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Oak Tree and Lupine Bushes at the Confluence

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THE JUDGE

   An oak tree towers above two rivers and a one-lane road. Over a decade ago, I stood transfixed for ten minutes as an oriole trilled from one of its branches. Today, as I stare into its canopy, I remember that its branches soared above me fifty years ago when my father first brought my family to the confluence. We had parked by the road to search for a fishing hole, encountering bush lupine in bloom and a tranquil pool that suddenly sweeps around a curve to merge with the Kings River. That day fifty years ago as I stood dwarfed by the oak tree, I was comforted by the false belief that trees, no matter how majestic, are inferior to humans because they lack intelligence or a soul. I was eleven, too young and full of myself ever to have entertained the idea that other creatures are sentient, too young to have entertained the possibility that my grandparents and father and uncle would all, within a short period of time, pass away. My mother at the age of ninety-two recently died from a stroke after a long battle with dementia. The oak is somehow more magnificent than ever. My brother and I that day fifty years ago hid behind lupine bushes, heaving rocks at each other. No one else now shares that memory. The oak seems more open to the awesome forces of the sun and the moon than I ever have been. For a moment, I want to believe that the oak remembers a few fleeting moments of my family's history. I have nothing to confirm that belief, but I know that living things are connected in ways that are sometimes difficult to comprehend. In one way, the oak is my judge, if only because it compels me to reexamine fifty years of my life.
   The Rough Fire charred the eastern slopes above the road, but now the slopes are vivid green, and most of the oaks look like fire has never molested them. Due to above-average rainfall and unseasonable warmth, flowers are blooming about a month early. The first white-tipped lupine crowds the grass near the road and poppies ignite the hillsides. Within blazing orange patches, a few large patches of white stick out like blemishes, as if some pale cancer is spreading through the fiery flesh. At first I think the white might be unusually dense patches of popcorn flowers, but then I find an abundance of bird's eye gilia along the road, and farther up the hills I see forces of blue and white and orange, lupine and poppies and bird's eye gilia, clashing with each other, the three species of flowers after the Rough Fire in this wet year vying early for dominance of the hillsides. The word lupine is based on the Latin word lupus, which means wolf. Like the wolf packs of old, lupine has the tendency to take over an area, but these two other species seem just as exuberant and aggressive and unwilling to give an inch of their territory. I am witnessing the battle of three brilliant armies from afar, a battle I have never witnessed before and might never again.

Three Armies: Bird's Eye Gilia, Lupine, Poppies

   As I peer up the hillsides, I can see that this battle contains unparalleled splendor, which tempts me to scale the dangerous slopes. Since the steep hillsides were blasted away to create the thin, gray ribbon of road, the way up the hill is too challenging or overgrown in most places, but I finally discover an incline gradual enough and open enough for me to climb, and I gain somewhere between five hundred and a thousand feet in elevation before I step into the battle of three armies. There are times when one is forced to revise one's limited notions about nature, especially when confronted with a splendor that is arguably more ravishing and more tranquil than anything in human society. 

   The individual flowers of each species might be struggling for a place in the sun, but these species share a niche that is no doubt far older than any human community in North America. I don't sense hostility in this niche, only freshness and unity. Soon I feel my mind tune to a kind of vibration that induces a feeling of oneness. I am once again connected to an order containing intelligences that are less fragmented and separate from the Source than my human consciousness.
   My immersion in the battle of the flowers awakens awakens within me the intelligence of my soul. I feel a different vibration emanating from each species, a slightly different frequency of the life-force. I feel an eternal spirit within each species that is not limited to their cyclic, transient manifestation on this earth. I also feel a timelessness that makes modern ideas about human progress seem absurd. The sense of loss that I felt so keenly under the towering oak completely vanishes. I sense that each human being is just as eternal but with a unique intelligence, whereas each species of flower is part of a group mind. I also sense that humans often feel fragmented and separate precisely because we have each evolved a distinct, individual intelligence. Yet humans, since we have evolved within nature, also have the ability to shift consciousness to experience the unity and eternity within ourselves and other forms of life.
   On the Tree of Life, this difference in consciousness is represented by Victory, the Emanation of nature and beauty and the arts associated with Venus, and Splendor, the Emanation of concrete intelligence associated with Mercury and the intellect. Victory on one level is the sphere of the instincts and the group mind within nature; Victory, according to the Qabalists, emanated the sphere of Splendor in the process of cosmic evolution. Splendor is the Emanation of unique individual intelligence represented so spectacularly, especially in modern times, by human consciousness. This evolution has enabled humanity to create amazing civilizations and technologies, but the sense of fragmentation and separation that accompanies distinct individual intelligence has led to much conflict. Once trapped in the sense of separateness and individuality, the human mind can fixate on prejudice and anger and hatred, which makes it difficult to feel the power of the forces of nature. I know from experience that a person in this condition of fragmentation and separateness can no longer see with the eye of the soul and understand that the physical is the dense aspect of the spiritual.
   Years ago in this river canyon, in a troubled time, I asked out loud what I should do next, and the answer came immediately, “Be free.” I did not expect that answer, but I am beginning to understand what freedom means. As I stand in the stunning flowers, without effort I let go of beliefs about my personality, about what should be or what should have been, and I simply breathe. At times in this canyon over the years, I have felt a great sense of loss because memories of my family fishing at the North Fork of the Kings River flood back to me. My father died when I was seventeen, and my sense of security and continuity died with him, so by the river I sometimes mourn the end of my childhood. But as I breathe in the fresh air from the flowers, I feel free of loss. I feel a twinge of nostalgia when I recall those times, but the grief and sadness disappear. Oddly, my sense of freedom is not about escape from my life or my responsibilities but is tied to my sense of spiritual connection, my ability to forget myself and shift consciousness so that I feel the eternal, underlying unity of life.
   At one time I stood before a great tree and could not understand its significance. I ran through flowers without recognizing their loveliness. I did not feel the peace within nature until I experienced much stress and conflict and fragmentation and separation. I did not know then that there is a transcendent aspect of the human psyche that can link us to the underlying unity of all consciousness. Surrounded by the flowers, I have the feeling that internalizing that knowledge would end humanity's tribalism and divisiveness in a heartbeat. I did not know how precious and mysterious life is until I experienced many losses. I believed then that my family and society would last forever. 

   Now when I gaze upon the tree by the confluence I simply want to know the history of the river and the flowers as well as the people and animals who have passed through, the history of the effects of fire and rain and the sun and the moon. Somewhere in that history, perhaps, my family searches for a good fishing hole and my brother and I throw rocks at each other and chase each other through the lupine by the river.