I know that I hung on a windy tree (4)
© Eso A. B., 2012
If we think of the scene of Adam and Eve in the Bible, in which Eve holds the one and only apple that matters, which she has plucked from the apple tree, there is nothing that keeps us from seeing the tree as a limb of male gender. This is especially true if we know something about the qualities of apple wood. If cleaned of bark and sanded, the wood turns an orangy-brown color and when touched feels as smooth as a human bodypart. Since most trunks of a tree stand upright, the trunk of an apple tree, too, when shorn of its branches, resembles a human limb.
The following image shows women plucking apples from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Hesperides. The artist of this ancient vase painting imagines the tree of life as a vertical staff. Indeed, modern society is so used to think of the penis in terms of a pornographic image, that it quite forgets its function in nature, and gives it only the form presented by the industry of pornography.
The popular fantasy and simplistic mind set too quickly turns almost any erect object into a porno opportunity—for which reason the penis is either erased or left out of the picture altogether. Upon closer examination of the image, we may note that the left thigh of the male at the first link, at the place there ought to be a penis, there is a white streak, the signature of erasure or blockage of artistic imagination. In many paintings from the middle ages, the white blotch may also show a fig leaf. In this particular painting, the penis is replaced by a stallion emerging from behind an apple tree.
Once we know that the original image or story has been tampered with, our imaginations may reverse the damage. In academic circles this is called deconstruction, i.e., a reconstruction by imagination of a story or image to what it may have been originally.
Since deconstruction-reconstruction is very common in our time, the reader ought to have no problems imagining the Tree of Life as a male penis come alive to tempt Eve—even if Adam no longer has his, but has surrendered it to a horse. Having been tempted and having fallen for the temptation, Eve returns the favour by presenting Adam with an apple (an apple is also the favourite snack of horses) symbolizing her sexual organs or vanna, aka bathtub.
When the art of visualization was relatively undeveloped, artists often presented an image as directly as a verbal symbol or hiroglyph. The following picture is from ancient Egypt, and shows King Tuthmosis suckled by a breast emerging from a tree as a photographic image of a breast. Perhaps the writers of the Bible--at the time of its writing--thought of the apple as a woman’s breast as well.
The dragon or serpent or snake winding itself about the Tree of Life needs not to be imagined as a symbol of Evil or the Devil. One may imagine the dragon as the Sap of life rising upward through the bark of the tree as well. An imagination that can transcend an image may cause the tree to grow ever higher, even if it has already been cut and carved into a crucifix. In the latter instance, we see the artistic imagination trained to translate a literal images into a symbolic representation. In the above link, the head of the serpent is transfigured into the “sacred heart”, which transforms the agent of temptation and object desire—the poisonous head—into a flying head-heart with a wasps wings .
While the mind of a run-of-the-mill-Christian of our time has been dry-frozen to see the crucifixion of Jesus in terms of evil reality killing transcendental love ("Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!"), a standing cross may also be imagined as a reminder of sacred symbols neglected and repressed. If the right hemisphere of our brain were not cut off from the left with a sword, we may see the heart of the tree, the cross, continue pumping blood. Indeed, it may flow from the wounds not passively, but actively as from an artesianwell. Deconstruction -reconstruction need not stop with the cross. A tree may be imagined as a cross, an association that goes far into prehistory, when it was common to use trees to tie and immobilize men, and before the Y silhouette was turned into a T.
Norse mythology has a famous poem, said to have been recited by Odin himself [Odin may be a variation on the name of John. More about this is a future blog.]:
This poem ought to be recited as a mantra today, every time we stop at a tree in a forest. This is because today trees are not only cut and sawn, but are being literally eradicated.
If we read only the lines:
we may attempt to reconstruct the cross by going forward, into the future of its evolution. We may then reimagine that basically the Y and T are shaped around the axis of an I. To the artistic eye, however, the I is too static and passive, which is why it chooses to replace it with an S. The T is an oversimplification of the Y shape that is formed by the flow of the branches into the snake shape of an S.
Moreover, in ancient times, the rough shape of the letter symbol is overlain with the image of a man and his arms are strapped to the Tau, while his body is belted in the middle, and his ankles are nailed to the bottom of the cross.
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| The Saw-Cross. FOR SALE HERE! |
© Eso A. B., 2012
If we think of the scene of Adam and Eve in the Bible, in which Eve holds the one and only apple that matters, which she has plucked from the apple tree, there is nothing that keeps us from seeing the tree as a limb of male gender. This is especially true if we know something about the qualities of apple wood. If cleaned of bark and sanded, the wood turns an orangy-brown color and when touched feels as smooth as a human bodypart. Since most trunks of a tree stand upright, the trunk of an apple tree, too, when shorn of its branches, resembles a human limb.
The following image shows women plucking apples from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Hesperides. The artist of this ancient vase painting imagines the tree of life as a vertical staff. Indeed, modern society is so used to think of the penis in terms of a pornographic image, that it quite forgets its function in nature, and gives it only the form presented by the industry of pornography.
The popular fantasy and simplistic mind set too quickly turns almost any erect object into a porno opportunity—for which reason the penis is either erased or left out of the picture altogether. Upon closer examination of the image, we may note that the left thigh of the male at the first link, at the place there ought to be a penis, there is a white streak, the signature of erasure or blockage of artistic imagination. In many paintings from the middle ages, the white blotch may also show a fig leaf. In this particular painting, the penis is replaced by a stallion emerging from behind an apple tree.
Once we know that the original image or story has been tampered with, our imaginations may reverse the damage. In academic circles this is called deconstruction, i.e., a reconstruction by imagination of a story or image to what it may have been originally.
Since deconstruction-reconstruction is very common in our time, the reader ought to have no problems imagining the Tree of Life as a male penis come alive to tempt Eve—even if Adam no longer has his, but has surrendered it to a horse. Having been tempted and having fallen for the temptation, Eve returns the favour by presenting Adam with an apple (an apple is also the favourite snack of horses) symbolizing her sexual organs or vanna, aka bathtub.
When the art of visualization was relatively undeveloped, artists often presented an image as directly as a verbal symbol or hiroglyph. The following picture is from ancient Egypt, and shows King Tuthmosis suckled by a breast emerging from a tree as a photographic image of a breast. Perhaps the writers of the Bible--at the time of its writing--thought of the apple as a woman’s breast as well.
The dragon or serpent or snake winding itself about the Tree of Life needs not to be imagined as a symbol of Evil or the Devil. One may imagine the dragon as the Sap of life rising upward through the bark of the tree as well. An imagination that can transcend an image may cause the tree to grow ever higher, even if it has already been cut and carved into a crucifix. In the latter instance, we see the artistic imagination trained to translate a literal images into a symbolic representation. In the above link, the head of the serpent is transfigured into the “sacred heart”, which transforms the agent of temptation and object desire—the poisonous head—into a flying head-heart with a wasps wings .
While the mind of a run-of-the-mill-Christian of our time has been dry-frozen to see the crucifixion of Jesus in terms of evil reality killing transcendental love ("Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!"), a standing cross may also be imagined as a reminder of sacred symbols neglected and repressed. If the right hemisphere of our brain were not cut off from the left with a sword, we may see the heart of the tree, the cross, continue pumping blood. Indeed, it may flow from the wounds not passively, but actively as from an artesianwell. Deconstruction -reconstruction need not stop with the cross. A tree may be imagined as a cross, an association that goes far into prehistory, when it was common to use trees to tie and immobilize men, and before the Y silhouette was turned into a T.
Norse mythology has a famous poem, said to have been recited by Odin himself [Odin may be a variation on the name of John. More about this is a future blog.]:
I know that I hung on a windy tree
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows
from where its roots run.
If we read only the lines:
I hung on a windy tree nine long nights.../
Myself to myself…..
Moreover, in ancient times, the rough shape of the letter symbol is overlain with the image of a man and his arms are strapped to the Tau, while his body is belted in the middle, and his ankles are nailed to the bottom of the cross.
When we give attention to the position of arms spread, we may deduce that the man (or woman) so exposed is meant to stand helpless before any stranger who happens to be passing by. In a culture as uncommitted to the eye of eternity, the bleading sacred heart is most likely replaced by a clump of mud dripping muddy water. Such a picture suggests that these individuals are meant to be persecuted and killed—they are helpless to defend themselves. While Jesus is said to have expired from loss of blood, exposure, and exhaustion, there are elements in the story which remind us of (by way of pareidolia) of a traditions deeply into the past where we see the right side of the chest, just under the rib cage, pierced by a spear.
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