Kabbalah’s Rhyme Of The Ancient Tree

Dedicated to I.F.

“And the Tree of Life pulses sturdy and strong

Through aeonic ebb-flow of Eternity Long…” Isidore Friedman

1-Ten Rays

Ten Divine Forces flow from Kabbalah’s Tree

The Tree that’s in you. The Tree that’s in me.

The first is Will, the Crowning point

Enter inner stillness and allow it to anoint.

Wisdom is Divine Life Force number two

Its ever-present brilliance will guide you through

Any life-challenge if you’ll just relax and listen

Turn from the outer hubbub and go deep within.

Understanding is Divine Ray number three

From the babbling herd-mind it sets you free

Instead of drowning in mental confusion and delusion

The inner light dawns to dispel fear’s bleak illusion.

Mercy is fourth on the Tree of Divine Love

As you ease up it descends from above

Trust in your peaceful, kind-hearted ways

And joy abounds to uplift your days.

Then follows Justice that is nothing to fear

Though it establishes bounds around Mercy that feel too near

Its purifying fire hurts almost too much,

But the lesson it teaches is even this trust.

The prize of Beauty is Tree Ray number six

The Orphic way to the Golden Fleece

The harmonic way that heals all strife

Gives birth to God in human life.

Leading to Victory, Divine Ray number seven

Your inner power to overcome that's rooted in heaven

You have the drive, the power, to make it through

And conquer any forces that might be sent against you

To emerge in the Glorious Splendor that is Tree Ray eight

Where you touch the Perfection that will utterly satiate

As the inner door opens and you step inside

Where unspeakable Heaven does abide.

This lands you in the Foundation, Divine Ray number nine

Where you sturdily stand, unattached to “me” and “mine”

Relying with certainty on the Golden Tree

Whose roots forever feed on Divinity

Till at last you make it to the Kingdom, Ray ten

To start all over after a time again

It’s here in the flesh that your soul must fend

To live the Divine Life, so mote it be, Amen.

2- Four Worlds

The ten Divine Forces work through four Divine Worlds

These too are within us and inward calls

Our heart to open, our inner being to explore

Until we feel connected to the innermost Core.

The first and highest is the World of Origin

It’s guiding soundless Tone and lightless Light win

When you drop all personal bias and verbal spin

Surrender your life to the pathless, begin.

In the second World, Creation, awake

To wield creative forces and direct your fate 

Here you are in charge of all

But do not know it till self-awareness here you install.

The third World is named Formation

Here you live in dreams of subconscious creation

Images in the mind appearing substantial and real

Capture your life and Splendid Truth conceal

Forming the forms of physical life in World four

Named the World of Making, lying on the outermost shore

Of conscious life, in the physical senses locked

Denying the Divine Light by inner ignorance blocked.

We must arise from World four by looking within

Until World three inner sight enters in

Revealing its images and urges as false mind

As we see through the false, the truer inner Light we find.

Awaken we then with new sight unblind

To the World of Creation, to leave behind

The miasma of thought forms, emotions and desire

Where pure stillness reveals a state so much higher

Where we cease creating trouble and mire so dire

As we touch the World of our Origin and its heatless fire

The Higher Ordering Forces that we call God

Work through us to transmute the earthly clod.

3-Twenty-Two Paths

Twenty-two pathways on the Divine Tree

Link the ten Divine Rays for all Eternity

Points connected through lines of life that trace

The Divine Possibility of the entire human race.

The path of The Fool unites Rays 1 and 2

Holding onto the pretense that you know what you should do

Closes the mind to the dawning of genuine Truth

Accepting that you know nothing begins True Wisdom’s reboot.

The path of The Magician joins Rays 1 and 3

As the light of Higher Will manifests True Understanding

Through you is then created the Higher Plan in solid form

As you render yourself a pure vessel freed from personal values’ emotion-thought storm.

As you render your heart receptive to Higher Will through inner balance

You traverse the path from Ray one to Ray six

The inward path of the High Priestess

Revealing the hidden laws sublime to your innerly peaceful Perceptiveness.

Ray two is joined to Ray three by the path of The Empress

Who is pregnant with the seeds of Wisdom and subconsciously births

The inner light of True Understanding that dissolves the dark

As you entrust your mind to the higher, thoughtless, Superconscious Spark.

Divine Rays two and six then meet on the path of The Emperor

Who permits the Original Will to administer Creation’s Power

His rulership is essentially of himself

As he initiates the materialization of True Spiritual Wealth.

The Path of The Hierophant Ray two to Ray four connects

The Wisdom of allowing Divine Grace to heal and bless 

Descends through trust in the Nous high above

The human thought mind and its counterfeit love. 

The Path of The Lovers joins the third to the sixth Ray

Through the practice of internal discrimination, The Lovers clear your True Way

Recognizing human thought as a miasmatic fog

That conceals True Attraction and induces Divine Love clog.

The Path of The Chariot joins Rays three and five

As you hold serene and steady until you KNOW the direction to ride

Confidently for the Golden Chalice of Divine Light await

To adhere to True Reason along the path Just and straight.

Rays four and five meet along the path of Strength to tame the brute

Of wild emotion, desire and thoughts that so convolute

The heart and mind in a tangled mess

Of reactivity and confusion that you forget your Divine Home Address.

The path of The Hermit joins the fourth and sixth Rays

Shedding the inner light that illumines dark nights and busy days

With the way of Grace Divine as you stand still and tall

In your heart's peaceful balance, above the mad world’s thrall.

Rays four and seven on  the path named The Wheel Of Fortune fall

Where the lessons of non-reactivity to “good” and “bad” to you call

What goes up comes down as cycles spin round and round

Maintain calm mental silence and to Graceful Victory be bound.

The path named Justice Rays five and six links

To sense your True Way of Divine Radiance

Leave judgement to your Higher Mind above human thought

Free from the snares of false opinions in which so many blind sufferers are caught.

Rays five and six meet along the Path of The Hanged Man

Who hangs suspended upside-down, hands tied, leg bound and

Remains so serene in enlightened helplessness

Allowing life’s limits to refine Glorious Splendor’s human instruments.

The Path named Death goes from Ray six to Ray seven

And is not death the doorway from earth to heaven?

In this case we learn to live the Higher Life

By surrendering the false self-idea that produces prideful strife.

The path named Temperance joins Rays six and nine

Where you are tested and tempted by the winds of fate that would undermine

Steady and grounded on the True Inner Foundation make your stance

Transcend transitory, illusory threats and promises in peaceful permanence.

The path of The Devil meets Rays six and eight

Where outer forms True Will vie to confiscate

Intimidation by false ideas of promise and threat that would keep us enchained

Dissolves through inner balance as we see the Splendid Glory of our Limitless True being.

Rays seven and eight meet along the path named The Tower

As upheaval reveals the false beliefs we empower

The fortress of resistance we erected in such seemingly solid stone

Crumbles and ejects us in a flash of soul-liberation’s Silent Tone.

Until we land in the Light of the path of the Star

Uniting Ray seven to Ray nine where we recover from the jar

To find True Stability in the Radiant Inner Light

That defines our True Victory over spiritual night.

Now comes the aeonian journey of the forever quest

As the path of The Moon presents test after test

Along the path that connects Rays seven and ten

Overcoming subconscious illusions and embodying Higher Truth so hard, long and slow must we ascend.

Rays eight and nine are joined by the path of The Sun

As freedom from the oppressive subconscious patterns of the past is won

Now free to dance and sing in natural ease

Our ship sets sail on the Secret Breeze.

The path of Judgement joins Rays eight and ten

As the kingdom of earth-life becomes translucent

To the Golden Trumpet Sound of our True Inner Call

Here now we arise where once we did fall.

At last we arrive at the penultimate depth

Along the path of The World where we embody God’s Breath

Rays nine and ten meet where there is no death

As we finally allow the Higher Ordering Forces of Cosmic Creation to manifest. 

4 – In Conclusion

The Kabbalah Tree of Life rhymes with a life so bold

To shade you from the heat and warm you from the cold

Of evil forces that with illusion rules

And captures the heads, hearts and souls of fools.

As you climb the Sacred Tree, limb by limb

Lifting yourself from the darkness you begin

Through inner peace to awaken in the Hidden Light 

To be guided by the Crowning Will to do what is right.

Freed from ideas that swirl in the head

No longer sucked in by whirlpools of desire and dread

That masquerade as wisdom and understanding true

Until inner stillness lets Higher Truth through.

The Tree is guiding you all of the time

That with Cosmic Beauty your life does rhyme

All your needs met by the Light Divine

As you step out of the jail-cell of lower mind.