Oak Tree – Feminism and Religion

MOTHER OAK by Dale Allen

We sat on the in the leaves, my daughter and I, in the warm autumn sun under the Great Mother Oak. Here and there fallen leaves danced lightly in the breeze. It felt good to be directly connected to the ground, bent knees and bare feet on the land. We leaned back and looked up at the tree in all her glory. She was still filled with yellow green leaves… her canopy so high that from up there, she can “see” the other neighborhood trees with many years like she has.

She has been here in this place since the end of the 1700s or the beginning of the 1800s. She was here with the first European settlers of this place. Her mother had been here before that, with the last generations of the people who were of this land for 15,000 years or more: the Paugussett People. We could feel this history. We could feel the tree’s mother. And then, from beneath the ground where their energy remains steady, we heard the voice of the Paugussett. They thanked us for acknowledging their presence. They said that they can feel our profound love for this place where we live, here in Black Rock, Connecticut… our love for the trees, the leaves, the flowers, the osprey, the red tail hawks, the fox, the squirrels, the rabbits, the insects, the shore, the waters of coastal Connecticut (Long Island Sound), the shells, the sand, the sparkles, the historical homes, the families, the new babies. We love this land. We love our home. And the Paugussett saw this love. The Mother Oak saw this love.

Big Mama by Arianne MacBean

I used to tell my dance students that the dance floor was like a Big Mama, aways there to catch them, always there to sink into, always there to press back. This was my way of teaching them to trust the floor, that it was not a place where they needed to fear crashing into, but a place that wanted to take them in, hug them, love them. As dancers, we spend much time focused on the floor, how to release into it with control, how to push off it, even how to defy it and manipulate it. It becomes our partner in all dances, this blanket beneath us. But I haven’t been in a dance studio for a few years and so I have found myself looking up, instead of down.

From the Archives: Oakness as a Metaphor for the Wild Soul: the Dance Between Life Force, Personality and Original Nature by Eline Kieft

This was originally posted June 16, 2022

The process of fitting in and learning what is required to participate in society teaches us many useful skills such as math and language. All too often, this happens at the expense of developing expressive and intuitive abilities and trust in our unique contributions and points of view, or what I call the ‘Wild Soul’. This represents our original blueprint or essential spark that makes us into who we are.

Magic Seed Moon Meanderings by Sara Wright

Without thinking I threw the old seed into a bag of moist liverworts that I would be looking at under a powerful microscope with my scientist friend Al in a couple of days. I have no idea why I added the seed. The scarlet runner was one I kept in a winter bouquet that I had recently dismantled. The purple and rose bean had to be four or five years old. It would not germinate now …

Imagine my astonishment when I opened the bag in the lab. The bean had sprouted! The fat twisted root was hunting for earth. Carefully I re – wrapped the bean and put it in a little container until I could get home and plant it, but not before we looked at it under the microscope. More about that later.

The Mighty Oak or Acorn? by Sara Wright

Most of us are familiar with the mythology around oak trees. They are considered oracular beings in many traditions. The Druids considered them to be sacred, the Greeks associated oaks with Zeus –( patriarchy strikes as the ‘ king’ of trees). In Britain there was a goddess of oak trees….but in general oaks are considered to be male beings though they bear seeds and flowers on one tree.

Mighty male trees ? Nothing could be further from the truth in terms of behavior because oaks are found all over the world and in this country they are what is considered to be a keystone species. What this means is that oaks support and nurture an incredible amount of animals, insects and birds. A ‘ Mother ‘Tree in every way. We have four species in this country, one of which clones itself and behaves like a bush. It is believed to be about 1300 years old ( found in the west).Throughout the world oaks are also considered to be keystone species.

Oakness as a Metaphor for the Wild Soul: the Dance Between Life Force, Personality and Original Nature by Eline Kieft

Drawing on the well-known metaphor of the acorn that already carries the majestic fullness of the oak tree inside it, I distinguish three characteristics in the process of acorn becoming oak: