A Traditional Winter Ceremony
BELOVED, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is blooming there.
- W. B. Yeats (Two Trees)
The Tree of Life , reaching deeply into the fertile nourishing Earth Mother, stretching upward toward the sky and heavens, the tree of life symbolizes a ladder, a pole or axis linking this world to that of the Spirit realms; to the heavens; to the infinite possibilities of the limitless sky-like mind; and to the greatest opening of the human heart.
Stories of wishing trees, trees of knowledge, trees of life, sacred trees, sacred groves, tree spirits, wisdom trees are ubiquitous in world mythology, culture and literature. Numerous ancient spiritually oriented scriptures maintain some version of a creation myth that includes a great tree located at the center of the world. The tree usually bears fruit that offers healing and immortality, wisdom, knowledge and hidden secrets and is guarded by powerful serpents or dragons. It intersects with waters that branch into the four worldly directions offering benefit and fertility to man.
One example includes a holy tree called the Asvattha in India representing the living universe, an extension of Brahma, the world spirit. This cosmic tree reverses the usual order of the natural world creating a mirror image of itself with roots in the sky and branches growing down into the earth. In Buddhism, the Bodi tree protected the Buddha in his last days of meditation and witnessed his awakening into enlightenment. In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, the fruit of both the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life which were growing in the Garden of Eden were forbidden, but deceived by the serpent, they ate of the Knowledge Tree and became conscious of themselves, their shame, guilt and error. Before they could eat from the Tree of Life, they were cast out of the Garden.
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. (Gen. ii. 9-10)
In St. John’s vision of the Heavenly City in Revelations, a holy tree with water passages converge at the center of the world following its demise.
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev.xxii.1-2)
Both Persian and Slavic traditions have stories of a tree of life that bore the seeds of all the worlds plants. This tree was guarded by an invisible dragon that the Persians called Simarghu and the Slavs called Simorg. For fear of harming the tree of life by accident, Slavic peoples performed sacred ceremonies before cutting down a tree. The Persians did not cut trees but used only those felled naturally. The Iroquis believed a Tree of Life existed in the Sky and the first people were born from a pregnant woman slipping through a hole in this tree and becoming stuck half way between the worlds giving birth on earth.
Also, the magical Christmas tree of the Germanic traditions, the cedar tree to the Native Americans and the mighty oak, hawthorne and rowan tree of the druidic traditions are a few more examples of powerful symbolic trees. These tree honoring traditions include stories from all the continents but perhaps some of the greatest stories come from the Celtic and Norse traditions. Celtic mythology is saturated with magical, life giving trees. At the heart of the Celtic Otherworld, the spiritual source of all life is found within the ecology of trees and water. Trees have served as powerful sacred ecological symbols representing growth cycles, flexibility, change, strength, death and renewal. The annual shift of the deciduous tree which loose its leaves in autumn, lies stark and death-like though the cold and contracted energy of winter only to sprout beautiful green shoots of new life in the spring have inspired hope for those who have experienced loss and a trust in the natural rhythms of death and rebirth. The evergreen on the other hand which remains green throughout the winter symbolize the presence of undying life that flourishes beneath the coat of winter snow.
Interestingly, the word for door, comes from the Celtic word daur, which is the name for the oak tree and suggests that the root of the oak tree was in fact a doorway into the Otherworld realm of the faerie. The word Druid, the name given to the spiritual priests and priestesses is a compound word for oak and seeing, meaning one who can see or hold the key to the doorway. There are numerous myths of tree magic. One of the greatest tree stories is that of the old Norse Yggdrasil, Tree of Life, the World Tree, “Óðinn’s horse”. Described in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Norse poems preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. It is one of the most important sources of Germanic heroic legends and Norse mythology. Yggdrasil is great ash tree that nourished gods, humans and animals connecting all the realms together. It is said that the great god, Óðinn 'rides' the tree to reach a trance-like experience that transcends the worlds of life and death, to achieve power over reality in the form of written language. After nine days of fasting and agony, in which "he made of himself a sacrifice to himself", he "fell screaming" from the tree, having had revealed to him in a flash of insight the secret of the runes. Their initial manifestation took the form of eighteen powerful charms for protection, increase, success in battle and love-making, healing, and mastery over natural causes. At Mimir's well, the god had paid with one eye for a single drink of the enchanted water (honey water). His mouthful granted him wisdom and fore-sight. It is due to this sacrifice that Óðinn's face is depicted with a straight line indicating an empty eye, or alternately, in a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low over the missing orb.
The Tree of Life , reaching deeply into the fertile nourishing Earth Mother, stretching upward toward the sky and heavens, the tree of life symbolizes a ladder, a pole or axis linking this world to that of the Spirit realms; to the heavens; to the infinite possibilities of the limitless sky-like mind; and to the greatest opening of the human heart.
Stories of wishing trees, trees of knowledge, trees of life, sacred trees, sacred groves, tree spirits, wisdom trees are ubiquitous in world mythology, culture and literature. Numerous ancient spiritually oriented scriptures maintain some version of a creation myth that includes a great tree located at the center of the world. The tree usually bears fruit that offers healing and immortality, wisdom, knowledge and hidden secrets and is guarded by powerful serpents or dragons. It intersects with waters that branch into the four worldly directions offering benefit and fertility to man.
One example includes a holy tree called the Asvattha in India representing the living universe, an extension of Brahma, the world spirit. This cosmic tree reverses the usual order of the natural world creating a mirror image of itself with roots in the sky and branches growing down into the earth. In Buddhism, the Bodi tree protected the Buddha in his last days of meditation and witnessed his awakening into enlightenment. In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, the fruit of both the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life which were growing in the Garden of Eden were forbidden, but deceived by the serpent, they ate of the Knowledge Tree and became conscious of themselves, their shame, guilt and error. Before they could eat from the Tree of Life, they were cast out of the Garden.
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. (Gen. ii. 9-10)
In St. John’s vision of the Heavenly City in Revelations, a holy tree with water passages converge at the center of the world following its demise.
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev.xxii.1-2)
Both Persian and Slavic traditions have stories of a tree of life that bore the seeds of all the worlds plants. This tree was guarded by an invisible dragon that the Persians called Simarghu and the Slavs called Simorg. For fear of harming the tree of life by accident, Slavic peoples performed sacred ceremonies before cutting down a tree. The Persians did not cut trees but used only those felled naturally. The Iroquis believed a Tree of Life existed in the Sky and the first people were born from a pregnant woman slipping through a hole in this tree and becoming stuck half way between the worlds giving birth on earth.
Also, the magical Christmas tree of the Germanic traditions, the cedar tree to the Native Americans and the mighty oak, hawthorne and rowan tree of the druidic traditions are a few more examples of powerful symbolic trees. These tree honoring traditions include stories from all the continents but perhaps some of the greatest stories come from the Celtic and Norse traditions. Celtic mythology is saturated with magical, life giving trees. At the heart of the Celtic Otherworld, the spiritual source of all life is found within the ecology of trees and water. Trees have served as powerful sacred ecological symbols representing growth cycles, flexibility, change, strength, death and renewal. The annual shift of the deciduous tree which loose its leaves in autumn, lies stark and death-like though the cold and contracted energy of winter only to sprout beautiful green shoots of new life in the spring have inspired hope for those who have experienced loss and a trust in the natural rhythms of death and rebirth. The evergreen on the other hand which remains green throughout the winter symbolize the presence of undying life that flourishes beneath the coat of winter snow.
Interestingly, the word for door, comes from the Celtic word daur, which is the name for the oak tree and suggests that the root of the oak tree was in fact a doorway into the Otherworld realm of the faerie. The word Druid, the name given to the spiritual priests and priestesses is a compound word for oak and seeing, meaning one who can see or hold the key to the doorway. There are numerous myths of tree magic. One of the greatest tree stories is that of the old Norse Yggdrasil, Tree of Life, the World Tree, “Óðinn’s horse”. Described in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Norse poems preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. It is one of the most important sources of Germanic heroic legends and Norse mythology. Yggdrasil is great ash tree that nourished gods, humans and animals connecting all the realms together. It is said that the great god, Óðinn 'rides' the tree to reach a trance-like experience that transcends the worlds of life and death, to achieve power over reality in the form of written language. After nine days of fasting and agony, in which "he made of himself a sacrifice to himself", he "fell screaming" from the tree, having had revealed to him in a flash of insight the secret of the runes. Their initial manifestation took the form of eighteen powerful charms for protection, increase, success in battle and love-making, healing, and mastery over natural causes. At Mimir's well, the god had paid with one eye for a single drink of the enchanted water (honey water). His mouthful granted him wisdom and fore-sight. It is due to this sacrifice that Óðinn's face is depicted with a straight line indicating an empty eye, or alternately, in a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low over the missing orb.
The Ash and the Honeybee
The great Tree of Life was an ash tree. The Greeks called the ash tree, meli, honey, because it releases a sugary substance that has been harvested and used commercially for centuries. It secretions were harvested and sold under the name “manna”. There is no doubt a mythologic link between the spiritual attributes of the ash and the honeybee. Yggdrasil itself is said to be the source of the honeydew that falls to the earth and from which bees feed. The consumption of honey and role of the honeybee and the Tree of Life have been significant symbols in the collective archetypal psyche of man. Serving a profoundly sacred function for both gods and men, both the tree and the honeybee make accessible the greatest gifts of healing, nourishment and spiritual evolution. The early Greeks and Romans believed that honey made by bees was a product of honeydew (which is produced by scale insects and aphids) and manna secreted from trees. They also believed that honey fell from the skies and was collected by bees. Aristotle says:
The honey is what falls from the air, especially at the risings of the stars and when the rainbow descends. On the whole there is no honey before the [morning] rising of the Pleiad... Honey [the bee] does not make, it fetches what falls.
Pliny the Elder speculates as to the source of this dew:
Honey comes out of the air, and is chiefly formed at the risings of the stars, and especially when the dogstar itself shines forth, and not at all before the risings of the Pleiades, in the periods just before dawn. Consequently at that season at early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey and any persons who have been out under the morning sky feel their clothes smeared with damp and their hair stuck together, whether this is the perspiration of the sky, or a sort of saliva of the stars, or the moisture of the air purging itself... Falling from so great a height, and acquiring a great deal of dirt as it comes, and becoming stained with the vapor of the earth that it encounters, and moreover having been sipped from foliage and pastures and having been collected in the stomachs of bees - for they throw it up out of their mouths, and in addition being tainted by the juice of flowers, and soaked in the corruptions of the belly and so often transformed, nevertheless it brings with it the great pleasure of its heavenly nature.
The Greeks spoke of ash tree nymphs who fed the God Zeus honey and milk. The Norse spoke of the ash tree as the tree of life from which honey rained down and mead was produced. Stories characterizing the connection between honey, tree resin, tree worship and spiritual practices are found throughout mythological art and stories.
The idea of honey raining from heaven onto the world is found in Indian mythology also, and the divine intoxicant Soma is identified in the Vedas as honey that falls from the skies. In the Rig Veda 3.32, we are informed that the first thing the God Indra did after his birth was to drink soma with pleasure. And there is an element of intoxication in the stories of Zeus' infancy: While Amalthea and the ash tree nymphs nursed Zeus in the cave, the Curetes, a warrior band, stood guard outside, drowning out the sound of Zeus' cries with their tambourines, and dancing terrifying war dances. They were in a state of orgiastic possession. The secretion of fermentable honey by the ash tree gave the Indo-Europeans good reason for their particular attention to that tree, and for their apparent belief that it was the nurse of gods and men. Honey in its perfect and original form flowed through the ash tree providing food for the gods. Recall that Indra is celebrated for drinking great pools of soma, Óðinn eats no food and drinks only "honey wine" and the nectar and ambrosia of the Olympian gods is often compared to honey. Therefore just as the world ash physically linked gods and men, its fermented resins could provide communion between gods and men.
In linking with ones spiritual traditions and in honoring the great trees, make Wassail with Mead, a traditional honey wine for your winter celebrations!
The honey is what falls from the air, especially at the risings of the stars and when the rainbow descends. On the whole there is no honey before the [morning] rising of the Pleiad... Honey [the bee] does not make, it fetches what falls.
Pliny the Elder speculates as to the source of this dew:
Honey comes out of the air, and is chiefly formed at the risings of the stars, and especially when the dogstar itself shines forth, and not at all before the risings of the Pleiades, in the periods just before dawn. Consequently at that season at early dawn the leaves of trees are found bedewed with honey and any persons who have been out under the morning sky feel their clothes smeared with damp and their hair stuck together, whether this is the perspiration of the sky, or a sort of saliva of the stars, or the moisture of the air purging itself... Falling from so great a height, and acquiring a great deal of dirt as it comes, and becoming stained with the vapor of the earth that it encounters, and moreover having been sipped from foliage and pastures and having been collected in the stomachs of bees - for they throw it up out of their mouths, and in addition being tainted by the juice of flowers, and soaked in the corruptions of the belly and so often transformed, nevertheless it brings with it the great pleasure of its heavenly nature.
The Greeks spoke of ash tree nymphs who fed the God Zeus honey and milk. The Norse spoke of the ash tree as the tree of life from which honey rained down and mead was produced. Stories characterizing the connection between honey, tree resin, tree worship and spiritual practices are found throughout mythological art and stories.
The idea of honey raining from heaven onto the world is found in Indian mythology also, and the divine intoxicant Soma is identified in the Vedas as honey that falls from the skies. In the Rig Veda 3.32, we are informed that the first thing the God Indra did after his birth was to drink soma with pleasure. And there is an element of intoxication in the stories of Zeus' infancy: While Amalthea and the ash tree nymphs nursed Zeus in the cave, the Curetes, a warrior band, stood guard outside, drowning out the sound of Zeus' cries with their tambourines, and dancing terrifying war dances. They were in a state of orgiastic possession. The secretion of fermentable honey by the ash tree gave the Indo-Europeans good reason for their particular attention to that tree, and for their apparent belief that it was the nurse of gods and men. Honey in its perfect and original form flowed through the ash tree providing food for the gods. Recall that Indra is celebrated for drinking great pools of soma, Óðinn eats no food and drinks only "honey wine" and the nectar and ambrosia of the Olympian gods is often compared to honey. Therefore just as the world ash physically linked gods and men, its fermented resins could provide communion between gods and men.
In linking with ones spiritual traditions and in honoring the great trees, make Wassail with Mead, a traditional honey wine for your winter celebrations!
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