Earth Worship & Tree Worship
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
In The Golden Bough (1981) James Frazer writes about the worship of trees in Europe by the Aryan race. He says that, "nothing could be more natural," than for people to worship trees. Sacred oak groves were worshiped by the Druids. Groves were also worshiped by ancient Germans, Greeks, and Italians as well as in the capital of Sweden. Certain types of trees were worshipped, such as fig trees and cornel-trees by the Romans. If the sacred cornel-tree in Rome appeared to be drooping, a passerby would cry out to other people in the street who would echo the cry until people would run to the tree with pails of water as if to put out a fire.
In the Congo, people left offerings of palm-wine at the foot of sacred trees so that if the tree's spirit was thirsty it could drink. In Eastern Africa, the Wanika people believe that the destruction of a cocoa-nut tree is regarded as equivalent to matricide, because that tree gives them life and nourishment, as a mother does her child. Also, the Moluccas people respected the blooming cloves-trees like pregnant women. This meant that both blossoming clove-trees and pregnant women should be taken care of and not frightened by noise, light, or fire because, like a woman who is frightened into miscarrying, the clove-tree was believed to drop its fruit too soon if it was startled. The Japanese and the people in Orissa have similar traditions: when rice fields are in bloom the field is treated in the same way that a pregnant woman should be. They feared the crop might bear straw but no grain.
Other cultures believed that the tree spirit and the tree could be parted before the tree was cut so rituals were set up before felling a tree to give the tree-spirit a new home. Different rituals were practiced and legends were told in ancient times in places all over the world such as certain people in Germany, India, Rome, Sumatra, Assam, Prussia, Samogitia, Gilgit the Pelew Islands, and the Chedooba Islands. Besides worshipping trees, the Ojebway Indians, the Jarkino people, the Samoa people, the Dieyerie tribe and the Islanders of the Philippines all have legends about trees screaming and/or bleeding when cut so they avoided doing so unless necessary.
Other cultures and religions believed that trees or tree-spirits have the power to bring forth rain or sunshine. The Lithuanis and the Mundaris in Assam, according to Frazer's The Golden Bough (1981), believed that they would not have rain and/or sunshine if a sacred tree or sacred grove was damaged. Many of these people who worship trees also believed that rituals for sacred trees would bring plentiful harvests. The harvest-may rituals were practiced throughout ancient Germany, France, Sweden, Greece, Swabia, and among the Dyaks of Sarawak. This ritual varied among cultures but the basic idea was that a special branch would be fastened on the roof of the farm house or the fence of the field to bring an abundant harvest. Similar rituals are practiced in India and Africa. Throughout time the harvest-may ritual turned into the Maypole of Mayday. The ancient rituals regarding trees and tree worship continues throughout history and occupies over fifty pages of short descriptions and pictures in The Golden Bough (1981). Nevertheless, with the brief information here it is obvious that trees have been worshipped throughout ancient history all over the world.
A similar book to The Golden Bough is a book called The Sacred Tree In Religion And Myth (1897) by Mrs. J. H. Philpot who lived in the late 1800's. Tree worship was so prominent for years in Celtic cultures that when the Christians of Europe wanted to drive the Pagan religion out, they burnt entire forests. Such a devastating fire brought chaos upon the Druids and Pagans because they felt as though their deities and sacred places were destroyed. The commonly known Maypole ritual and the Christmas tree were both adopted from the Pagan religion. However, unlike the people of today, the Pagans used live trees for the celebration of spring and winter. It is also apparent to Philpot, as it is to other authors, that the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt show immense worship of trees, flowers, and other aspects of nature.
Tree worship is a prime example of the impact our Earth Mother has had on our evolution, culture, and belief systems throughout history and in nearly every crevice of Her body. Other plants have been worshipped in this same universal way. Medicinal plants and psychedelic plants have both been used with respect in rituals for the Earth that provided them. Lives have been saved, diseases cured, and spirits enlightened by these sacred plants. Because plants are on the Earth Mother's skin we can not separate the connection between plants and the Earth as well as the worship thereof. The concept of the Earth Mother is a universal, age old tradition that may never leave our consciousness no matter how much we pretend that we are superior to or separate from the Earth Mother.
It seems that nearly every civilization has or is worshiping some aspect of nature. Another book written by James Frazer is The Worship Of Nature (1926) in which he gives detailed accounts of sky, earth, and sun worship or a system of complete nature worship. Frazer says, "The worship of nature is based on the assumption that natural phenomena, whether animate or inanimate, are living personal beings analogous to man in their nature, though often far superior to him in power." Among the long list of people who worship nature, the most obvious cultures are the indigenous or, as Frazer puts it, "primitive" people. Most of Frazer's experience with these types of people had been among the Vedic Indians and the people of Western, Eastern, and Southern Africa as well as the Congo. Frazer also includes the ancient religions of India, Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, only excluding the Christians, Buddhist, and Islamic religions from his research. All of these religions have their own names for the sky, the earth, and Gods or Goddesses and have myths that explain creation, life, and natural phenomena. Often the sky and the earth are personified and married or sometimes the earth and the sea are married. Either way, the Earth Mother is respected and worshipped in some sense.
In Africa, tribes worship the earth with the belief that she is angered if human blood is shed on her soil. The chief of these tribes must perform rituals usually requiring the sacrifice of a goat, sheep, or bird. Similar sacrificial rituals are believed to help rain fall in droughts or are used to appease the Earth after burning or cutting a forest. Along with the Earth deity, most tribes in Africa believe that the Forest is the daughter of the Earth and a separate deity personifies earthquakes. Though sacrifices to the Earth deity are common, the flesh is always eaten after the blood is smeared, sprinkled, or poured on the soil, a stone, or a tree, depending on the tribe and location.
All of these people, who worship the Earth Mother is some way, believed that they were "surrounded by invisible intelligence" according to Frazer in The Worship Of Nature (1926). Furthermore, they saw no more real evidence in science than in religion. Believing in the existence of a ghost, god, or fairy was just as vague as believing in an atom or an electron. In both cases the effects can be perceived, but the things themselves cannot be truly examined.
Fairies are to nature what Angels are to humans. Fairies have been worshipped as personifications of nature for centuries. A book written on fairies is The Real World Of Fairies (1977) by Dora Van Gelder who was gifted with the ability to see fairies. Gelder was born in India and grew up traveling the world in the early 1900's. When she published her book in 1904, fairies had little recognition. Gelder wrote in detail about the descriptions, actions, and influences of the fairies as well as other spirits such as tree spirits. All of these fairies and spirits were spoken of by Gelder as if they were her friends. She even spoke fondly of rocks and her relationship to special rocks that, when she sat on them, they communicated a vague sense joy and then of sadness when she left. She even presented the idea that rocks "see" even though they have no eyes. Gelder wrote that we are growing old too fast because we have lost our connection to the earth and to all the small spirits in the world. "But when we try, just try, to believe and even to experience some of these things which may at first seem so strange and even mad, we recover touch with the departed glory of nature, the mother of all living, and thus recapture youth, which is life." Therefore, believing in fairies, befriending tree spirits, and listening to the vague emotions of stones is part of the Earth Mother concept.
The Earth Mother concept can seem endlessly complex; while strands hold every complexity together in a unifying web. In the introduction of The Worship Of Nature (1926) J.G. Frazer explained the "unification and simplification" of the complexities. He explained that both science and religion, through time, have gone from examining each individual complexity in the universe, to trying to simplify and unify these complexities into one category. For example, chemists for a long time categorized the elements into some eighty-eight categories. Because the end was not in sight, these categories of elements seemed infinitely complex so stopping at any number seemed silly. More recently, scientists simplified these categories into "the single element of hydrogen." Similarly, biologists reduced the innumerable species into "a single simple type of living organism." Likewise, religions in ancient times believed that dust particles had an individual sentience or soul. However, this complex belief began to get simpler. "Instead of a separate spirit for every individual tree, they came to conceive of a god of the woods in general," wrote Frazer as he explains the movement from animism to polytheism. Today, even polytheism has been pushed aside by monotheism. This progression, like the scientific progression, moves religion into a unifying concept. It seems to me, as it did to Frazer, "that complexity is infinite, so the search for the ultimate unity is probably endless also."
On this note comes the conclusion to the spiritual views toward the Earth Mother, because the detailed descriptions of deities, Gods, and Goddesses, in relation to the Earth Mother, is endless. Nevertheless, as we look back at all the different types of worship, we can see that there is most definitely a unifying concept, the Earth Mother. The latter part of this essay will show the complexities and then the unification of science and philosophy.