After sifting through the pages of the Bahir and Sefer Yetzirah and looking up commentaries and doing some further analysis in order to find the
correct lineup of the Hebrew letters according to their paths/branches &c, I came up with the following, which is mostly based on an illustration and
the accompanying text on page 155 in "The Bahir Illumination" by Aryeh Kaplan ISBN 0-87728-618-3 and the names and arrangement of the letters below
the illustrations is from Sefer Yetzirah chapters 3-5:
Now the Tree and the letters are arranged into three basic categories
The Three Mothers are the 3 horizontal lines:
==> א Alef (Ether -> Aer), מ Mem (Aqua -> Terra), ש Shin (Ignis -> Caeli)
The Seven Doubles are the 7 vertical lines:
==> ב Bet (Sun), ג Gimel (Venus), ד Dalet (Mercury), כ Kaf (Moon), פ Pe (Saturn), ר Resh (Jupiter), ת Tav (Mars)
The Twelve Simples are the 12 diagonal lines:
==> ה Heh (Aries), ו Vav (Taurus), ז Zain (Gemini), ח Cheth (Cancer), ט Tet (Leo), י Jod (Virgo), ל Lamed (Libra), נ Nun (Scorpio), ס Samech
(Sagittarius), ע Ayin (Capricorn), צ Tzaddi (Aquarius), ק Kuf (Pisces)
If you're not in it for the magic and the mystery, it sure is a fun way of learning the Alef-Bet. The assigned elements, stars and zodiac signs are
coupled according to the sequences given, I assume they correspond to the same sequence.
edit on 15-9-2014 by Utnapisjtim because: Added last line + corrected letters, specified number of lines, fixed formatting, added elements,
planets and constellations, changed elements to Latin, edited last line, added a few words