It was one of those spring days... I was 19 years old, and I was sitting by myself with my back against a magnificent, 80-foot-tall, 100-year-old oak tree on the grounds of Love Library at the University of Nebraska. The sky was a bright, vibrant blue, with fluffy white clouds drifting by above the towering trees overhead. It had been a long, cold winter, but today I was dappled in warm, golden sunshine, and there I sat, delighted and transfixed, while nature spirits danced and played through the trees, sighing with pleasure as they brushed across the grass, spun around the corners of the massive old library and whispered through the delicate new leaves in the branches far above me.
Trees have been an important part of pagan worship and magical workings since our distant ancestors began leaving evidence of possessing a spiritual consciousness. As Ralph Metzner, a professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, notes, the two most widespread world images in the archaic imagination were the mother goddess and the "world tree." Along with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (now known as Ram Dass), Metzner was an early pioneer in the study of non-ordinary states of consciousness. He has written several important books on Western consciousness and spirituality, including The Well of Remembrance--Rediscovering the Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern Europe, which is an excellent historical study. Metzner states, "The axial unity of a great tree, holding together all the multiplicity and diversity of branches, leaves, fruits and flowers in a single great living presence ... impressed [the ancients] as a worthy model of the greater world."
Metzner goes on to state that the single tree, with or without an altar nearby, was a universal feature of European religious culture, as well as appearing in religious history throughout Eurasia and Africa. Individual trees may be designated to represent the "axis mundi," the axis of the world, or "world tree"--which is a point of intersection between worlds, allowing mystic access from one plane to another. Ancient trees also embody a spirit of place all over the world. They endure for generations, far beyond the lives and memories of individual humans--solid, strong, rooted in the earth and reaching toward the heavens.
Further evidence of the importance of trees in pagan religion may be found by examining their relationship to oracles. Throughout history, oracles have often been based in forests and surrounded by groves of trees. The shrine of Zeus at Dodona, styled as the oldest oracle, was a tree sanctuary founded originally around 800 BCE. by an Egyptian missionary priestess from Thebes. In the midst of this forest stood a single oak tree, identified by the priestess as sacred. The oracle centered around this tree endured for more than 1200 years, and was replaced by a temple in the fourth century CE According to ancient tradition, all Greek temples were originally trees, and later made of trees. Even when stone temples came into vogue, none were dedicated without an associated holy tree. History reports that the first temple of Apollo at Delphi was a hut made of laurel trees. In many images surviving from ancient times, Artemis and other goddesses may be found standing close to apparently sacred trees.
Pagan worship in the Baltic countries, which remained dominant well into medieval times, was never fully suppressed in the countryside, and began a notable renaissance in the twentieth century. Baltic paganism continues to center much of its worship outdoors. Specific sacred groves are identified that cannot be cut, and individual sacred trees, especially linden and elder trees, are revered. According to Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick in A History of Pagan Europe, Baltic pagans believe that there is an element of the human being, the "siela," that does not depart with the "vele"--the soul proper--but is reincarnated on Earth in other life forms, especially in trees. This belief is reminiscent of the ancient Egyptians' complex ideas about the many spiritual components of a human life. In any event, no abuse of animal or tree was tolerated by the Baltic pagans.
Yew trees are of interest as they are connected with death in many European countries. The long-lived yew was sacred to Hecate in Greece and Italy. In yet another example of the survival of pagan concepts in Christian practices, yew has been planted in English churchyards, often still sheltering the graves there, for more than a thousand years. The concept of trees sheltering and giving sustenance to the dead goes back at least to the Egyptians, with the sycamore tree, which was sacred to Hathor. Normandi Ellis, in her book Feasts of Light--Celebrations for the Seasons of Life Based on the Egyptian Goddess Mysteries writes, "Let me eat my food beneath the sycamore of my lady Hathor, and spend my hours [in the land of the dead] beneath the tree..." Similarly, the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible speaks of a "New Jerusalem" with a "tree of life" in the center, "and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the peoples."
It is life we are concerned with at Beltaine--returning life, new life, healing life, abundant life. As we walk around our Northwest home this spring, many trees are in glorious bloom, and the scent of renewal is strong in the air. The fertile ground beneath us is teeming with life. The Oak King still rules over Beltaine, as the year continues to wax toward midsummer, and sprigs from the Goddess's hawthorn may be harvested only on May Eve for her festival the following day. Vivianne Crowley tells us that "in pre-Puritan Britain, young men and maidens would go into the woods together on May Eve to gather May blossoms. And, Puritans noted disapprovingly, many [of the girls] would emerge no longer maids." The classic English film The Wicker Man shows this May Eve pastime in clear relief, as well as many other aspects of the European pagan rites of spring on the fictitious (?) island of Lord Summerisle. (Viewers may have noticed the name of the "missing" girl in this film, Rowan Morrison. "Rowan" is another name for the mountain ash tree, or "witch wand.")
All over Europe and into the New World, springtime reverence for the tree as an axis between the worlds gradually transformed into the May Pole ritual. Ribbons attached to the top of the Maypole are woven about the pole by alternating dancers moving deosil and widdershins around it in celebration of the fertility of the God, and in recognition of the cycle of life and death, decline and renewal in which we are all participants.
Beltaine is a time for joyful participation in this cycle. Celebrating our senses and the joy that shared sensuality can give is the gift of Beltaine. Seize the time and savor being alive in this season! As for me, until further notice you will find me in the Arboretum on sunny warm days, sitting under a big tree!
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