Cosmic Tree

Cosmic Tree, 2021 acrylic on panel. 20"x16"

I began this painting with the intention of cultivating and directing healing consciousness for a friend who was undergoing treatment for breast cancer with brain metastases (please visit her FundRazr page). The essence of this image came to me very suddenly while thinking about her condition. I saw a brain being purified by healing fire, which then quickly took the form of a tree. As I explored this symbol in the literature, I realized it was a Cosmic or World Tree.

The ancient use of the Cosmic Tree archetype stretches back to the very beginning of alchemical symbolism spanning many cultures and religions. The Tree dynamically represents both the macrocosmic universe and the microcosmic human being (the universe in miniature) while symbolizing the divine mediation between heaven and earth. Here, the heart is depicted as the microcosmic vessel of divine immanence, recalling the Sufi tradition where God states: “My earth and My heavens do not contain Me, but the heart of My believing servant contains Me.” Indeed, Sufism shares with many other traditional spiritualities the idea that the loving heart serves as the seat of compassionate wisdom and higher intellect or mind.

The light of the heart’s ascension to the brain marks the alchemical ascent up the Cosmic Tree at the center of the universe, the summit of which is the transcendence of time and the realization of wholeness and completion.

The various manifestations of fire in the image represent the light of the divine as well as its action of illumination and purification—the fire of the sun, the fire of the heart, the fire that is the fruit of the Cosmic Tree. The Burning Bush from where the Word is revealed.

Complementing its relationship with fire, the Cosmic Tree was also said to grow upon water, representing the fluidity and fecundity of primordial chaos. Thus, it was known as “the tree of the sun and the moon”—the integration of opposites and subsequently the union of the two polar energy currents of the human body, united by the internal alchemical marriage. The Tree of Life.