drawing the tree of life geometry
A while back, I wrote two posts about the connections between Tarot and the Tree of Life. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here. The general idea behind them was that I liked mapping Tarot to the Tree, but was dissatisfied with the exact way in which it was done, so I came up with my own way. My hand-drawn version of the Tree of Life still sits on my Tarot altar, although that altar looks wildly different now than any of the pictures I've posted previously.
Lately, I've been drawn much more towards the traditional structure of the Tree of Life, for which I believe the anchorite Athanasius Kircher is to be credited. I still struggle with this version of the Tree, both in the manner in which it assigns the Hebrew letters to the 22 paths and in its asymmetrical construction. Both of these things seem questionable to me, to say the least. However, "questionable" is just another way of saying "not yet understood by me". Sure, it may be the case that both of these decisions are bunk as I've always thought they are, but it may also be the case that there's much deeper meaning there than I've been willing to admit. The only way for me to know for sure is to set aside my biases for a while and work with the Kircher Tree in depth, rather than the Gra Tree I've come to prefer.
So today, I thought I'd do a short post for people who (like myself) might be disgruntled with the structure of the Kircher Tree. Let's talk about where that structure comes from.
At first glance, the Tree of Life looks like it ought to be symmetrically balanced: Like Tiferet* should occupy the space between the paths (traditionally) occupied by Dalet and Tet, like Yesod should be where Tiferet normally is, and like Malkut should be where Yesod normally is. This would make the whole Tree symmetrical not only on the vertical axis, but on the horizontal one as well. (And indeed, the symmetrical Tree is the one I'm accustomed to working with.) Looking at the Kircher Tree, it's as if something has dragged the central Sefirot downwards.
The received wisdom on this is that the Tree is imbalanced because of the sin of Adam and Eve's fall from the Garden of Eden. Malkut represents the material world, and Keter represents the Godhead. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they were cast out from the Garden and into the world we now know. Consequently, it is harder for us, their descendants, to transcend this physical world and reattain knowledge of God. Hence, the tipping of the scales in favor of the material end of the Tree of Life.
Personally, I never much liked this explanation, for two reasons. One of those reasons is legitimate, and the other one, not so much. The legitimate reason is that I'm neither Christian nor Jewish. The mythology of the Fall is not my mythos, although I did write a delightful post (many moons ago) about how that mythology gives meaning to the Tower and Star cards. So the use of this particular bit of Abrahamic myth in justifying the construction of the Tree of Life never really resonated with me.
The illegitimate reason is unbridled arrogance. I don't like being told that anything, even the deepest secrets of esoteric wisdom, could be unavailable to me. I rebel against the structure of the Tree of Life because that structure tells me I'm a prisoner of my own senses, and that I may not ever be able to fully transcend those senses. Even if one can move above Malkut and explore Yesod and Hod (a mighty feat in its own right), that's peanuts compared to the amount of work it takes to cross the "Veil" and get to Tiferet. And that, in turn, is nothing compared to the enormity of the task that is crossing the "Abyss"–that big empty space between Keter and Tiferet. Each move up the Tree of Life becomes successively harder, and realistically,no one gets to Keter. For a limited, mortal, temporal being trapped in a physical body, it's simply not possible.
And, well, I don't like being told that something's not possible.
But of course, some thingsaren't possible. Structuring the Tree of Life in this way expresses a deep, important truth: That even the most excellent among us are still limited, and will never knowall the truths that the universe has to offer. That's a tough pill to swallow for those of us (like myself) who are used to effortless excellence in all things,** but it is perhaps an especially important one.
But setting aside the hermetic rationale for a bottom-heavy Tree of Life, let's look at the sacred geometry that goes into its construction.
The shape of the Tree of Life comes from symbols of sacred geometry known as the Seed of Life and the Flower of Life (the latter is shown above). These images, aside from being very pretty, are particularly significant because they symbolically express the process of cellular division and the growth of life.
How, you ask? Well, it's a question of how they're constructed. Step 1: Draw a circle. Step 2: Congratulate yourself on that fantastic circle you just drew! I'm impressed by your artistic skills. I, for one, am incapable of even the most basic geometric accuracy in drawing. Step 3: Draw another circle, of the same diameter, with its center on the perimeter of the first circle. What you'll get is something that looks like this:
This shape is known as the vesica piscis (literally, "fish bladder"). Its grody name aside, it's an incredibly significant image in sacred geometry. If we think of each circle as a cell, then the act of creating the vesica piscis, of going from one cell to two, is the fundamental act of mitotic cellular division. It's the beginning of life.
To construct the rest of the Seed and Flower of Life, you continue this symbolic cell duplication process. Mark the points where the two circles intersect; then draw two new circles whose centers are at those points. You've moved from two cells to four. Now keep going with this process: Each time, mark the places where the new circles intersect with each other, and draw new circles with their centers at the intersection points. You'll get something that looks like this:
This is the Seed of Life. If you keep on with the process of circle-drawing, you'll get the infinite pattern of the Flower of Life. The Seed and the Flower are both visually evocative of a clump of cells, rendered in a two-dimensional image.
Lots of cool things can be done with the Flower of Life. If you connect together the centers of the circles, you get two-dimensional representations of all five Platonic solids; when you lay these representations on top of each other, it turns into a glyph known as Metatron's Cube. There's lots of cool esoteric symbolism and sacred geometry stuff that can be done with Metatron's Cube, but we'll leave it aside for now because it's not super relevant to the Tree of Life. You can read more about it here.***
For now, though, let's return to the Tree. The shape of the Kircher Tree of Life is obtained in a manner similar to the construction of Metatron's Cube: By connecting the centers of circles in the Flower.
And when I look at the structure this way, I feel a little more comfortable with it. Nottotally comfortable (and it's worth pointing out that the shape of the Gra Tree can be overlaid on the Flower just as easily), but more so. This doesn't fully explain why there's that great big gap between Keter and Tiferet (which is traditionally considered home to the "missing" eleventh Sefirah, Daat), but it gives mesomething I can grasp at that makes the structure of the Kircher Tree feel less arbitrary. Plus, the Flower of Life is just really cool.****
I struggle a lot with certain Tree-related aspects of Kabbalistic (Qabalistic) tradition. But the etymological root of the word "Kabbalah" is to verb "to receive", and the fundamental meaning of the word is something like "received tradition". I am, always and forever, a child of the Hierophant. Received tradition is important to me. Sometimes, that means that I have to bite my ego (not an expression, but I guess I'm envisioning something similar to "bite my tongue") and acknowledge that there are aspects of tradition that I don't immediately understand, even aspects that I'll never understand. But my not understanding them does not necessarily mean they aren't worthwhile. Moreover, I deeply believe that a tradition like Kabbalah evolves as a whole; that each part of it is connected to each other.
I still like my Gra version of the Tree of Life, but I am going to make a sincere effort to work with the Kircher Tree in good faith. There are a lot of things about Kabbalah that I love, and it's important that I understand those things in connection with the other parts that I find frustrating. Ultimately, it's all part of a whole. To take part of the Kabbalah and leave the rest is, I think, doing a disservice to the Kabbalistic tradition.
*My usual disclaimer about transliteration. I write "Tiferet" where you'll normally see "Tiphereth" or "Tiphareth". Similarly, I write "Malkut" instead of "Malkuth", "Sefirot" instead of "Sephiroth", and so on.
**Or at least in many things. I abandoned false humility a long time ago. When I was a child, I loved to read Agatha Christie books. There's one, though I can't for the life of me remember which, where someone accuses Poirot of arrogance. His response was something along the lines of "I'm the best. How would it benefit anyone if I pretended not to know that?" (I paraphrase.) That stuck with me.
***The link is to a jewelry site, but they have surprisingly decent information about a variety of sacred geometry topics, including the Seed, Flower, and Tree of Life. Their history is iffy, but the basic geometric stuff is all good.
****I love the mitosis symbolism. Something about that feels really powerful to me, and it links in well with the mythology of emanations that we generally associate with the Tree of Life. (That is to say, Chokmah is an emanation of divine light from Keter, and Binah is an emanation from Keter and Chokmah, and so on down to the bottom of the Tree.)
Source: https://jackofwandstarot.wordpress.com/2018/01/15/the-structure-of-the-tree-of-life/
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