ADDING TO THE TREE OF LIFE
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ADDING TO THE TREE OF LIFE
Insight To Our Purpose On Earth
By, Beth Geer
Just over 10 years ago, sometime in 2012, I had a lucid dream or what might be better described as one of my extraordinary, supernatural experiences. It is difficult to describe what these experiences are. Such out-of-the-ordinary occurrences are hardly “dreams” to me in any sense of the word upon waking. And I am not always asleep when they take place. These moments feel like real experiences etched in my mind clear as any fully conscious encounter.
This one is about the moment I received the assignment to come into my current life here on earth and what it is we are all being asked to do with our lives during this momentous time of humanity’s Great Awakening.
Please keep in mind, that the events I am about to relate here, are given to me in symbolic form. Symbols that represent an abstract experience in a way my present-day mind can comprehend as I exist as a human being on planet Earth now.
So, if objects, clothes worn, and other material items appear in ordinary, everyday ways, it is simply for my own benefit, that I may be better able to comprehend what was happening to me. How such strange events looked in truth, to my eternal Self’s spirit-mind, I do not know.
Here then, is the story of one of my pre-birth experiences:
I found myself standing in an open area, with tiers of balconies all around me, floor to ceiling; much like standing in the commons area of a large shopping mall. I counted 12 levels or floors.
At the center of the commons area, there was an enormous pine tree. I could scarcely see the top. And there were many people busily walking past me, somewhat crowding the floorspace as they passed me by, moving on to wherever their destination was. Few were standing around, looking up at the tree as I was.
The few of us that were staring up at the tree, were each there for the same reason. We were trying to find our needle, our contribution to the tree of life.
I stood there searching up and down the tree closely. My contribution could be anywhere on it.
And then I saw it! As my eyes landed on my pine needle, it lit up with a golden-white glow, about halfway up the tree near the very end of a branch.
How proud I felt! It had not been easy, and the contribution I had made had only lasted a brief time in the life it occurred, but I had done it! I had actually contributed to the Tree of Life.
It was indeed a small contribution, but each needle was important. There were some, who during their mortal lives contributed whole branches to the tree, and I admired these feats with awe.
It took an act of great love to contribute a single needle to the tree, and so I knew that those who had added whole branches had given miraculous amounts of love.
As I stood there, serenely admiring the tree, a young man came running up to me through the crowd, breathless from exertion.
“Whew!” he said to me. “You’re a hard person to find! I’m so glad I found you at last.”
I did not know who he was. I asked him, “Why have you been looking for me?”
“I came to get you. They want to see you,” he said.
“They want to see me? For what?” I asked him with disbelief.
“They are calling in everyone who has ever contributed to the tree. They’re calling in all volunteers for something big,” the young man replied.
And with that, he grabbed my hand, and we rushed off through the crowd together.
The next thing I knew, I was seated in an office, at a desk facing the inner circle of the tiered building. I could see the top of the tree outside the window in front of me. I couldn’t believe I was on the 10th floor, almost at the top! “Regular” people such as myself, rarely visited this place unless invited. We simply had no business there. It was far beyond our current scope of spiritual attainment.
There were two other desks in the office beside where I was sitting. Each had what I would describe as a “mid-1990s style” computer and printer on it. Again, these appearances must have been for my comfort and familiarity since I was born in 1975. There were also two men in sharp-looking 3-piece suits and a woman dressed equally professionally in a pencil skirt, white blouse, and suit jacket.
One of the two men stood in front of me, leaning forward with both hands on the desk at eye level with me. The woman was on my right, sitting casually on the corner of the desk, and the other man stood behind me also on my right, looking over my shoulder.
There was absolutely nothing threatening about them. In fact, just the opposite. I felt I was in the presence of 3 very great and good people, who wielded a great and good power. They felt high in the chain of command for decision-making. When I tried to look into their faces to see what they looked like, all I could see was a shining, beautiful sacred-feeling light. In hindsight, I have often wondered if they were representing the Holy Trinity.
They placed a two-inch stack of paper in front of me. I briefly glanced at it and understood immediately what they were asking me to do.
“Absolutely not!” I said to them. “I absolutely refuse to go back there. I won’t. I can’t. I just don’t have it in me to do it, even one more time. I thought I was done with that place! I’ve learned all my lessons and was told I was done having to go back there.”
They listened patiently to my refusal and then said, “We know. We understand your position. We know you have suffered greatly and given much there. But now we are in special need of volunteers to go back just one more time. We need you to do just one more thing. And we need as many as possible to go.”
They then showed me the details of my mission.
“That’s it?” I said. “That’s all you want me to do? Just this one small thing?”
“Yes,” they replied. “That’s all.”
“Well, it’s something I’ve already done once before, though briefly, and I know it’s easy to repeat once it’s understood,” I observed. “It’s the thing I did to add the pine needle to the tree.”
“Correct,” they replied.
“Yes, I can go back and do that again,” I told them. “However, I don’t want to live a life of abject suffering. I just can’t do that again. I’ve done that too many times.”
They smiled kindly at this and said, “We’ve already selected a beautiful life for you in which to complete this task for us. We know how many lives of suffering you’ve had to endure, and such suffering is no longer necessary for you to experience. You simply will not need it to do what you will go there to do. This life will be a gift to you for returning yet one more time for us. It has been arranged to contain many things you love about that place. There will be no hardships beyond what the average life in that world brings.”
I looked through the pages in front of me and a few delightful things caught my eye. I saw that my husband would be someone I’ve been wanting to have a peaceful, meaningful lifetime with for a long time. And I would live on a farm with horses – also something my heart loved. I would also have two beautiful children.
This seemed like a life I could endure for one more trip down to a place I felt I’d never choose to go back to. And most important, I felt confident I would not forget my mission. I noted that there would be strong, positive reminders along the way to help me.
“Okay. Yes, I can do this,” I told the group in the office.
And that was the end of the supernatural, lucid dream.
After this experience, I wondered many times over the next decade what I had done to earn a needle on the tree of life. I wanted to know the specifics, to ensure I was accomplishing my goal here now if these events were indeed true. All I knew was that it somehow involved a great love.
So, my assumption all along had been that I must have performed some act of great heroism and courage. I just assumed that I had sacrificed my life for someone; a sacrifice for someone I deeply loved, since it took an act of great love to earn a needle on the tree of life. I never knew the details of this experience.
Until one afternoon in August of 2023, over 11 years later, I laid down and fell into a deep meditation. And for some reason, after all these years, I asked what my contribution to the Tree of Life had been.
The answer was not what I expected.
My Inner Guide replied, “You forgave a deep hurt. You overlooked a pain someone caused you that ruined your entire life. And you had hated them for decades. Then when you were faced with them years later, you made a different choice. You chose to love instead of hate. You suddenly decided you had had enough pain and anger and forgave them. Then you felt compassion for their own personal struggles. Next, you did something tremendous. You extended an act of love to your most despised enemy. And that is how you added a pine needle to the tree of life. You loved another as God loves us all. You loved your enemy as you would love yourself. You had done this for but a brief time, but it was enough.”
This was not at all what I had imagined. Curious, I asked my Inner Guide the specifics of the story behind this act of love.
What follows is the answer I received.
I was a man in my late twenties living in what looked like Grecian times. All the buildings were made of white or light-colored clay material, and everyone wore single-piece, loose robes with a belt around the waist and sandals. I had a beautiful wife and four young children. We were moderately wealthy. We had a very nice home compared to many and had all the things we needed for a comfortable if not luxurious life.
The source of our income was my pottery making. I was gifted in art and design. Everyone far and near wanted to use my pottery in their home and I made sure it was priced reasonably so that all walks of life could afford it. And if you couldn’t pay what I was asking, I would lower the price until you could. I absolutely loved making my creations and loved it even more that people wanted them. The designs I etched into the clay were unmatchable in intricacy and the pottery itself was made into useful, everyday items. Each piece was a work of art.
I was also talented at creating busts of people. I could mold the exact likeness of anyone who would pay me for this service.
So, naturally, I dominated the market when it came to this type of public need. There was only one other real competitor in my town, and though he made a nice living with his own pottery business, he was deeply jealous of what I created and filled with greed. He had come up with a diabolical plan to gain an edge.
One night while I lay sleeping, he snuck into my home – my dogs knew this man, and so they didn’t wake me when he entered. I of course also knew him; he had been invited into our home many times for meals and I counted him among my friends.
He grabbed my right hand in my sleep and just as his machete came down, severing my right wrist, I woke. As he turned to run back out the door, I managed to grab the hem of the cloak he wore to cover his face, pulling it off just as he slipped through the door. I saw his face and he saw that I saw him.
That very night he ended up fleeing town altogether. He ran as far as he could go each day, from city to city, hiding amongst the people, making finding him a lost cause.
However, I was now faced with the grim reality that I could no longer work as a potter. At first, my wife tried to make the pottery as I instructed, but she had neither the heart’s desire nor the talent to do it. And I had been right-handed. My left could not etch the intricate designs and I soon gave up trying to re-train myself.
Our income was now gone, my body was also now handicapped for many other jobs and our life of luxury was ruined. The worst was that I so loved creating the art, and now my life’s passion had come to an end in an instant.
I wondered in anger why the man hadn’t just left town to begin with? Why did he feel the need to sever my hand in order to cease my pottery-making? I was beyond anger and hatred. It consumed my mind over the years.
My wife often tried to console me, saying she was grateful the man had taken only my hand and not my head.
Then, one day some 22 years later he and I crossed paths again.
Though it had been a long time, and the man I beheld was a dirty old beggar, his face was instantly recognizable to me. There he was, sitting alongside the street, begging for water.
I could see he was at death’s door. All I had to do was walk away and I knew he would be dead before nightfall. He was that starved and dehydrated. My fervent wish for his death would come true.
But something moved my heart. I realized I was long tired of feeling hatred and anger; feelings that only I had held against my own heart, and no one else. I looked down at the poor destitute man and realized he’d been moving from town to town for over two decades, begging for his food and scavenging for his life. This became his lot because paranoia had set in; he felt he could never risk public view again for fear of being caught for his crime against me. And so, he slowly slid deeper and deeper into destitution. And now here he was, at death’s door after a life of deep suffering.
To my surprise, instead of feeling satisfied with his outcome, my heart was moved to pity. I thought about my own life, and how it had ended up being a good one, despite the loss of my hand. Relatives had aided us until I could be employed again. Eventually, I found odd jobs and ended up doing not the most fulfilling work, but it kept food on the table and paid for the basic needs of my family.
With that, I thought, “Sir, you can have my hand. My life has been well lived with or without it. You, on the other hand, have dug a hole for yourself and I am sorry for your poor choices.”
And with that thought, I knelt beside him, the man I would name as my worst enemy, and gave him a drink from my water flask. Then I decided to leave the whole thing with him.
As I walked home that day, my heart felt light for the first time in as long as I could remember. I realized that the key to my happiness wasn’t in something happening to anyone or anything outside myself, it was what I decided about how I saw the world from the inside.
I made a new choice. I decided to no longer see this man as my enemy. I decided to see him as just someone who played a role in my life and did what he felt he must do. There was no right. There was no wrong. Just something that happened to both of us.
With that, I decided to go to him every day until his death, bringing him food and water, so that his passing may be made that much more comfortable. I didn’t have to do this long, for he only lasted another 5 days.
By the last day, he recognized me and my missing hand. He never said a word, but we exchanged wordless love, gratitude, and compassion. We had both learned a deep, powerful, and beautiful lesson in love.
I had learned to love my enemy as I would love myself; I extended compassion as though I was the one who had made the poor life choices and lay dying alongside the road.
As soon as this revelation ended, these two quotes came to mind from A Course In Miracles:
“When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone.” (ACIM T-28.I.7:3)
“The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.” (ACIM T-26.IX.6:1)
I have since contemplated this revelation and our task in volunteering to come back to earth during this time of the Great Awakening. We are all here to extend love, truly and freely to all, regardless of what anyone has done or who they are to us. We need not agree with them, but we must forgive – overlook – all that has transpired before our bodily eyes and see them with loving compassion, as though we were looking at ourselves; an aspect of our One Self, who is simply playing a part and knows it not, for they have forgotten Who They Are in Truth.
It is our job to remember.
So, live your life with simple love. That is all. This is the one small thing being asked of each of us, here on earth now; we the great volunteers who came back one more time to help change the world through one small loving thought and deed at a time. The power of forgiveness and love is truly transformative. And we are being called to be a part of that transformation – of lifting our reality out of what we see now, to another realm; a peaceful place devoid of all forms of suffering, filled with love and joy.
The fact that you are here now, taking in these words is proof enough to me, that you too are indeed one of the volunteers.
Through our loving all as One in God, let us add an entire branch to the tree of life.