Sacred Tree of the Cosmos

 

Sacred Tree of the Cosmos

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes.

"In the middle of the street of the city and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which produces twelve fruits, giving its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."

(Revelation 22:2)

In Ancient Sumer the sacred and enigmatic huluppu tree grew vigorously on the banks of the Euphrates before receiving the influences of the bad winds of the south and being rescued by the good heart of the goddess Inanna.

The Queen of Heaven and Venusian tutelary goddess of Uruk.

In a single language and within the powerful theurgical breath of his voice and sacred words the god Enlil-God of the wind-, manages to evoke the birth of the sacred tree. Interestingly, at the center of it all is the Dilmun or Paradise.

Place where the sun rises and there is the sacred tree.

Sacred site where the eight sacred plants of Ninhursag exist.

Indeed, these plants contain the sustenance of the "food of life", and they possess the essence and quality of immortality that Gilgamesh so sought.

On the other hand, it is only possible to obtain it - essence of immortality - who manages to possess the Claw and the foot of the Dragon.

In any case, only that mystery initiates who manages to transform and purify himself through a rigorous process of internal alchemy and mystical initiatory death.

It is an arduous Solar Journey and path of the solar heroes of rigorous and careful transformation of the soul in which their initiatory hand becomes a claw, or "dragon's hand" and their foot becomes "dragon's foot".

The Claw of the jaguar or the initiatory tiger to raise the master.

And, in effect, it is Gilgamesh's Initiation journey for Utanapishtim or Ziusudra, to teach him the secret of eternal life.

So only then and through Purity and Wisdom can you achieve it and thus obtain the long-awaited concoction and food of life.

"However, the main alchemical transformation of the soul, albeit based on her purity and already acquired knowledge, in most of cases occurs within the macrocosmic cycle of solar journey (into which the microcosmic cycle of earthly life is integrated) after one's physical death".

(Algis Uzdavinys, Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity, California: Sophia Perennis, 2010),52.

Inanna's tree grew and the snake made its nest at the foot of the tree.

The Imdugud Bird settled in his cup.

Then Inanna makes the ceremonial drum of the shaman from the trunk and with its branches she made a toothpick to play it.

In another historical context in the twelfth century it is already said that Benjamin of Tudela (1130-1173) traveled to the ruins of Nineveh looking for this tree of Sacred Life.

The tree of the Cosmos is the representation of the sephirot tree and whose essence is emanation Ein Sof = ''He is All and He Fills All''.

(Joseph Gikatilla, Guide of The Perplexed)

The alchemical tree in its mercurial root has the solar seed that Nature has planted and from that same alchemical tree the vein-like metals in the human body branch off.

(Miscellanea D'Alchimia, XV century)

We can say that its floral symbols and branches fuse elements 7 and the different stages of Opus Alchemicum-Chemicum.

"Plant this tree in the Lapis ..., so that the birds of Heaven may inhabit it and reproduce on its branches; for from there rises Wisdom.''

(Theatrum Chemicum Britanicum )

In his Book of Travels (Sefer Masaot, 1543) the scholar and traveler comments (some claim he was a Rabbi), of his longed-for eagerness to search for the medicinal and magical properties of the biblical tree of life = (Pr.3:18;11:30;13:12 and Rev. 2:7), the precious stones and medical panaceas.

The german physician and prestigious botanist Leonhard Rauwolf (1535-1596), by the sixteenth century wrote in his travel diary about a majestic and magical tree that Turkish and Arab travelers commented among their legends.

What is known is that Rauwolf, came from a very interesting and cultured school of wise and deep line of the master Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566) and the wise Carolus Clusius (1526-1609).

In part, fine thread that indicates that they knew very well what they were looking for.

And it leads directly to the important Hortus Botanicum of Leiden and to the Hidden and Hidden Wisdom of Maximilian II and Rudolf II.

But it is the Roman Pietro della Valle (1586-1652) who in his wonderful stories' comments in the seventeenth century, of a tree whose wonderful properties and botanical components were widely healing and could even rejuvenate and grant immortality ...

"Reach out and take the tree of life."

(Gen.3:22)

Which indicates that this is the Way of the Tree of Life.

The Sumerian blackheads and Dragon Lords had received these solar seeds from the sacred tree of the Duku or, gods of heaven who come down to civilize them.

An example of these was a certain Oannes-half fish and half man.

(Hartmut Schmokel, El País de los Sumeros, Buenos Aires, Editorial Universitaria, 1977),11 and 63

Similarly, the cults of Assyria take and assimilate -later-, this valuable Sumerian-Babylonian spiritual legacy and its legendary tradition of the sacred tree.

Then they expose it in its rich iconography in a beautiful way and faithful to original and traditional oral sources, following the millenary teachings of the old Sumerian scribes and spiritual masters.

The black basalt stone of Esarhaddon found in the British Museum – where the restoration of the walls and temples of Babylon is inscribed – is a worthy example.

In it the sacred tree is excellently represented at the top of the center of this beautiful memorial stone.

(A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire, Chicago, 1956)

In addition, the so-called Assyrian winged geniuses cultivate and feed on the tree of life or sacred tree.

Represented in magnificent and esoteric symbologies of very old Sumerian concepts already fused by Brotherhoods of Masters of the Stone in Assyrian Art.

Fine specimens of fundamental importance of the central tree and the sacred bird (British Museum), are evidenced in Assyrian art during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC).

There we can carefully experience how the sacred tree is worshipped by a special and dedicated priestly class.

"... this symbol of the "pillar of heaven", which is nothing but the axis of the universe, the "tree of life" that grows in the center of the world, in the "cloud of the earth." Numerous traditions speak of a gigantic tree, which covers or holds the entire earth. Thus, the cosmic tree of Scandinavian mythology, Ygdrassil, is a form of this universal symbolism."

(Mircea Eliade, Babylonian Cosmology and Alchemy. Paidós Orientalia, Barcelona, 1993), 39.

Broad symbolic, magical and ritual representations -all associated with the wisdom and knowledge of the primordial tree-, are loaded and redirected towards the exclusive emphasis of elaborating certain original mythical projections and being able to highlight their most powerful theurgical and medicinal virtues.

They manage to attract the attention and study of all kinds of spiritual tradition.

That tree of life is the meeting place; between the top and bottom.

In this way it is that the top and the bottom are unified and complemented in it.

In reality, heaven and earth meet again and manage to merge thanks to him.

And there is in it -potentially- enormous immanent and transcendent possibility of managing to project a Universal Magical Law ritual of correspondences and similarities, as an energetic Cosmic Central Axis.

Thus, for the ancient Egyptians it was worshipped under the mantle of the sacred sycamore tree (Ficus sycomorus).

It is striking that the sage A. Uzdavinys, assures that it is similar to the tree of Assyrian life.

Apparently, it is in this way related that the goddess Hathor is considered the Lady of the sycamore and that the goddess Isis, manages to nurse the Pharaoh, under the covert form of a sacred sycamore.

Undoubtedly, it represents the sycamore levels of Knowledge and a Millennial Gnosis.

There is no doubt that it is wisdom that can only be achieved through the processes of alchemical transformations of initiation.

Those that are closely associated and linked to all the complex intrinsic mythical-educational symbolism of the tree of life.

His power is such that just by "touching" him, he can bestow and give eternal life.

In turn, embodying in that way a whole traditional millenary teaching.

It is the essence and Via or Philosophical Way. Way of life and Ancestral Doctrine as the exclusive Sacred Spiritual Path.

"The tree itself (the prototype of the Pythagorean tetractys and Sephirot pleroma, or the Garden of Knowledge, Kosmos noetos) represents a royal mystical path of spiritual growth and ascent, starting from its roots (the realm of Nergal) and leading towards the winged disk, the crown of divine light ('the apex of philosophy') ..."

( Uzdavinys, Idem, p.37)

The Hebrews who receive and assimilate from Sumerian and Babylonian sources these old and rich traditions.

In the Mesopotamian garden of Eden there were (are there? ) two important trees.

Let us remember that the fourth river is the Euphrates=(Gen.2:14).

One of them is of life and, that of the knowledge of good and bad.

Both are in the middle of the garden.

(Gen 2:9)

One of them opened his eyes and was desirable to: "Attain wisdom." Nothing detestable.

The Way or Path of the Tree of Life is still guarded for the Kabbalist Merkabah, by the glory of the BURNING SWORD of the Shining Cherub.

"The consensus of Kabbalistic opinion considers the mystical path to God to be the reverse of the process by which we emanate from God," according to Gershom Scholem.

One is the tree of today and the other of the future.

One... The Way.

Thus, this Jewish mysticism is a substantial variant of the millenary esoteric doctrine and secret wisdom of the sephirot tree summarized in its fundamental doctrinal and Kabbalistic emanations = "Everything is a reflection of Everything."

The legendary Adam Cadmon receives Sacred Letters or Sefirot -secret knowledge-, hidden in symbolic form of trees.

This allows the world of the sefirot to resemble then the tree = Primordial Man.

Sephirot and Potential Symbolic Core of The Numerology of the Primordial Man-Tree-Body=Systema Sephiroticum X.

Divinum Rum Nominum.

Tree of Wisdom!

Likewise, it is thus that divine powers can emanate brilliantly through the various strata and, according to Kabbalists, the ten sefirot constitute the whole glorious body and mystical tree of God.

Blessed be it!

It would seem then that each branch is represented more than symbolically as a way or form of the divine manifestation of a particular theurgical power or attribute.

In any case, a brilliant sound-flapping of wings- glorious and face-to-face of the Divinity.

"But the En-Sof is not only the hidden Root of all the Roots, it is also the sap of the tree; each of the branches representing an attribute exists, not by itself, but by virtue of the En-Sof, the hidden God. And this tree of God is also, so to speak, the skeleton of the Universe; it grows throughout all creation and unfolds its branches along all its branches."

(Gershom Scholem, The Great Trends of Jewish Mysticism, Spain, Ediciones Siruela, 2000), 235-236)

It is truly an alchemical and philosophical tree that represents the Corpus Magnum that assimilates -in itself- the solvent forces and solar and mercurial binders of the cosmos.

Like a whole Kabbalistic system of the microcosm.

Also, in its solar reproductive seed is the Mater Materiae that comes down from the sky as a seminal cosmic substance or fluid.

Substance of The Fleur-de-Lis.

She nourishes the well and feeds the serpent or dragon that guards it.

"From the house of The Lord will come a spring, and he will have to water the torrential valley of the trees of Acacia."

(Joel: 3:18)

We can still add that a flowery tree comes out of the genital area of the character lying down and arrowed in the work Miscellanea d ́Alchimia.

(Italy s.XV; in Alexander Roob, Alchemy and Mysticism, p.307)

This leads to point out chapter 31 of Ezekiel, there it is compared to the fall of the pharaoh with the action of cutting down a cedar.

And even better the glorious vision of Daniel (Beltsasar) on the tree in the middle of the earth.

(Daniel 4:10-26)

It could be said that the very powerful pre-Christian tradition of Old Norse -in its cult of the tree-, presents the glorious and legendary ash tree Yggdrasil.

Brimming with Life and Primordial Origin.

The valuable mythological and ancestral content of the "Forn sidr" and the "customs of the old days" are deeply rooted in the initiatory tradition of the philosophical and ritual content of the sacred tree and in the various variants of offerings and sacrifices.

The BLOT = Ancient word of the Old Norse is associated with the modality of sacrifice and the rite of sacrifice.

(Lars Jorgensen, Norse Religion and Ritual Sites in Scandinavia in the 6th-11th Century, 2014), 239-242

In the Greater Edda this tree is regarded as a "glorious" cosmic tree.

( Völuspá: 2,19)

Bearer of wisdom, its roots and branches evoke and point to an ancestral Norse knowledge and mythology = (The Sayings of Grímnir = Grímnismál, 31-35)

In this regard it should be added that it is substantially a cosmic tree since it manages to evoke the celestial powers and at the same time protect the essence of a group or tribal knowledge (clan), legendary.

Therefore, Yggdrásil represents in its etymological character the same "horse of Odin" and in its primordial "physical" extension -visible and invisible-, it manages to cover the three worlds or levels of the cosmos.

Its roots and the triple fountain that flows from the well of Urd, evoke the primordial substance and wisdom of the weavers of destiny.

Magical ritual power of the Runes, the Edda or the Great-Grandmother. Woman priestess Witch and old wise weaver.

The rooster, the snakes the eagle next to the dragon, manage to conjure that Ancestral and initiatory Wisdom faithfully guarded by the giant Mimir.

Worthy of note are essential and profound tree analogies between the powerful traditional currents of Mesoamerica.

For the Mixtec People its origin goes back to the tree of Apoala.

In this sense, the tree was located in a rock where the sky rested (Cahuacandehuvi) from it emerges triumphantly a Primordial Couple from which, come four being's ancestors of the Mixtecs.

Privileged place that contains "uacán" and Center of Power.

Everything Center.

But it should be noted that the divine Tamoanchan, is the place where gods and humans originate and create. As a result, it is there that the Primordial and Florid tree breaks.

(Codex Boturini, Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, p.28 and Codex Telleriano-Remensis, f.13r.)

In fact, in stela 5 of Izapa, Chiapas, from the cosmic tree comes the divine couple.

It is not strange that for the Mayan Grandparents, Ixchél and Itzamná sit next to the Green Ceiba of the Center of the World.

(Codex Tro-Cortesiano or Madrid, 75-76)

The crosses of Palenque in Chiapas are two trees or sacred crosses. Both the Board of the Foliated Cross-Na-Te'-K'an of Palenque or in the central tombstone of the Board of the Cross National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico), embody superb sacred trees.

Magnificent stylizations of the Crotalus and Great Ahaw of the Cosmos.

The so-called tomb of K'inich Janhab' Pakal, is a large Ahau=Snake-Ceiba-rattlesnake tree. Through it, the ascended Master takes the serpentine and ascending solar Path=( Wak-Chan-Ahaw). Path of the Mayan Cross=(Wa-Kah-Chan) of the Cosmos. Trunk of the great tree of the world.

(David Freidel, Linda Schele and Joy Parker: The Mayan Cosmos, pp. 52,53,90,113 and 119)

Its essence is Ka ́an che ́ as a tree of heaven, first precious tree and Yax che ́ or first green ceiba.

That's all.

Sacred tree of the Cosmos

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes.