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Generation
In the embrace of family, a child is gently dipped into the waters of knowledge. Everything important which has been learned and passed on—generation, to generation, to generationóis now the newborn’s birthright. In every conceivable pigment of skin, the conveyers of culture are the parents, relatives, teachers, leaders, and sages. The transmission of knowledge begins with the comforting awareness of a mother‚s face.

The forked tree, the tree of life, is a symbol for genealogy around the world. It roots us deeply in common ancestry, and its innumerable limbs connect us directly with each other and with all who will be born. As branches have sprouted, spread out, and thrived across enormous distances, children are taught to pronounce the name of God in countless different tongues. But it is one tree, and the immeasurable tree has its genesis in a single seed. The symbols, images, and names of God are myriad translations of the single source of life.

There was a time when villages, tribes, and even nations were separated by geography, and communication with people in other places involved the very real and consequential factor of time. Children were taught the language, skills, wisdom, art, and values of their own society, and those who traveled gathered this knowledge and brought it back in other forms.

The boundaries have dissolved. What do we teach a child now?

The tree offers quiet but enduring advice: Seek the singular fluid of life that feeds every branch. Distill the wisdom, in its wide diversity of forms, into an essential, underlying truth. If we can do this we will find that the‚ perennial philosophy, as author Ken Wilber describes it, nourishes life in every form. It takes into consideration the unifying needs of people, plants, and animals everywhere. It offers us the core and heart of what we need to know.

Gussie Fauntleroy
May 2000

Metamorphosis/Transformation
On the first night of a three-day vision quest in Death Valley—with water, but no food, no books, no companions, no tent—the artist lay in her sleeping bag on the desert floor and closed her eyes. Immediately, a brilliantly colored and visceral image appeared in her mind. It was of a caterpillar inching into a cocoon, with every detail graphically defined and biologically precise.

Each time the artist closed her eyes during those three days and nights, the caterpillar‚s metamorphosis progressed as well, degree by gradual degree. As the woman prepared to re-enter the world, the cocoon in her vision split open and a butterfly emerged.

Metamorphosis is evolution in condensed time. Transformation, on a personal and collective human level, is the metamorphosis of consciousness.

It’s no surprise that the often meandering path of spiritual ascent has parallels with evolution on a biological scale. The reptilian brain works through instinct and survival as we are immersed in the primordial/emotional sea. Out on dry land, our empathetic, mammal‚s heart is purified in fire. And winding through it all are the twisting strands of DNA, mapping our journey through timeless evolution and evolutionary time.

On the mountain top, we finally accept the reconciling, outstretched hand of our shadow self. We discover that even in intimacy with darkness, our feet can be light. We dance. The sparkling cosmic juggler entertains us, and above us hovers the numinous winged horse. Because, of course, there are higher realms beyond what we imagined to be the peak.

Emerging—shimmering—from a sacred chrysalis, we fly.

Gussie Fauntleroy
May 2000