Sunday, January 24, 2021

In this polarized world, especially our fractured country, we need symbols of healing and balance. We hear our leaders and public officials calling for unity, but their divisive actions belie their words. We are living in Crazy Town, but we can find meaning in films like, “The Tree of Life”, that remind us of why we are here on this earth:

The diagram below is the definitive symbol of “The Tree of Life.”

According to Kabbalists, when the world was created, ten energies (shown within the circles in the diagram above) emanated from the process of creation and took form in “The Tree of Life.” “The Tree of Life” began in the heavens and radiated to the earth below, in what Kabbalists cite as the 10 Sephiroth and the 22 Major Arcana^*1 (connecting the circles in the image above) of the Tarot. Mystics and Scholars have spent lifetimes studying these energies, but the film, “The Tree of Life,” gives us an auditory and pictorial mosaic of this process, as we enter into the life of a family including: Brad Pitt, as the father, Jessica Chastain, as the mother, and Sean Penn, as the first born son.

The film begins with a quote from the Book of Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? …while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” (Job 38: 4,7)

The Divine seems to be asking us: Where were WE when HE created the world? We had not yet crawled out of the sea. Our consciousness had not yet been sparked. But WE were there in the explosion that resulted in everything.

As the movie unfolds, we experience the innocence and joy of a first-born son, a young family bonding together, the dissolution of unfulfilled dreams experienced by the father, the effect of his anger and aggression on the family, loss of the middle child at age 19, and the spiritual reunification of the family through the miracle of acceptance. There is little dialog, only the subconscious narration of the main characters: Brad Pitt, as the father in the early 60’s rural America, Jessica Chastain as the lovely, ethereal mother who is mourning her middle son, and Sean Penn as the first-born son who experiences frustration and estrangement from his father and the loss of his brother. The younger two sons only give cameo appearances.

In the beginning scene of the film, Jessica Chastain declares that in life, we must choose between two paths: The Way of Nature, which “pleases itself”, and The Way of Grace, which is one of “acceptance”. Father, mother, and son, struggle with this choice, through scenes of joy and loss. We feel Jessica’s pain as she mourns her son as she questions God: “Where were You? Did You know? We cry to You. My soul. My son.”

Similarly, Brad Pitt, as father, struggles with the loss of his middle son as he speaks to his son with his heart. “You spoke to me through her.” (wife Jessica) He then asks himself the question, “When did you first touch my heart?”

Throughout the film, breathtaking images of nature entwined with family love abound. We see a preying mantis, arms outstretched, Halloween costumes from the early 60’s, and Peter Rabbit books read before bed. We are reminded of small-town life from a bygone era when children still played in groups outdoors without adults and families sat at the dinner table and prayed before meals. But then, rising from this almost ethereal beauty, we begin to witness the frustration of father Brad’s failed attempts to become a musician, his resulting hostility toward his wife and children, his lost job, the loss of the family home, and the death of a son.

Sean Penn, the young first born son, internalizes his father’s struggle and mirrors it, declaring through his pain as he embraces his father, “I’m more like you than her” (Jessica mother).

From the emotional pain of the family, we experience the evidence of the two paths, the “Way of Nature” and the “Way of Grace.” Scenes of Sean Penn’s first encounters with deformity and illness are depicted when he accompanies his parents to town and sees victims of polio, mental illness, and crime, as it begins to dawn on him that all is not well in the world. It allows us to access our own forgotten key moments in our lives when we realized the totality of existence. When we realized that along with birthday parties, Santa Claus, and being lovingly tucked in at night, there is disease, loss, and death. Do you remember when you first encountered these troublesome forces in your own experience of “Tree of Life?”

As the film draws to a close, Brad Pitt reveals truths to his young son, Sean Penn, following the loss of his job: “There is no hiding place where trouble can’t find you.”… “I dishonored it all, and didn’t notice the glory”. And finally, “Unless you love, your life will flash by.”

In a similar vein, the voice of Jessica Chastain is heard softly calling to God in graceful acceptance as she mourns the loss of her middle child: “I give you my son.” Her words are followed by a field of sunflowers.

In the final scene, the family is reunited with their deceased son/brother on a beach as they symbolically return to the waters of life from which we all emerged. We realize that we have come full circle: We were with God when the universe was created and remain with the Divine throughout our lives, through joy and pain, through the consciousness emanating as we experience life, through our choices, and as we live the Tree of Life. We reach the “Path of Grace” through our inner dialogs with the Divine. We lead lives that are effected by destiny and free will and we each have to navigate our unique paths through “The Tree of Life.” But always with the awareness of what love is asking of us, at each step of the journey.

^*1 “The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Tarot”, by Rachel Pollack, 1999.