At the commencement of our service here today, I’d like to consciously join people of goodwill around the world to claim our humanity, to claim our kindness, to claim our oneness and our solidarity with the good people of Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who are hurting today following a tragic shooting. And we say, “Your pain is our pain. We are with you. We bear this together as humanity. And we bear it in strength and courage and love and determination, and with the knowledge that things don’t have to be this way. And as far as we are concerned, the truth is that things are not and will not be this way.”

Join me in a moment of silence as we offer our hearts in solidarity for the people of Pittsburgh.

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I was fascinated to notice that the name of the synagogue in Squirrel Hill is the Tree of Life. There is the irony of this horrible picture of death in the Tree of Life Synagogue. Yet the Tree of Life prevails. The Tree of Life is a universal symbol from all around the world; from the Judeo-Christian tradition, from Mesopotamia, from Native American traditions, Buddhism, Norse traditions and more. The Tree of Life relates to the very process of Creation and evolution.

We are being born into the consciousness of the field in which we live. And we’ll go big in a minute with that, but I want to start local. For those who are part of the Sunrise Ranch community, I’ll talk about Sunrise Ranch. But the same applies for anyone anywhere.

Consider this possibility. The consciousness that you have is not just your personal consciousness. You are walking around with the consciousness of Sunrise Ranch. You are Sunrise Ranch made conscious. You are this field of humanity, and the thoughts and the feelings that arise for you, the awareness you have, is of this community of people becoming conscious of itself. It’s becoming conscious of itself through you.

The evolution of this community is constellating in your awareness, and you are feeling the urge of evolution for Sunrise Ranch. You’re feeling the hopes and the desires of this field—what it wants to become. That is moving in your heart and mind. And while you may be taking it personally—and there is a personal dimension to your experience, no question—actually what you are aware of is the entire field in which you live. And that field is not just the people who live here. There are all the people around the world who are connected with this place, all the people who visit, and all the people who come to our websites. Your conscious awareness is of that field.

This is just the human part of our field so far. We have about fifty cows on the property. Is it possible that you are being aware for those cows? There is wildlife galore. Do you think you are becoming conscious of that field of wildlife? How about the rocks—the granite boulders on Green Ridge and the red sandstone of the rimrock? Do you think their solid presence lives in your consciousness? Is it possible that you are Sunrise Ranch made conscious?

We’ll take it out beyond there. Are you America made conscious? All the human experience, all the strands of intelligence, all the heart of America—the heart of immigrants, the heart of Native Americans, the heart of black Americans from Africa? Is it possible you are America made conscious? If America hurts, you hurt? If America thrives, you thrive? Because you are the mind and the heart of America. You are this creative field becoming aware of itself through a human being.

And we’ll go global. Is it possible that you are the heart of the planet aroused? The heart of the planet that’s beginning to become aware of itself through a human form? We hardly know why we feel what we feel, and we personalize it. And then we attach those feelings to things in our private lives. We attach them to personal experiences, we attach them to each other, with all the human drama. That personalization is happening for people around the world. So as human beings we sometimes function as if life were a soap opera or a reality TV show. But that’s not what’s really happening.

What we are becoming aware of is not just happening at a personality level. That’s the old paradigm of consciousness. The planet is becoming aware of itself; the field is becoming aware of itself. The field wants to become something.

Our planet has a fever. We call it global warming. Do you feel that fever? It is a process of healing and becoming. If a hurricane comes through, it is understandable that someone might take that personally. But there’s something that’s happening that isn’t just personal, even though it impacts us as human beings. We are participating in that larger event, and yet humanity as a whole hardly knows what’s going on. When we awaken to what is actually transpiring, we can see the perilous things that are happening, and they certainly are perilous in many respects. But we also feel the joy of the planet, which is becoming something.

What is the Tree of Life? It is what is at the center of the field. In the midst of the Garden was the Tree of Life. It is in the middle of the field, whatever field it is. In the middle of the field of the solar system is the sun. There is a center to the Milky Way galaxy, and at the center of the atom is a nucleus. In every field there is a center. For Sunrise Ranch, there is a central heartbeat, and there is the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is the conscious core of the creative field. It is known by many different names, each of which illustrate an aspect of its function. It is the heart of the hub of the wheel. The wheel is the field—all the facets of experience, all the dimensions of the field of creativity, the field that is evolving. And at the center of that field is the Tree of Life, the heart of the hub of the wheel.

Sometimes we as human beings picture ourselves as somewhere on the periphery of the field. Someone who lives at Sunrise Ranch, in a personalized state of awareness—not vocationally aroused—could toddle in to work every day and plop themselves down at a desk. Or go out and hoe a row in the garden, seeing themselves as a cog in the machine of Sunrise Ranch. I suggest that’s not a fun way to be in any field. Come to the heart of the hub of the wheel, to the Tree of Life. There’s consciousness there. There’s awareness of the field. The heart of the field is there. The intelligence of the field is there.

When we come to the Tree of Life, we find life. There is something emerging, and it’s beautiful. We feel the urge of the field, we feel the openness of it. We feel the Great Mother at Sunrise Ranch. We feel her emerging through nature and through the hearts of people. The Mother is holding those hearts and holding this field. The Mother is bringing fertility and she wants activation. The Mother wants her people to live, she wants the field to thrive, and she opens herself to what is bringing that field forward.

It is the activating energy of evolution that carries us forward. When we come to the Tree of Life at the center of the field, we are filled with the DNA of the world that is becoming. We are filled with the knowledge of that. It comes into our mind; we see it, we have dreams, we have visions, we have hopes. And as bad as things sometime appear to be, a seemingly irrational urge within tells us there is something great happening. There is something great that’s appearing, and we are moving into something great together.

It’s said, related to leadership, that it’s lonely at the top. In the world in which we live, it has been lonely at the center of the field. But more and more, there are people who don’t see themselves as just out on the periphery of the field. They see themselves at the center. They experience themselves as being the heart and the consciousness of the evolution of the field. They are conscious of the field. They are in the field and they meet at the center, at the heart of the hub of the wheel. They are an embodiment of the Great Mother and the Great Father.

This principle is demonstrated in theory, though often not in practice, in our United States Congress. We have people from the spokes of the wheel—from all the states, and even geographies within the states—going to the Congress that is, at least theoretically, the center place of governance for our country. And theoretically, they are meeting there not only to fulfill their pork-barrel issues (those things that they want for their state so that they can get reelected), but to be the Tree of Life for the nation as a whole. The Members of Congress are there so the nation can live—not just to take their piece out of the federal budget.

I don’t know if any of you heard those who spoke this morning about the events in Squirrel Hill. It was amazing. They weren’t in our capital, but they spoke from the heart of the nation. They spoke of oneness. They spoke of unity. They spoke for this field of America. I might have elected any of them president. They spoke of their brotherhood and sisterhood, of their unity, of their coming to comfort and support one another, and of their desire to find a way forward. They spoke of mutual respect and love, and of bearing a burden together.

We should stop looking for the Tree of Life in places where it isn’t, and celebrate where it is, and place ourself there. It might not be in the United States Congress, but today it was in Squirrel Hill. Whatever else happens, let’s be there in the capital city of consciousness, and let’s find each other there. Let’s not let it be lonely at the heart of the hub of the wheel.

For Sunrise Ranch, is the heart of the hub of the wheel a vacuous place? Or are there Beings that are coming together at that place of Creation, bringing the powers of the Great Mother—what comes up out of the field from the wisdom of the field itself? And bringing the powers of the Great Father—what comes down into the field from the Invisible. The field comes together when we come together in the capital city, which is a place of consciousness for Sunrise Ranch.

The capital city of America is the same. It could be in Washington, D.C., but it’s not just a physical locality. The capital city is a place in consciousness where we meet, where we are the consciousness of the field together. You may have an awareness of a particular dimension of the field, just as a congressperson may have a particular awareness of how corn is growing in Iowa. But we come together not just as representatives of the place from which we come. We come to the center in the capital city of consciousness to be the heart of the field, to be the consciousness of the field, to be the intelligence for the field, not just a parochial, local intelligence for a human personality who is trying to work it all out.

When we are the Tree of Life, the intelligence of the field is available to us. And all of us together are joining genius to genius. It’s the genius of the field; it’s the genius for the field that’s coming through us uniquely. Then we are all together joining genius to genius, and there is the intelligence for the field to move forward, to evolve and become what it desires to be. The great forces of life are unleashed from the center and radiate throughout the field.

The field is alive. By its very nature, Sunrise Ranch is alive. The planet is a living planet. But quite apparently, there’s a role that we have to play as consciousness for the field, which activates the evolution of the field in a unique way. When we got here in 1945, this was a dryland farm. There has been consciousness here that’s catapulted evolution forward at Sunrise Ranch, and we are only getting going.

Do you want to come to the center of the field, to the Tree of Life, and find each other there? Perhaps we try to get it together. Congress representatives try to get along, and people at Sunrise Ranch try to get along. We get along when we know our place at the center of the field. And when we know our place there, then our function in the spokes of the wheel has a place to meet. The great meeting place is the Tree of Life for the field.

The Creation story from our culture speaks about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is a calamity that is depicted in that story. Essentially, that calamity occurs when we bring a very human kind of intelligence that isn’t the intelligence of the field. It is not the actual intelligence for the evolution of the field, so we introduce creations that shouldn’t have been created. The great intelligence that we are capable of is the intelligence of the field itself that we are now becoming conscious of, and the intelligence of evolution itself, as it is—not as we want it to be, bent to our will. The intelligence of the field is contained within the desire of the field to become what it has the potential to become. We become aware of that, and we become brilliant. We live, and the field lives.

Share with me this pattern of meditation:

Picture the heart of the hub of the wheel for Sunrise Ranch. What is this field? What does it want? Feel its urge to grow. Feel its heart. Be open to the intelligence of Creation for this field.

Who do you find with you? Are you all by yourself? Are there other Beings who are there too?

Now think of the field of America. Picture the capital city in consciousness—not Washington, D.C., but a place of awareness of this field where people of goodwill gather. Feel the heart of America, and what it’s meant to the world. Feel the hopes and dreams that it has represented, the ideals of freedom and natural law. Think of how it is hurting and what it wants to become, for itself and for the world. Can you feel other people with you there, in the capital city of consciousness for America? Do you know that this is your country, this is your field?

Let’s move to the globe. Allow yourself to be the heart of its people. Feel all the forces of life on this planet, swimming in the oceans and on its continents. Feel its evolving condition, what it is throwing off and leaving behind, and what it is becoming. Allow yourself to be the heart of our planet—your planet, your people, from wherever they come; whatever country, whatever race, whatever religion, whatever background. Allow yourself to be at the heart of the hub of the wheel for Planet Earth, and for this body of humanity that is undergoing this supreme transmutation, and out of which there is a new birth, the birth of a new human, Homo amore universalis.

I invite you to look around and see the world from this place. And as you have your own human experience, which we all do, I invite you to see those experiences as part of your field becoming conscious of itself through you.

Spiritual Practice

Several times a day, deliberately see yourself as the Tree of Life in the midst of your creative field. Ask yourself what your field is feeling, what it is thinking, and what it is trying to become.