The Fourteen Communions

The teaching of the Tree of Life says that a human life is sustained by fourteen forces, seven from the earth and seven from heaven, and that most of us are starving at several without knowing it. The Communions are how the fellowship eats. Each morning, inside the Morning Watch, the student makes brief living contact with one earthly force. Each evening, inside the Evening Watch, with one heavenly force. In a week all fourteen have been visited. In a year, each has been visited fifty-two times, and the student is a different person.

As with the Tree itself, the fellowship notes that the Communions in this form come to us through later tradition rather than directly from the scrolls. We teach them because they work, and because the ancient Essenes, whatever they called the forces, lived in daily contact with all of them: rising with the sun, bathing in living water, working the earth, praying to the heavenly host.

The Word Communion

Communion is exact. One does not think about the sun; one stands in it. One does not meditate on water; one washes. The earthly communions are done with the body, outdoors if at all possible, and take two or three minutes. The heavenly communions are done in stillness, after dark, and take about the same. Neither is a prayer in the usual sense. Both are acts of attention, of turning toward a force that was sustaining you all along and saying, in effect, I see you, and I receive.

The Week of Communions

The fellowship begins the week on the day after the Sabbath, as the ancient calendar did, but any student may begin anywhere. The order matters less than the completeness.

The Morning Communions

The Earthly Mother. Stand barefoot on the ground if you can, on a floor if you cannot. Feel yourself held up. Say: I am carried by the whole creation, and I receive it. Nothing more.

The Earth. Touch soil, stone, or wood. Hold a little earth in the hand. Remember that your food came from this and your body will return to it. Give thanks.

Life. Find something growing: a tree, a weed in a crack, a houseplant. Look at it closely for a full minute. Notice that it is doing, without effort, what you are trying to do: turning toward the light.

Joy. Do one thing in the morning for no reason but gladness. Sing a line. Stretch. Taste something slowly. The Essenes, the historian says, were cheerful; joy is a force, not a mood, and it is received by making room for it.

The Sun. Face east. If the sun is up, let it fall on your closed eyelids for a minute. If it is not, face where it will be. This is the oldest of the communions and the one the ancient witnesses actually describe. Say: I rise with the Light.

Water. Wash the hands and face slowly, in cold water, with attention. Drink a glass of water as if it were the first. Remember the stepped pools of the desert and the living water of the Jordan.

Air. Open a window or step outside. Breathe deeply ten times, feeling the air enter and leave. Remember that breath and spirit are one word, and that this air has been breathed by every creature that ever lived.

The Evening Communions

The Heavenly Father. Sit in stillness and turn the attention upward and inward at once, toward the Source. Do not picture anything. Say: I come from the Light and I return to it. Rest there.

Eternal Life. Consider that the one sitting here will outlast the body sitting here. Do not argue with the thought; sit in it. Feel what changes in the shoulders when the fear of ending is set down.

Creative Work. Recall one thing you made or mended or set in order today, however small. Offer it. Remember that the Maker of all things invites the made to make.

Peace. Find the stillness beneath the day's noise, as the Still Lamp teaches. Stay there a minute. Say: this is always here.

Power. Recall one moment today when you did the right thing though it was hard. Feel the strength that did it. It was not only yours. Receive it for tomorrow.

Love. Bring to mind one person, then another, then a stranger, then one who has hurt you. Wish each one wholeness, in the Essene greeting of peace. Do not force feeling. Make the wish.

Wisdom. Ask: what did I understand today that I did not understand yesterday? Sit with the answer, or with the absence of one. Wisdom, the teaching says, is walked, and the walking is slow.

A Note on Time

Each communion takes two or three minutes. The fellowship has found that students who cannot spare three minutes for the sun are not short of time; they are short of belief that the sun matters. The communions are, among other things, a cure for that.