Channeling Stephen the Martyr: The Tree of Life and the Point of Unfolding
Posted on 24 September 2018, 9:47
Stephen: In what way may I best assist?
Michael: The point of unfolding, in each of us. [I am asking him where we are at, in our spiritual journeys.
Stephen: The unfolding, and the point of unfolding [in each of us]:
how can I best describe the seed in the ground,
which will grow into a great tree?
Each stage of the unfolding is essential for the tree.
The object of unfolding is the tree.
Each stage in itself is of the greatest importance at the time of that stage.
Is it your wish to know the stage of unfolding
at which you have arrived?
Would a seed, as the first sprout reaches from the ground, from inside the earth, and sees the light and feels the heat of the sun for the first time, not say to itself, “Is this the object, or is there a further purpose?”
Would it not maybe recognise or perhaps associate with other trees, from what it can sense, what it can feel of the vibrations that come to it, and say, “This is what I wish to achieve, this is what I feel I should achieve.”
The concept of unfolding is [in] the now of this moment.
The importance of knowing what was before for that seed
is only of relative importance for the understanding
of what is now:
not what it may be, nor what it shall be,
nor understanding the desires or the instincts.
The salmon that returns to the same spot
from which it had come away as a fingerling,
that is the object.
Each mile of the journey is of importance.
Is there something that you can ask through my mind that will help me to make this clearer, Jeremy? Feel and probe…
Jeremy has nothing to say yet.
Has this in itself prompted a question, or are there other questions that will help me make it clearer? Feel my difficulty, if you please. How can a leaf tell, through the branch, the seed that is yet to come, of the unfolding after it arrives and it has fallen to the ground?
Even though the leaf knows, what concept for a comparison can it use to explain to the seed yet to come, except
when the seed begins to come, to tell it that it is a seed,
and as the seed begins to grow to say,
“Do not worry seed, you are progressing well.”
When the seed is due to fall, to say to the seed,
“You will live again, do not worry, you shall unfold.”
Can you see my problem?
You can say to the seed, “You shall one day be as the tree.”
Believe this, for each thing that happens to you
is for that object.
Each belief that you have ever heard, and ever seen,
or can ever conceive, has the same object.
Each seed has been told this object even before it was a seed.
To explain whilst things are happening, what is happening,
becomes a simple task for the leaf
that has been through these experiences
and then finds itself only a part.
The concept, even though experienced, and the unfolding,
even though the leaf came about through this unfolding,
are hardly explainable.
But the leaf does know that it is a part of the tree,
that it was a part of the seed,
that it did unfold, as the coming seed will unfold.
In this way only can I help, to say,
“Think of yourself as this seed.
The stage of the seed is immaterial.
Unfolding you may be, as is the case with what I am
and what I am connected to has unfolded in a manner,
has unfolded not to become the tree but to produce the seed, which produces the tree.”
Michael comments now 45 yeas later.
After all this time I still find Stephen’s words helpful even as subsequent experiences have much widened ny spiritual horizons. Every new experience reinforces my awareness of participation in a boundariless interconnected spiritual-physical whole. “In God we live and move and have our being.”
But when I focus on myself, almost 90 years old, in the city of Christchurch, in New Zealand, I still see as helpful the image of myself as a sprouting seed in relation to Stephen’s tree.
This tree. I now think, can be equated to the ancient and universal symbol of the Tree of Life.
On the internet I stumbled on the following piece about the Tree of Liffe:
“The Metaphysical meaning of the image of the Tree of Life is simple… You are a child of the Universe.
•You have the right to exist
•You have the responsibility to grow to be yourself
“The meaning of the Tree of Life as a spiritual symbol is well known and, like the tree itself, many branched and deeply rooted.
“The Tree of Life can be thought of as your own Cosmic Family tree, telling ancient stories of your shared roots which link you to the past, showing your connected struggles and aspirations; your desires to reach for the Light.
“The Tree of Life crosses all cultures because the Ancients could see trees close up all of the time… the symbolism of the sprouting seed, growing into a trunk and branching off, sending out smaller branches and little twigs, to see what they may accomplish… was not lost on them. The Tree became a common symbol, then, of life, ancestry, mythology, lessons of the spirit, history, lineage, and hope for the future… and climbing to the heavens.” Read further.
Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, shows the Tree of Life was central to Judaism at that time. And devotion to this picture of things developed into the more formalised Kabbalah Tree in the late Middle Ages.
In Revelation 22 we read “Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations:”
In the previous chapter there is a picture of the heavenly city of God cubic in form being let down from heaven like a bridegroom coming to his bride. It is talking of the union of spiritual with the physical. The concept is of “squaring the circle”, “cubing the sphere”, uniting of spiritual and physical..
Stephen’s overall message if that of the Perennial Philosophy. Spirit and the physical are one and holy. It is our lack of awareness of this that constitutes sin.
The present globalisation of the world, where all nations are inextricably connected by internet, trade, and tourism, can be seen a step towards a wider and more universal consciousness, But of course human frailty is also pulling us in other directions.
But in sum, I find still find Stephen’s picture of the Tree very helpful, in relating my little life to the wonder of The All. Then he showed me a river of the water of life, [as] clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of [b ]the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve [c]kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations
Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.
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