A CALL TO CELEBRATE TREES by Janet M Rudolph

With the trees burning around the world, in Canada and the US as well as in Europe and Africa, Asia, South America and more, it seems to be an especially important time to be with the trees, to recognize our kinship, and to celebrate them.  

To see just how bad the fires are around the world, below are the links to two maps that are kept in real time.
NASA Greenpeace

I don’t know when and where the initial hatred of trees began, but I would tag the Bible as an early and influential proponent of destroying trees.

The viciousness against trees appears to have grown out of a desire to erase Goddess worship in Biblical lands. The terms for Goddess groves were Asherot and Ashereem named after the Goddess Ashera. An individual tree was called an Ashera. The charge given to the people was to cut down everyone. 

And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves (Ashereem) with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.
Deuteronomy 12:3 KJV

But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
Exodus 34:13 KJV

There were other messages in the Bible (some of which are below) but the messages like those above are the most thundering and the ones that have echoed the loudest through time. Most of the passages that respect trees have faded to become eclipsed. Others have been translated out of easy reach. 

The following are excerpts from my most recent book, The Music of Creation. I have two chapters in the book dedicated to trees, one is “Trees and Seeds” and the other is “The Celebration of Trees.” 

For the biblical passages following, KJV means King James Version and MPV means Mystic Pagan Version. The MPV’s are my own translations based on the original meaning of the words. 

TREE COMMENTARY

We, as humanity.beings, have a deep connection to trees. So much so that it is reflected in our language. Even today, we speak about our own ancestors as “the roots” of our “family tree” of which there are many “branches.” Our descendants are “offshoots.” Our children are the “fruit” of our loins.

Anthropologist and religious scholar Mircea Eliade writes extensively about the associations of trees and their ancestral connection to humans. He calls them both mystical and mythical.[1] His examples include the Miao groups of Southern China and Southeast Asia who “worship the bamboo as their ancestor.” He also notes Australian tribes who view the mimosa as their progenitor. And there is a tribe from Madagascar called Antaivandrika which means “people of the tree.” They consider themselves descended from the banana tree.

The Hebrew language provides further evidence of our relationship to trees. In Hebrew the word for tree is ets. If you add the universal breath syllable, ah (or ha) you get ets-ah which means spine (or sacrum). Ets-eem[2] in Hebrew means bones. We all carry our own trees of life within our human bodies. Our bones are likened to the bones of trees. Our spines are our personal trees of life. In this way they are deeply connected to the trunk/spines of the trees. 

Eve is chavah or hawwah depending on the transliteration. In Hebrew, the “Tree of Life” is the tree of ha-hay-yim or Her name in plural.

The Tree of Life, literally translated, means the Tree of Eve (transcendent of gender) in its grandest, most powerful aspect. The Hebrew ha-hay-yim[3]is life in plural, LIFE/EVE writ large in the fullness of all mystery.

Below are some of the passages that even in the traditional translations honor trees.

Deut 20:19

…thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) . . .
KJV

 . . .thou shalt cherish them (for the trees of the field are the brother/sister journeyers of our lives) . . .
MPV

Psalm 1:3

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;
his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
KJV

And we shall be likened to trees, planted by the flowing rivers
Bringing forth fruits in the fullness of time
So that our seeds may flourish.
MPV

Proverbs 3:18

She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her:
and happy is every one that retaineth her.
KJV

She is a tree of life to those who acclaim Her,
and blessed are all who embrace Her.
MPV

COMMENTARY

This section celebrates and honors trees as an element of our relationship to them. Trees all over the world are hurting. Between hurricanes, fires, infestations, indiscriminate logging, and climate change our trees need extra amounts of care and love. Celebrating trees helps us to raise our own consciousness, as well as those around us. When we become more aware of the trees and what they need to be healthy, our connection grows ever stronger. And the trees do respond. 

I believe that many of the passages about trees are very old ones that were incorporated into the Biblical library of books. Their original messages were probably too popular for the emerging priesthood to ignore or remove entirely, so they sought to hide them either by verbiage or through translations.

Deut 20:19 is one such passage that was likely inserted into a wartime tale. The discussion surrounding the passage is what to do (or not) in the case of a “siege of war.” The people are admonished not to cut down the trees . . . “for the tree of the field is man’s life.” It’s odd that the Bible should suddenly be so concerned with “man’s life” when two passages before in Deut 20:17 the discussion is about the “complete destruction” of other cultures in the area; the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

The passage itself is three words: Ha-adam ets hassadeh. Ets, as we have seen, means tree. Adam is obvious because it’s also a familiar name, and hassadeh is the land or fields. We’ve seen Adam in relation to trees and food before in the Bible and that, of course, didn’t turn out so well. It is ironic that the grand deity, who had once punished Adam for eating the fruit of the trees is now advocating for that very thing. There is some confusion of message which is why I consider this passage to be a blend of older and newer stories.

This is all really old knowledge, pagan knowledge if you will. 

I can’t stop thinking about the Deuteronomy command to burn down the trees.

burn their groves (Ashereem) with fire;
Deuteronomy 12:3 KJV

Aren’t we living today with the culmination of that mandate? Let us instead live with this command also from Deuteronomy

. . .thou shalt cherish them (for the trees of the field are the brother/sister journeyers of our lives)
Deuteronomy 20:19 MPV

The Music of Creation is available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.

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[1] Mircea Eliade, Patterns of Comparative Religion, translated by Rosemary Sheed, University of Nebraska Press, 1996, 300-301.

[2] Or ets-eem, a plural form of the word tree.

[3] The “w” and “y” are interchangeable. The “eem” or “yim” sound at the end is the plural suffix.