The Tree of Life

[RJM Corbet]

From the Diary of Hamish El Tyrone:

I am not a good man or a holy man. But I am a lucky man. Eloih has taken away from me everything, and so given me the key to the narrow door, that was obscured by the tangled vines and undergrowth of my previous material concerns. A natural key needs only the hand of flesh to turn it. But the key to higher dimensions will not turn, in the wrong hand.

The time has come to share with you the wisdom of the old garden kingdoms of Aazyr, and of the tree of life, as explained to me by Brother Christopher, which is the inner knowledge.

The tree of life has seven branches, and seven roots. The branches reach upward into the realms of spirit, and roots down into the dimension of nature. Man exists between nature and spirit as the living trunk of the tree. Man is not an animal, nor is he an angel. There is the mineral kingdom of nature, the rocks and stones, which move and grow, but have no free will.

Above the mineral kingdom is the vegetable kingdom. One flower or one seed has in itself more sentience than all the mineral kingdom combined. But the plant kingdom has little awareness or power compared to the animal kingdom. The smallest, tiniest living creature, has more sentience and free will than all the plant kingdom does in combination.

And one single man, even the lowliest and most bestial man, contains within himself all the sentience and free will of all the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms of nature, in their combined entirety.

This is the knowledge of old Aazyr, and is the key to freedom.

The seven branches of the tree of life are the seven spiritual angels of our heavenly father, and its seven roots are the natural angels of our earthly mother, which support the life of man. Every morning the people of the garden kingdoms invoked the power of the holy angels of the earthly mother into their own lives. Every evening they called on the angels of the heavenly father, and every noon upon the holy angel of peace.

I will now reveal to you the communions for the first day, which were the Sabbath communions:

On the morning of the first day: the people of the garden kingdoms called upon the power of the earthly mother with these words: "The earthly mother and I are one. She gives the food of life to my whole body."

The words of the master, which must never be altered or changed, concerning this communion, are these: “And you will feel the power of the earthly mother flowing through your body like the river when it is swollen with rains and courses mightily with a great noise.”

At noon on the first day: the people called upon the angel of peace with the kingdom of their heavenly father, with these words: “Our father who art in heaven, send to all your angel of peace; to your kingdom, your angel of eternal life.”

The words of the master: “At last, shall the son of man seek peace with the kingdom of his heavenly father; for truly, the son of man is born of his father by seed and of his mother by the body, that he find his true inheritance.

“The law of the heavenly father fashioned the stars, the sun, the light and the darkness, and is the holy law within our souls. Everywhere is he, and there is nowhere he is not. All that we know, and all we know not, is governed by the law. The falling of leaves, the flow of rivers, the music of insects at night, are ruled by the law.

“Our father's house has many mansions, and many hidden things. I tell you truly, no man can ever know its limits. Yet it may be found in a dewdrop on a wild flower, or in the scent of fields under the summer sun.

“To the son of man is given to enter the stream of life, but first he must seek peace with his own body, with his own thoughts, with his own feelings, with all the sons of men, with the holy knowledge and with the kingdom of the earthly mother.

“For this is the vessel which will carry the son of man on the stream of life. He shall know the sevenfold peace before he know the one peace”

On the evening of the first day, while meditating upon the stars, the people of the garden kingdoms invoked the angel of eternal life with the words: “Angel of eternal life, descend upon me and give eternal life to my spirit.”

Words of the master: “In sleep you shall know the oneness of all life everywhere. In daylight hours your feet are on the ground and you have no wings. But your spirit is not tied to the earth and in sleep you overcome your attachment to the earth and become eternal. The son of man is not all that he seems, and with the eyes of the spirit he knows the golden threads that link with all life everywhere.”

I will give you the communions for the other six days of the week later. Please forgive me. I am an old man now and tired of writing for today.

 

[Dozmonic]

I had just started listening to an Africanesque chill out compilation on youtube as I read this, which helped add to the otherworld mystique. What kind of feedback do you want for this? There's a fair few commas that you can remove, but I assume have been left in for pacing reasons.

The first paragraph I'd rewrite one sentence to: Eloih has taken everything away from me and so given me the key to the narrow door that was obscured by the tangled vines and undergrowth of my previous material concerns. ("everything" has been moved and the commas removed because they made the sentence non-sensical)

On the morning of the first day: the people of the garden kingdoms called upon the power of the earthly mother with these words: "The earthly mother and I are one. She gives the food of life to my whole body."

Two colons looks odd but fits.

It's an intriguing piece, a mixture of Buddhist and Christian beliefs imagery, belief and ritual. I really like it.

 

[JoanDrake]

It's very good as a piece of religious writing. There are a couple of straight lifts from the Bible like "...house of many mansions" at the end, but it's generally quite original. Is it meant to be a part of any actual story or is it just a tract in itself?

 

[RJM Corbet]

Thank you both so much. I'm quite relieved because I really wasn't sure what sort of reaction this was going to get, especially posting straight after the last, also religious/mystic/theological passage, but I'm doing a final edit of Erlos now and so posting as I go along.

This is actually taken from the Essene religion of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and from translations by Edmond Bordeau Szekely of Aramaic Vatican library documents predating Christianity. It's believed that Jesus was raised as an Essene. I will credit the source. 'The Hells' passage is loosely based on Zorastrian belief. So, you see, I'm not inventing all this stuff.

In diary excerpts through the rest of the book Hamish el Tyrone will give out the rest of the daily communions and meditations, of the old Aazyrian garden kingdoms.

 

[Kylara]

It reads well to me, not as well as your angel hells though, but that may just be my dislike of the whole organised religion; I much prefer the failure of religions and false gods and all that, gives me lots of fun things to think about. This one, however, is a totally different type of religion, interesting though I give you that (I didn't speed or skim anywhere, which normally happens in religiousy pieces) and well written. There are a few twisty sentences about but that may just be the character voice, or they could be tightened up. A few phrases are just glorious: This is the knowledge of old Aazyr, and is the key to freedom. So simple and so alone, bringing all attention to it, just wonderful.

Personally I may start skimming if these excerpts appear too close together, just because I don't like the feeling of being repeatedly preached to, even by a character; but if they are more scattered (ie not at the beginning of every chapter) I would most likely give them all the attention they are due.

P.S.
Anymore bits on the angel hells that we saw in another excerpt? I just loved that!

 

[JoanDrake]

But you can't just write this out like you say you're going to, like a translation or interpretation, you need to make a story out of it.

If you haven't already, you might want to look at Gore Vidal's Creation. I read it years ago and it changed my whole outlook on how the Greeks and Persians must have gotten along. It was only years later when I studied other religions and read other reviews of the the book that I recognised how much more it was.

 

[LordKrups]

I like it! Some interesting natural/spirtual world and mother/father symbology in here. I like to think about fantasy and alien religous and spiritual thought processes. Like how in their society they would structure the questions and answers to life's great mysteries.
So to that end its gotten me interested, preach away with your communions=]

 

[JoanDrake]

But you can't just write this out like you say you're going to, like a translation or interpretation, you need to make a story out of it.

...or not...on rereading I see this might be taken offensively. I'm sorry if you did. I didn't mean to tell you how to write your stories, just saying...

 

[RJM Corbet]

Kylara/LordKrups: thanks for reading through it, and positive input. It matters a lot.

Joan, please don't think I take anything offensively, I really appreciate you reading my pieces.

I'm just not on the internet much these days because my internet access at home has been firewalled, am trying to fix it, so I just scan quickly through chrons at work ...