The MissTree of the Alchemical Woman (Part 1)
Tracing back to the roots of the symbolism of the tree of life, including the bird and the snake.
Throughout millenia and across the globe, there are stories abound that seem to have repeating concepts, one such story is that of the Tree of Life, sometimes also called the Tree of Knowledge, the World Tree and the Tree of Souls. Although axis mundi symbolism if often tied into this central tree, we also find other recurring motifs included with the tree; namely a bird nesting in its branches, a serpent/ dragon or snake coiled around its trunk or roots and a woman.
Far north, there is the Yggdrassil Tree, with the mythical bird Víðópnir (translates roughly to Wind Weaver), perched in the crown of the tree, while Níðhǫggr (the Malice Striker/ Serpent), gnaws at its roots. Similarly, we have the Sumerian myth of Inanna’s Huluppu Tree, wherein we find the Anzu (Zu) bird nesting atop, a snake guarding the tree and a female demon named Lilith also inhabiting it. Of course, the most popular of these tree myths, is that of the Biblical tale of the Garden of Eden, whereby the Serpent speaks to Eve, convincing her to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Thus, we are already beginning to notice a pattern of elements in these stories, of which I’ll examine these 3 elements: the bird, the snake and the tree. What do all of these symbols have in common? They are all totemic forms of the woman, the primordial goddess. I have uncovered two common themes connecting these symbols to the woman. The first being the procreative powers of regeneration (birth-death-rebirth) and the second being that of oracular knowledge.
Sidenote: This has become such an extensive decode, that in order for it, not to be too tedious to read all at once, I’ve decided to break it up into two themes - Regeneration and Divination, and address each of the 3 central motifs I outline herein, into separate essays. This essay being the introduction to my dissertation and including the decipher of the regenerative powers of the woman, so far as she relates to the symbol of the tree.
Alchemical image of the Divine Sophia as a Tree of Learning and source of the Elixir of Life. As such, she was known to alchemists as Sapientia, Lady Wisdom, Lady Nature, Alkimia.
Woman - The Alchemical Tree
The woman is the allegorical Tree of Life, for they both contain the life force and act as a portal between the material realm and the quantum field.
The woman - the Tree of Life; she blooms a flower monthly, which when fertilised becomes the fruit of the womb. Since the beginning of time, she has nourished civilisation; from the milky sap of her pendulous breasts; to her branches where she nestles her offspring, including the wild animals, which she has befriended and tamed. This is why she is sometimes known as the Mistress of the Wild Animals. As woman foraged among the plants, she began to know each of them intimately, naming them, collecting their roots, leaves, fruits and seeds for medicine and sustenance. Later, she discovered she could cultivate her own, by planting these seeds, which thus became instrumental in the development of agriculture and human society as we know it today. This is also why we find so many goddesses of the grain and harvest: Demeter (Greek), Ceres (Roman), Nepit (Egyptian), Sif (Norse), Cailleach (Celtic), Inari Ōkami (Japanese), the list goes on…. I think you get the idea ;-)
Just like trees provide us with fire, light, shelter, clothing and sustenance, so too were these the sacred duties of our ancestral mothers. Among her many branches, there is one for the loom of life, not only incarnating souls from her womb, but threading together plant fibres to clothe and protect her offspring. From the branches, bark and roots, she weaved them together to create baskets lined with muddy clay to store food and water. The woman, is also the keeper of the fire at the centre of the home, the Hearth, which we see echoed in the Vestal Virgins and Celtic goddess of the home, Brigid. She might have accidentally left a basket too close to the fire, burning away the plant fibres, leaving a fired clay container or pot. Archeologists today, with the assistance of biometric tools for identifying characteristics like fingerprints, is proving that the further back we go, women were probably the primary potters making cultic objects and homewares, until it was later institutionalised and dominated by men. If women did in fact invent pottery, it would be like art imitating life. As a vessel herself, we see countless examples of anthropomorphic vessels in the likeness and form of the woman, throughout the ancient world.
The tree, like we will discover later with the bird and snake, is a symbol of regeneration/ resurrection. A tree is said to die in the winter, having lost all its leaves in the autumn, only to sprout new growth in the spring. We find this concept of resurrection tied to so many mythic characters. Odin acquired the feminine wisdom and the art of magic from the roots of the Yggdrasil Tree, by hanging himself on it, in order to undergo death-resurrection. Krishna died on a tree, Attis died sitting under a tree, some even say Jesus hung on a tree and not a cross, whilst Osiris lay entombed in a tree upon his death. Even today, we bury our dead in coffins that resemble tree-trunks and which are usually made from wood. This also reminds me of an article I came across about a Celtic woman from the Iron Age, who was discovered in Zurich, Switzerland, buried in a hollowed out tree-trunk. We also find a type of tree burial among the tribes of America and Australia, where the body was placed atop a tree (which I’ll later address in reference to the sky burial of the birds).
Khonsu-mes receives libation of food and drink from the tree goddess. The tree goddesses are usually associated with the namesake or manifestation of the goddesses Hathor, Isis or Nut. Hathor was often referred to as the “Lady of the Sycamore”
Papyrus of Khonsu-mes 21st Dynasty, c. 1000 B.C.Thebes
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Ägyptische Sammlung, INV 3859
Trees did not only feed the living, but the dead as well. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the goddess (Hathor-Nut-Isis) is illustrated feeding the dead from her sacred sycamore - the tree of life and funerary tree for the Egyptians, who believed its branches held the spirits of the dead. The tree, with its labyrinth of deep, subterranean roots penetrating the Underworld, whilst its crown of branches reach to the sky, is held by many cultures, as a bridge between the celestial and underworld realms. The tree, like the cave, is yet another symbol of the womb-tomb that all life returns to.
Illustration of Placenta by Zoe Hansen
After the first 12 weeks of gestation, a woman has grown a new organ inside of her - the placenta. If we were to spread out the placenta, it would mirror a tree. As above, so below. The woman literally grows a tree inside her womb for the sole purpose of nourishing the life growing inside of her. Many surviving indigenous cultures even up to this day, still practice the primordial tradition of burying the placenta and the serpentine umbilical cord of the afterbirth, at the roots of a young tree sapling or even inside a hollowed out tree. The idea being, that the tree grew as the soul of the baby also matured. Thus, this concept of the ancestral “family tree” and a “tree of souls” probably originated from these ancient practices. Both symbolically and physically, through this custom, we were deeply connected to Nature, literally having a piece of our DNA bonded to the tree as well as it’s underground mycorrhizal network, as each tree has its own unique web of mycelium, helping it to thrive. I can’t help but wonder if the chopping down of the Huluppu Tree or the banishing of Adam and Eve from the Garden, separating them from the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge, was a marked pivotal point in human history, when man severed his soul connection to Nature, at a time, when we saw ourselves, all as one living organism. Nowadays, man wanders all of the earth, seeking out this Tree of Knowledge, that holds the wisdom of his ancestors, of his Family Tree. This is the soul retrieval alluded to in many stories of enlightenment and death and resurrection.
Even some trees are “bleeders” like a woman. The oak, eucalyptus, pine, elm, birch, maple, willow and dragon’s blood tree (because of its deep red sap) are bleeders, in that they drip sap from their trunk/ torso. Some Australian aboriginal tribes use the red sap of the Muur-muurpa (desert bloodwood) as medicine for wounds, burns, eyes and as a tanning agent for animal pelts. Arabian tradition identified the food of immortality with female uterine blood coloured “royal purple”. Fruits like figs and pomegranates, don’t just resemble woman’s breasts on the outside, but once opened, reveal a pinkish-red juicy flesh likened to a woman’s vagina, with the bountiful seeds of these fruits as totems of fertility. The tree was always assigned the female gender. Even the morphology of the tree, the Tau Cross, the floor plan of a Basilica and the uterus, can all be overlaid atop one another, as symbolic representations of a woman’s womb - the portal of transformation and transmutation.
This concept of a “Mother Tree” can often be found embedded into folklore and even fairytales, the story of Cinderella immediately comes to mind. In the Brothers Grimm version of “Aschenputtel”, it is the hazel tree planted on her mother’s grave, thought to embody her “mother’s spirit” that functions as the origin of the magical “fairy godmother” which we see developed in later versions, particularly the Disney retelling. The Hazel bush more than a tree, is also the Celtic Tree of Knowledge, from which water diviners and wands were often carved from, as it was held to be an otherworldly tree.
The Mistress of the Inner World- Hieronymus Reussner Pandora Basel - Jehan Perréal ~1582
Alchemy, which we saw steadily gain traction during the medieval times, eventually peaking in the 1700’s (Age of Enlightenment) is prolific in depicting trees and women in its artworks and manuscripts. The study of alchemy was predominantly a male obsession. They believed that through certain chemical and elemental engineering in a lab, they could both comprehend and replicate the quintessence of the World Tree, which they considered the equivalent of deciphering the mysteries of woman. Due to a woman’s biological and anatomical properties, she seems to be so intrinsically connected to the Cosmic Mind and has access to the secrets of creation, for which every alchemist was longing to decode.
The Northern Teutons (an ancient Germanic tribe) surmised that the elm tree was the source of the first woman. How can we forget how many instances of women transformed into trees in mythology; the Earth Mother Gaia transformed Daphne into a laurel tree to escape the relentless sexual advances of Apollo; Adonis was born from the myrrh tree, after his mother, Smyrna was turned into one by Aphrodite, out of jealousy. The Buddha was believed to have been born in a garden, under a sal tree, as his mother, Queen Maya, gave birth, whilst holding onto the branch of the tree (women didn’t give birth on their backs until King Louis XIV made it popular, because he wanted a unobstructed view).
Asherah, detail from an ivory box from Mīna al-Bayḍā near Ras Shamra (Ugarit), Syria, c. 1300 bce; in the Louvre, Paris
Perhaps the most iconic of the goddesses whose symbol was the tree of Knowledge / Tree of Life, and whose name literally translates to “grove” was Asherah. The Canaanite Goddess, Asherah, sometimes called the Goddess of the Tree of Life, was also closely related to the Syrian Astarte and the Babylonian Ishtar. She went by other names as well, such as “She who gives birth to the gods”, “Queen of Heaven” and “the Divine Lady of Eden”, as her fruit represented all good, including spiritual nourishment. She pre-dated the Old Testament and was the consort of the supreme god, El, later usurped by the Hebrew god Yahweh, until she was outright erased as a creatorix and demoted to a “sacred tree or pole” or cultic object to place on altars for the male god. Asherah reminds me of the groves of trees we often find at many sacred sites, shrines and temples to the goddess. In Greece for instance, each goddess had an assigned tree, used to identify her, which would often be found growing around her shrines. For Artemis, it was the cypress tree. The olive tree for Athena. The Norse goddess Idun, was in charge of the golden apples that kept the gods youthful, while Mother Hera had golden apples of immortality in her Garden of Hesperides, which was guarded by the hundred-headed serpentine dragon, Ladon. All of these examples allude to the secrets of the womb wisdom held by the archetypal goddesses.
This is where I’ll end for now, but will return to this theme of regeneration again, but through the symbolism of the snake,in my next post, as we celebrate the official Chinese New Year for 2025 - The Year of the Wood Snake.
Thank you again for your time in reading and hopefully you look forward to the continuation of this series, very soon!
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES
Lady of the Beasts (Ancient Images of the Goddess and Her sacred animals) by Buffie Johnson
The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G Walker
The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects by Barbara G Walker
The Language of the Goddess (1989) by Marija Gimbutas
Thank you for sharing
Great article! Looking forward to the rest of the series. The divine mirroring near the birth portal is very revealing and symbolic. 🌸🌱✨