How to Read Tree3 Rules

Reading Guidelines: So, you’ve logged into this huge place called The Oracular Tree. You notice there are Stories, Idea Trees, and Author pages, but they consist of long random lists of stories and ideas. Where do you start? How do you approach this vast network of words and images?

Pretend you just walked into an auditorium full of people you’ve never met, people who all know each other, and are enmeshed in a dense web of interlocking histories. You’re going to be here among them for awhile, so you pick one out and start interacting. They tell you something about themselves, maybe make reference to someone else in the room. You follow their lead, hop from story, to essay, to poem, learn one thing about this person, something else about another, take in a lecture from a featured speaker that tells you something about the predilections of the group as a whole…eventually, you get to know a great deal about these people, who they are, what they believe, what they’ve done, what they mean to each other, discover what they now mean to you!

So, wade on into the crowd. Pick something out at random—a title that appeals to you, a subject you find interesting, an author you may know! We’re a friendly bunch, even though several of us do have a wicked wit, most of us don’t bite often. We’re all delighted to welcome you among us. If you need more structure than that, consider this:

I. You may read any entry first, second, third,…..nth….it does not matter what order in which the stories on Tree3 appear temporally. Random sampling variability of emotion, method, cause, anecdote, humor, neurophenomenological inquiry (this will be in neuroscience-tech lingo), poetry, social commentary, serial fiction, science fiction, and historical romance generated the stories that appear on this site.
II. There are multiple authors and visual artists, all of whom retain sole rights to the work they have contributed to Tree3 and its visitors’ enjoyment.
III. Follow your heart’s desire and your mind’s will in any direction through the stories you select for reading moments in your busy life.
IV. Ask questions of what you read and yourself as you read through Tree3. Forge your own pathway through its thickets of stories. This kind of approach is called, “mindfulness,”as defined by the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction group of neuroscience investigators. They have produced powerful paradigms for integrating current neurophenomenological research with standard neuroscience techniques, technical language, research methods, and literature base (results, methods, interpretations)…but I digress, and that is where random sampling variability must take over.
V. Start reading—- Teresa Dunyati-Long

Tree History: The Oracular Tree has evolved over the years. That seems appropriate…Change is one of the continuing themes of our pages. We have made the transition from a homepage, to an enormous archive, to something a little more streamlined, but there have been 3 distinct periods in our evolution where we have undergone a nearly complete rebirth. Our original set up allowed a stream of consciousness approach to reading. Eventually it became clear we needed a way to harness the vast number of pages, much the same way humans have to organize vast amounts of knowledge in order to make it useful. So we created a much more streamlined Tree 2. It was a fresh blank page where we made visible only the current month’s features. Links were still available to previous posts after the change, but the years of work we had shared was no longer posted.

We started to miss that wealth and richness. We have found the last revamp, while slick and streamlined, may have lost some of the flavor on our previous pages. Part of the solution has been to repost favorites of old. But there is an additional step. We are launching Tree 3, a hybrid between the vast stream of consciousness approach from our earlier days and the more clearly navigated but less intuitive approach we’ve been using. We hope you will agree, this helps create an experience which transcends an ordinary literary website but still allows user friendly access to all of our pages. Enjoy your exploration!

Jeff Beardwood

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