Tree: Part I

Tree (left) with James: Smith St, Fitzroy

This past weekend (on a journey that unbeknownst to me became quite a spiritual one) whilst visiting my good friend James in Melbourne, I met a man named Tree who changed my life. Tree is a tarot reader (among other things) and on Sunday evening I had the ultimate pleasure of being the subject for one of his readings. Before I get to Tree and the reading, I will share with you the activities that I partook in this past weekend.

[Note: Tree will be discussed in Part III]

Friday 12/11:

Upon arrival in Melbourne on Friday afternoon, I made my way to James' house in Thornbury. We hugged and spent 10 minutes catching up. The last time (and the first time) I saw/met James was in July, at the Vipassana meditation retreat in the Blue Mountains. He travelled there from Melbourne by car with a girl named Carly, whom he had only just met through a mutual friend that knew they had both planned on going, and suggested that they travel together. They are now a couple :)

James filled me in on his living situation, and that he was currently in the process of moving out of the share house in Thornbury to another share house in a suburb called Upwey, in Melbourne's east, at the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges (where James grew up) - the house in which we would stay that night. So after packing some things for the night into my backpack, we made our journey by foot, bus and train to Upwey train station as we had a Kabbalah workshop to get to...

Religiously speaking, James is similar to me in that he didn't grow up following any particular sect or religious denomination (generally speaking), and is not prejudiced towards any other religious beliefs or teachings - he is a seeker of truth. On the train ride from the CBD to Upwey James told me of the Mayan Calendar (that dates back to the 5th century BC) - very briefly the 260-day calendar (260 days comes to 9 months, the same time between conception and birth) used by the Mayan civilisation works in thirteen 20 day cycles, where every day is a unique "Galactic Gateway". Each day's energy is a specific combination of one of the 13 Tones of Creation and one of the 20 Solar Seals. Based on the Galactic Gateway of your birthdate, you can determine your "Galactic Signature", a key into your Divine design, central to your life's destiny. James had a book that was able to calculate the aforementioned galactic signature based on the the Thirteen Moon Calendar - mine is the symbol of "White Spectral Wizard" (21/06/1986).

What's yours? Decode Now

13 Moon Mayan Calendar Diagram

We happened to be the only two to turn up to the workshop, but I believe it was better this way as James was friends with the teacher, Gavin, making for a more intimate affair. The workshop started at 7 and went for approximately 1.5 hours, and consisted of some light theory on Kabbalah, namely a very brief overview of the Tree of life - shown via a poster that Gavin had. To my knowledge, James was in the process of learning about Kabbalah, so I suppose the overview was for my benefit. We then undertook around 30 minutes of chanting in the Hebrew language. After the chanting both James and I experienced strong sensations in our legs, below our knees - very interesting.

The Kabbalah Tree of Life

After the workshop, the three of us picked up some takeaway food in Upwey and made our way (via Gavin's car) to James' new house (I have photos of it on Facebook - add me if you want to see them). Only one of James' housemates were home, her name was Yuri - a girl of Korean descent with a vibrant personality and infectious laugh. The four of us ate our food and basically listened to Gavin speak. He is one of the most interesting people I have met, someone that has travelled the world over, his stories were priceless. For example, he told of a story when he travelled to northern India recently where everyone lives on their rooftops, and how there are packs of monkeys that go from rooftop to rooftop scrummaging for food, having sex in front of you, stealing items, pretty much being little scallywags - with kids having 'monkey sticks' to go and clear their rooftops every morning.

Gavin also told of how he painted all the major religions (12 if my memory serves) into a deck of tarot cards. If you think that is impressive, you will be more impressed when I tell you how long he spent on each tarot deck - 1 year focussing on each religion, 12 years in total, painting the tarot deck in that year, and learning as much as he could about that religion in that process. He therefore is somewhat of an expert in all major religions, someone who has read the bible, is learning sanskrit etc. etc., a true mystic of the modern age.

I went to sleep that night in an extremely comfortable bed (one of the girls was away for the night), listening to the rain nourish the forest outside my window, which happened to be slightly ajar.

- Russell


Click here to read Part II.