About Trees and Goddesses.
What someone can learn reading the book by Fred Hageneder on “The Living Wisdom of Trees” is that Nature, and specifically trees have been central in the spiritual lives of advanced civilizations in the past and were very much connected with the feminine, the Goddess. Below I will cite paragraphs from the book (pictured above) which will give the reader a general idea of the interconnectedness of the Nature, the Feminine and the Spiritual domain.
Under Almond tree, for example, we read the following:
“From the beginning of civilization, the white-blossoming almond heralded spring and provided an emblem of the archetypal “White Goddess”. Its archaic Semitic name, amygdala, can be traced back to the Sumerian ama ga, which means the Great Mother. For the ancient Phrygians, too, the almond was the parent of all things on Earth. In their creation myths, Agditis, a hermaphrodite monster, appeared and terrified the gods. They castrated it and turned it into the Great Mother, Cybele, causing the original unity of opposites — male and female — to disappear from creation. But from the spilled blood rose two trees, an almond and a pomegranate. Many cycles later, Attis, the divine child of the goddess Cybele, was magically conceived by the daughter of a river spirit as she ate an almond or a pomegranate seed. Such ancient tales illustrate how much the almond reverberates with the primaeval forces of creations.”
Under Elder tree we read the following:
“The traditional personifications of the elder spirit, the Scandinavian Hyldemoer (Elder Mother) and the old German Frau Holle (Mistress Elder), are late experssions of the archaic “White Goddess”, a benevolent deity of light, life and wisdom. In some regions (for example, in Bavaria), the goddess of the elder was revered as Perchtha or Bertha, a name deriving from the Indo-European bher(e)g, “shining white”. To the tree of her choice the goddess gave an abudnance of healing power, which people have benefited from since ancient times.”
Abrahamic religions have a lot to do with the environmental degradation nowadays, as the demonization of nature and everything related to natural started with the spread of these patriarchal religions.
“The advance of Christianity led to changes in many such folk traditions. In some cases, trees that had been most venerated in pre-Christian times were recast in a negative light once the religion became established. Thus, in the popular imagination, the physical setting of the elder as its actual character gradually became associated with evil, witches and devils. For example, in some regions, Lady Elder was said to steal children or cut up people, and in Bavaria, the image of the goddess Perchtha mutated into one with long, iron fangs”.
Regarding another tree — Juniper, we read the following:
“The Middle Ages were a time of widespread deforestation in Europe. But one reason why the juniper is rare today is because at the time its acidic juice was discovered to be an effective contraceptive, so the Church encouraged the felling of junipers to protect the birth rate”.
Hadn’t we (religions) distanced ourselves from the Nature, accepting the natural existence of LGBT, as well as hermaphrodite and all other groups of people would be much easier, considering the existence of such abundance of types/species in Nature itself.
We read the following about Hawthorn:
“This tree was also dedicated to Cardea, the Roman goddess of childbirth, and to Hera, Zeus’ wife, who conceived Ares and his twin sister Eris when she touched its blossoms. The fact that Hera gives birth to a twin brother and sister points to the balance of male and female as a theme strongly associated with the hawthorn — whose blossoms are hermaphrodite as well.”
Regarding the Hazel tree we learn that it has unisexual flowers that develop before the leaves and the male flowers are drooping catkins. For Orange we also learn that its flowers are mostly bisexual, as in case of Pear tree flowers. For Laurel we read that it has small, yellowish, bisexual or unisexual flowers that open in April.
For Mulberry we also learn that single trees bear one or both sexes, and the flowers are always unisexual. “In ancient Chinese cosmology, the center of the universe is kien-mou (“erect wood”), the Tree of Renewal. At the beginning of time it united the Nine Source with the Nine Heavens. In some Chinese traditions, this World Tree is identified as k’ong-sang, the hollow mulberry. It is a hermaphrodite, because it dates back to before the separation of yin and yang, male and female, and it represents the Tao, or the all-encompassing cosmic order. Hence a sacred mulberry grove was planted outside the eastern gate of the early royal capitals of China. The mulberry is also a common sight in the Islamic sanctuaries along or near pilgrimage routes in Arabia.”
For Linden tree we read the following:
“…the ancients gathered, discussed and judged underneath the “female” linden, which represents mercy, rather than the “male” oak tree, the territory of the thunder god Donar (Thor). For the ancient Germanic and Norse peoples, the linden was sacred to Freya, the Mistress of the Earth, and Frigga, the Mother Goddess and patroness of childbirth and fertility. In Christian Bulgaria, linden trees are prime locations for shrines to Mary, the mother of Jesus. In Greek myth, Phylira, daughter of the sea god Oceanus, lies with Chronos, the deity of the planet Saturn, and conceives Chiron. Then she is metamorphosed into the linden tree. Later, Chiron taught his secret knowledge about the healing powers of nature to the first physician, Asclepius, who became the father of medicine. Hence the “grandmother” of medicine is the linden, the “soothing tree”. Asclepius learnt more secrets from a serpent in a tomb, which is commemorated in the Staff of Asclepius (image below) — emblem of medicine to this day. In the serpent we recognize the guardian of the Tree of Life, and in Norse myth the guardian of eternal life is a dragon.
When the hero Sigurd slays this dragon he bathes in its blood to become invincible. However, a leaf from a linden tree close to the dragon’s lair lands between Sigurd’s shoulder blades, preventing him from being totally immersed in the blood and thus creating a weak spot which eventually brings about his downfall. In this myth the dragon represents the life force of the Earth itself”.
This is by the way a very typical story of a male hero trying to achieve immortality or great powers and fame- by going against the Nature, (as in the epic of Gilgamesh, where the latter together with his friend decide to kill the guardian of Cedar forests and cut the forest for fame and yet the friend Enkidu gets killed by the Goddess, while Giglamesh sets for a journey to find immortality, never finding it).
The symbolism of snakes and dragons in its turn is another worldwide phenomenon. “In Aztec tradition Coatlicue (“serpent skirt”) is the goddess of life and death, mother of the stars, the gods and mortals, also called Teteoinnan (“Mother of the gods”) and Toci (“our grandmother”). She is a manifestation of the Earth goddess Cihuacoatl (“snake woman”), also called Tonantzin (“our mother”). The serpent in Aztec religion is a symbol of fertility, of the underground waters and the world ocean from which the tree rises. Ancient swamp trees are a perfect symbol of the ceiba, the Tree of Life, as they root deep in the life-giving waters and reach up to the life-giving sun, thus connecting the 9 layers of the underworld and the 13 heavens of Aztec cosmology”.
For Myrrh tree we read that: “Mary in Hebrew is Myryam or Maryam, which originated in the Sumerian Ma-rienna, the High, Fertile Mother of Heaven. In Egypt she was known as Isis, the Mother of the Universe, and from her Christianity borrowed Mary’s deep blue cloak sprinkled with stars. Other names of the mother goddess from the Near East include Myrtea (myrtle tree), and Myrrha (myrrh tree)… The Babylonians burnt myrrh to mother goddess, as did the Hebrews in the desert. Ultimately, the myrrh tree is a manifestation of Astarte, the Queen of Heaven and Great Mother, and its beneficial “milk” fits in with this symbolism perfectly”.
For the Plane tree we read the following: “ In ancient Armenia, the fire priests interpreted oracles from the movements of the branches of the sacred plane at Armavira, while in Persia, the plane tree was the guardian tree of the kings. Still today, many revered plane trees can be found shading village springs in the Near East.
In Ancient Caria (today’s southwestern Turkey), Zeus’ symbol was the labrys, the double axe, and a plane grove was dedicated to him at Labraunda. Zeus’ usurpation of the double axe, which was an ancient symbol of female power, suggest that the grove was sacred to a mother goddess prior to the Dorian invasion of c1200 BCE. The patriarchal victory over the older female deity is reflected in local legends in which male gods, particularly Zeus, harass, seduce or rape female deities. One such goddess is the Cretan Europa, who surrendered to Zeus inside an evergreen plane (a rare variety — only 29 specimens were known to exist in 1980).
According to the myth of Heracles, a sacred plane grove stretched from Mount Pontinus to the sea near Argos. Shrines marked where Hades, Persephone and Dionysus had descende to the underworld. The Hydra, a water-monster, had her lair under one of the planes, and her seven heads symbolized the seven-fold source of the Amymone river. The associations with the underwold and water point again to the more ancient connection of the plane with the ancient goddesses. The lore of the plane also links it with the sun and the moon, with the underworld and the heavens — a balance of opposites reminiscent of the Tree of Life.”
About Pomegranate we read the following: “Being a symbol of fertility, the pomegranate was also sacred to the love goddess Aphrodite, and in the Near East to the goddess Astarte. Other female deities who also guarded the fruit of life, such as Athena, and Hera in her temple at Argos, were portrayed holding a pomegranate in the hand.
As for the Quince, “The Pelasgian (pre-Greek) sea goddess Marian, whom the Greeks named Aphrodite, held a quince in her hand as a love gift. The quince remained sacred to her, and a symbol of love and fertility. Following ancient customs, young Greek and Roman couples shared a quince at their wedding banquet to symbolize their loving union. … Mother Earth gives Hera a special “golden apple” tree at her wedding to Zeus. Hera plants it in her sacred garden on the slopes of Mount Atlas, where the chariot horses of the sun complete their daily journey. Atlas, the mighty shepherd, builds a wall around the orchard, and the tree is guarded by his three daughters, the Hesperides and the ever-watchful dragon, Ladon. … The motif of the sacred garden with the tree at the centre, guarded by the dragon, is reminiscent of the World Tree. … As all these trees were expressly connected with the Goddess — the English scholar Robert Graves surmised that the ritual use of ethrog and lulab in the Feast of the Tabernacles was orginally taken over from the Canaanites by the Hebrews, along with other rites dedicated to the moon goddess. However, because of its erotic connotations, the quince was replace with the citrus during the Babylonian exile, or as part of the great cultural reform in 621 BCE ascribed to King Josiah.
The connection between the ancient Mediterranean love goddess Marian and the quince has survived in a Christian custom on the Balearic island Mallorca. In the middle of the 20th century, Robert Graves witnessed the Feast of the Blessed Name of the Virgin Mary, which is held on the first Sunday after 12 September (corresponding with the autumn equinox on 23 September). The villagers of Bonanova, near Palma, would perambulate a hill, carrying boughs of quince and sorb apple.”
For the Fir tree we learn the following: “In ancient Phrygia and Greece, the fir was sacred to Artemis, the moon goddess and patroness of childbirth. The participants in the procession of Dionysus waved fir boughs in her honour. The fir was also the birth-tree of Adonis, god of the Phoenician city of Byblos and, through his Mesopotamian origins, the precursor of the pre-dynastic Osiris of Egypt. The annual death (autumn) and resurrection (spring) of the vegetation spirit were transferred by the peoples of the Near East to their fertility gods (such as Tammuz and Attis), the sons of the Great Goddess or Mother of the Universe (Ishtar, Cybele). Evergreens have always been symbols of the countinuity of life.”
For Sycomore fig we read: “The area around Memphis was known as the “Land of the Sycomore Fig”. Here, the most famous specimen was the “Sycomore Fig of the South”. Like all sycamore fig trees, it was regarded as the living body of Hathor, who is the important goddess of the sky. Hathor was also called the “Mistress of the Sacred Tree”. Another famous sycamore fig, the “Tree of the Virgin”, stood at Metairieh. Others were sacred to Nuit (sky goddess), Selket (Isis’ sister, who protected the dead) and the ancient creator goddess, Neith.”
Walnut tree has also association with the goddess(es). “The original Greek name for the fruit of this tree, caryon, is related to cara, which means both “head” and “tree top”, and stems from the ancient Pelasgian goddess Car or Cer, who also gave her name to the mountains of Caria in Asia Minor.”
About Willow tree we learn that: “Belili, the Sumerian goddess of love, the moon and the underworld, resided in willow trees, springs and wells. In ancient Greece, Persephone had a grove dedicated to Hecate, the goddess of death and transition. An image of the moon goddess Artemis was found in a willow thicket at Sparta, and Hera, the Queen of Heaven, was said to have been born under a willow tree at Samos, where appropirate rituals were held annually. … The willow is the resonating feminine vessel that receives the vibration of the string and gives birth to music. For the Chinese, too, the willow represents the feminine, yin, grace and the moon”.
