world.
Thank You to Arlene Goldbard for editing this writing.
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