The Whisper of a Willow

"As above, so below. As below, so above." -Hermetic axiom

As I was driving down this road today the Beauty of the Trees brought to my Eye a sense of Mystery. I have read a good amount of text on Hermetic philosophy. In a manner all these sort of euphoric and daemonic levels events of Communication seem to occur, a thought and Realization seemed to hit me quickly and out of Nowhere.

In those few moments of carnal time, I imagined how we view ourselves as a sort of singular, whole organism; when in reality that sense of Individualism is also the result of unfathomable levels of complexity of all levels of our Being. I then turned my thought from within outward, to the World I perceive beyond me. We view the trees, the ground, the air, the clouds, the unfathomable level of complexity that exists on what many of us have collectively agreed to call Earth. Just like the unfathomable levels of complexity that combine to give us our emergent-like sense of Individualism, isolate and unique at it's core; so too is all the smaller parts of the Earth that combine to emerge as the object we call Earth.

This can be further viewed in continually larger scales; viewing the Earth as the macrocosm of the individual "atom." Even further; the Galaxy to a cell. The Universe, in all it's known and unknown factors, to the Individual Being (you and I) in our own equal Known and Unknown Realms.

I've always favored the famous Hermetic axiom "as above, so below"; but never with so much respect and brilliance until after I have made it Self-Evident.


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"Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?" -Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

"Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life." -Hermann Hesse, Wandering


"Among archetypal images, the Sacred Tree is one of the most widely know symbols on Earth. There are few cultures in which the Sacred Tree does not figure: as an image of the cosmos, as a dwelling place of gods or spirits, as a medium of prophecy and knowledge, and as an agent of metamorphoses when the tree is transformed into human or divine form or when it bears a divine or human image as its fruit or flowers." - Christopher and Tricia McDowell, The Sanctuary Garden, 1998, p 128