Today is Palm Sunday.
Traditionally, on Palm Sunday you are given a “palm”, a slender reed which you can fold into the shape of the a cross.
The symbolism, in reference to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and his impending crucifixion is obvious.
But is there a deeper, more esoteric meaning?
With the long reed placed before us, we can imagine that it represents time.
The left end of the reed is the beginning and the right end is the end of linear time.
The beginning is described in the first book of the Bible:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
The end is is described in the last book:
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away”. (Revelation 21:1)
What is before the beginning and after the end of time?
God.
What is eternally present in the invisible cleft of the here and now?
God.
What is beyond the far and near horizons of your world?
God.
So what happens when you fold the reed into a cross?
What happens when you fold this universe of spacetime in upon itself?
“When the tongues of fire are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one”
“In my beginning is my end”
“at the still point of the turning world.” (T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets)
The Biblical story is about the life of Jesus and the history of the Jews and the whole of Creation from beginning to end.
Fold it in on itself and beginning and end meet at the intersection of eternity and time, the vertical and horizontal, at the centre of the cross of Christ, who says,
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” (Revelation 22:13)
So what happens when time folds in on itself like this,
esoterically symbolised in the folding of the palm reed cross on Palm Sunday?
Eternal life.
the way of the holy mushroom 