Nature's Tenor: Trees as Vehicle

Scott M. Potter
Nature’s Tenor: Trees as Vehicle

Trees play a significant symbolic role within diverse Mythologies, from Africa to South America, North America to Asia, Europe to Australia, and the Middle East to Island. In Myths of the Sacred Tree, Moyra Caldecott recognizes the continuous nature of such symbology; “The diversity of our use of the tree as meaningful metaphor and symbol knows no end” (18). This symbolism varies from the tree as benefactor of procreation, enlightenment, transformation, divination, wisdom, knowledge, good, evil, and redemption—these boons come to specific mythic characters at the cost of some sacrifice, and who are often identified with the trees themselves—to the tree as originator of the cosmos, the world, or humanity, or into which humanity or divinity transforms. Humanity associating or affiliating with trees or tree qualities appears (from oral traditions to literary ones) with amazing frequency, as does the personification and identification with trees as being humanlike. Such parallels make sense when considering that humans are the culmination of the animal kingdom, and trees, the culmination of the plant kingdom. In The Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell discusses Darwinism: “It’s inherent in protoplasm that it should differentiate, evolve. And he speaks of the two great lines of evolution, of the animal and the plant. And the culmination of the animal evolution is the human being. And the culmination of the plant is the tree” (168). Therefore, the saying: ‘Humans resemble trees,’ a simile, proves reasonable, for as Campbell says: “The other thing about nature is that your nature and nature’s nature are the same nature” (The Hero’s Journey 224). Moreover, when we transform that statement a step further: ‘Humans are trees,’ metaphorically, the import and significance of mythological arboreal motifs amplifies and intensifies. In this essay, I will present mythical and/or psychological connections between humans and trees, along with deities or semi-deities and trees, which then makes a causal link between divinity and humanity, with an arboreal vehicle. The concentration of this essay will be on illuminating the present-day connections to trees, with a focus on the Greek Myth of Daphne, through specific chosen connections with the arboreal, while recalling our working metaphor: humans are trees.

The vehicle is understood here as the trees; whereas the trees create the mythologies, it takes the humans to write them down on parts of the trees (albeit papyrus in some cultures)—a function of memory. Roland Bechamnn writes, in Trees and Man: “For ‘the memory of the tree is real and concrete; the tree registers in its flesh, in its concentric layers, all the events that affect its environment’” (Perlman 113). The memories of trees, then, within the concentric layers or rings, become the very fiber with which we record our memories to be shared.

What fleshes out of this simple exercise, proves profoundly everyday. Humans avail of themselves (trees), to construct our societies, and for the basic structure of architectures (n1), as well as to record the history of humanity (trees), including: mythologies, psychologies, theologies, philosophies, sociologies, science, technology, much of the arts, business, publishing, education, government (n2), and religion. These will be explored in detail during dissertation work.
1. The notion that architecture affects the human psyche, which I take to be real and obvious, explains also the attraction many have to wood elements in houses. These attractions point toward a need, often unconscious, to reconnect with ourselves as trees, or parts of them. It also explains part of the reason wood furniture, and especially antiques are psychologically so important to a large number of people; there is a rescue function going on here—to keep parts of ourselves safe, to restore them, to prevent them from being discarded or thrown away.
2. Government is commonly recognized as the biggest user of bits of processed humans-trees in the world.

With our current technological advancements, hemp, glass, metal, cement, concrete and plastic could easily replace all wood product needs, yet, the demand for wood products continues. In The Power of Trees: The Reforesting of the Human Soul, Michael Perlman writes: “Trees, like all beings, are themselves shaping powers of imagination. Not only do they stand for the human; human selves are symbols of trees” (40). I think this speaks to our psychological need to reconnect with our humanity that is personified in trees, more so than any other natural element.

Our language, particularly English and the way we describe one another, resonates with our metaphor that humans are trees. We speak of: limbs entwining limbs, taking root, remaining rooted, becoming grounded, growing and branching out, shaking or trembling like a leaf, our trunks, being gnarled, thick, or tall as a tree, skinny as a stick, finding or being the acorn and being the oak, and other imagery shared with languaging used to refer to trees (n3). Of course, whenever working a metaphor using analogies that connect and divide the vehicle (trees) from the metaphorical comparison (humans), the differences and the fact that humans really are not trees impact the approach utilized.
3. These ‘human-tree’ terms proliferate in biology and psychology books, and among countless others.

However, what holds, despite the intellectual reality that humans are not trees, is that the psychological identification with trees continues. Yet, when comparing humans to trees, mythically, mystically, organically and scientifically, even physical similarities return with convincing particularities. The scientific knowledge that humans and trees share identical waves and particles, and thus the same basic energy and ‘essence,’ even as we share these also with rocks and all other things universally, lends greater credence to our working metaphor: humans are trees, and trees are humans.

With the background provided and connection firmly in mind, it is time to briefly delve into some of the mythological importance of trees. The symbolic idea of the Tree of Life, Cosmic Tree, World Tree, and Universal Tree, among others, that unites sky to land, heavens to underworld, and provides humanity with the world as home pervades global cultures. Ernst and Johana Lehner, in Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants and Trees, delineate the far-reaching effect this idea has had on humanity (n4). Such an effect readily evidences when Campbell shows two reproductions in the Flight of the Wild Gander, from “Sumer, c. 2500 B.C.,” which relate to the cosmic tree, as “Lord of the Tree of Life,” and “The Lord and Lady of the Tree” (163-4). Thus, the reverence for trees as the ‘Tree of Life,’ including the titular: Lord and Lady, traces back to our early civilizations. Additionally, the pervasive nature of mythological trees, hearkens back to our treetop arboreal origins. In the interest of brevity, we shall focus our examination on the mythical trees in the Greek tradition found in the myths of Myrrha and Daphne, addressing Buddhist, Norse, and Christian connections in an appendix.
4. One of the oldest sacred tree symbols is the Assyrian Tree of Life, a stylized, ornamental expression of a non-existing tree, sometimes combining the lotus and the pine, two plants symbolizing immortality and fecundity. These symbols of the Tree of Life spread from ancient Assyria and Babylonia into Arabia, Egypt and Asia Minor, and through Central Asia into the Far East and Central America. Throughout the changing times the tree of life symbols were taken up by all beliefs and religions in the western and eastern world. They range from the oak and ash trees of the Teutons, Norsemen, Celts and Druids to the palm and cedars of the Hebrews and Christians; from the sycamores of the Egyptians to the cassia and bo trees of the Far East, including the cosmic, celestial and humanized trees of many lands.” (Lehner 15-17).

Accordingly, Greek Mythology abounds with mythological trees that humans or deities transform into, or from, with enough regularity to account for many species of trees (n5). Greek myth is also not lacking its version of the world tree, as Jane Gifford, in The Wisdom of Trees, writes: “In ancient Greek mythology the first tree created was the oak, from which sprang the entire human race” (67).
5. These include, but are not limited to myths that account for the derivation of: alder (Prote and Clymene), ash (Meliai), black poplar (Aigeiros), cherry (Kraneia), cypress (Cyparissus), elm (Ptelea), fig (Syke), fir (Pitys), hazel (Karya), laurel (Daphne), mulberry (Morea), myrrh (Myrrha), oak (Balanis, Dryas, Hamadryades, and Maenads), pine (Atys and Oreades), pomegranate (Dionysus), poplar (Dryope and Heliades), and white poplar (Leuce).

The emphasis in Greek tree myths, however, centers on transformation or metamorphoses. Ovid, in The Metamorphoses, offers the poignant story of how Pregnant Myrrha transforms into the myrrh tree, giving birth—“[…] At last the tree gave way; a boy was born […]” (Book X, 288)—to a most beautiful boy: “[…] Child of a tree, Adonis grew to boyhood—And lovelier than any man on earth” (Book X, 289). In Myrrha’s myth, her transformation into a tree to avoid death, which myrrh tree later gives birth to Adonis—who is rescued by Aphrodite and reared by Persephone, ending up spending one-third of his time in the underworld and two-thirds with Aphrodite—describes in part, the fecundity of nature, and the death inherent in it. Furthermore, that Adonis, born of a tree, should be the most beautiful man on earth, suggests, too, the memory and connection humans have with trees—our deeper roots.

Continuing the theme of transformation into tree, I would like to briefly explore Daphne’s myth, which I view as one of the most poignant of such Greek stories. The following summary rendition is based upon Ovid’s version. Apollo falls in love with the nymph Daphne, daughter of the river-god Peneus [or Ladon], through an argument with Cupid. As a result of Cupid’s arrows, Daphne instantly reviles Apollo, as Apollo loves Daphne. She flees his advances, eventually tiring and then requests her beauty be transformed so none find her alluring. Daphne then transforms into a laurel tree, as Apollo rushes to embrace her bark.

Daphne’s transformation also implies more than one sees at first glance, for instance the notion that humanity is bisexual, as many psychologists have noted. Carl Kerenyi, in The Gods of the Greeks, discusses the Daphne myth in the following; “A tree which, like most trees, is naturally bisexual, affords, of course, the most perfect example of the uniting of the two sexes” (141). Kerenyi’s suggestion of a uniting of the two sexes, in this form of the myth, points toward a reuniting of the sexes and harkens back to the myth of soul mates (n6). When one sees the process of transformation in the Daphne myth (n7) and the laurel tree as bisexual, then one understands a bit more of the parallels between the metaphor beneath the surface of the story, much like Daphne’s roots in the earth, and the process of individuation. Daphne, symbolic of the feminine aspect of the soul, becomes both sexes through transforming into Kerenyi’s ‘naturally bisexual’ tree. Apollo, however, which has not been explored to my knowledge in this context, in the wearing of the laurel wreath, garland, or sequestering of the bough, is symbolic of the awareness of the anima, not a complete unification or integration with it. The notion of inherent bisexuality teems beneath the surface of the myth, and only when one integrates this psychologically is the transformation to individuation possible. According to Carl Gustav Jung, in Alchemical Studies: “Trees have individuality” (194). Jung’s psychological description of trees mirrors the ‘trees are humans’ metaphor, for a tree to have individuality ties in closely with the individuality or uniqueness of humans. One sees in the idea of trees possessing individuality, a good lead-in to trees have individuation, one that Jung may have considered. Meredith Sabini, in The Earth has a Soul: […] describes a discussion between Jung and Progoff:
In 1952, Jung was interviewed by Ira Progoff, who asked if individuation didn’t always involve consciousness. Jung replied, ‘Oh, that is an overvaluation of consciousness’ and explained that individuation is the natural process by which a tree becomes a tree and a human a human; he said that consciousness can just as well interfere with the natural growth process as aid it (10).

Here, one sees that indeed, trees do individuate. Tree myths, of transformation into trees, like the Daphne or Myrrha myths, speak of metaphorical soul or psychological metamorphoses.
6. I mean the fictional Platonic myth whereby our two-headed, four-armed/legged selves were split by Zeus-bolts.
7. For further exploration of the Daphne Myth, and Ovid’s account of it, see the Appendix.


Another significant aspect of the Daphne myth arises out of scrutinizing passages about Apollo, since she does not speak long in any version. Campbell writes: “[…] Apollo holds […] in his left hand the laurel […]” (The Mythic Image 469). As the left hand is affiliated with the sign of divinity, to hold the laurel in his left hand proves significant. The significance is that the laurel is divine, and, therefore, Daphne is divine, and, by association, humanity is divine through the connection with our metaphorical trees.

Interestingly, Campbell addresses the laurel tree as being ‘apotropaic’: “On the left was a laurel tree, which is apotropaic; that is to say, it defends the threshold against evil presences. It has a sanctifying power as a threshold tree” (Transformations of Myth through Time 192). If we juxtapose this idea of the laurel tree defending against evil with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil of Christianity, then the way in which a culture views trees comes out with great clarity. The Greeks viewed trees as benefactors and as cause for reverence, while the Christians viewed them as both benefactors, providing good, and detractors, providing evil. Unfortunately, the concentration in Christianity revolves around evil and so Nature becomes only evil through time. The reverence for nature disappears within Christianity, for it refuses to see the metaphor for the literalization.

Additionally, Daphne’s transformation into the laurel tree symbolizes that trees contain the divine (or semi-divine, according to source (n8), or trees are divine. Returning to our ‘humans are trees’ metaphor, then, the importance heightens when one considers the relevance of the connection between Daphne as laurel tree (or human) and her transformation both into and from Moon Goddesses (n9). In this context, the connection between the divine and humanity, through the vehicle of the laurel tree, illuminates the fact that humans are divine, in addition to being trees; since trees are divine, and trees are human, humans are divine.
8. As some versions of the Daphne myth have her parents both divine and some only mention one divine parent, with no mention of the other parent. This is covered in some detail by Robert Graves in The Greek Myths.
9. Daphne has been shown by Robert Graves, in The Greek Myths, to have been formerly Daphoene, a bloody Moon Goddess, prior to the Olympian fixation, and then Pasiphae, a Cretan Moon Goddess, after the laurel transformation.


The fact that trees manufacture most of the oxygen that humans need to exist may have played an unconscious dynamic in the early cultures that developed the ancient mythologies. The more critical connection, however, was surely an identification with trees, as being the tall and majestic plants that connected humans to the sky-dwelling and underground divine, and therefore, trees as the caretakers and sometimes progenitors of humanity. Perlman writes: “Says one tropical biologist [Donald R. Perry]: ‘Tropical treetops were the womb and nursery of humankind. This arboreal phase, critical to our evolution, has left an indelible stamp on both our body design and the workings of the human mind’” (77). Human roots trace us back to treetops, and in such lofty positions, once on the ground, out of the trees, it proves easy to see why we would identify with being trees.

We have seen that the cosmic tree factors heavily in many mythology systems, while it plays more peripherally in Greek, and in other mythologies. Perhaps popular cultural observance of the metaphoric relevance of mythological trees, cosmic or not, awaits a time when trees truly mirror the state of humanity more closely, as in the fast-disappearing world forests impacting the diminishment of humanity. What remains for our examination, is the metaphorical import within such tree myths, as explored.

The significance of tree myths asks us to enter into communion with our psyche, as deep as such communion will allow, and ask vital questions of ourselves, as Perlman suggests:
The sequence of the myth, the transformation of human into tree (or return of tree spirit to tree), can be imagined as something that happens once and for all. […] In that case, the myth leads us to consider what goes on when we imagine ourselves in treelike terms. The mirroring […], in addition to being an instance of human-tree parallelism, a reflection of the treeness in us; in the ‘mirror’ of trees, we see the true trees of ourselves (91).

That humans and trees are not the same appears very true, when one stands underneath a towering oak. However, Perlman states: “But, conversely, that awareness of difference is itself never absolute; the multitudinous metaphoric analogies provided by root, branch, limb, leaf, shadow (and fallen tree or rotten log) touch us all, inform our lives and understandings” (3). Finding roots, woods of self-deception, low man on the totem pole, branching out, taking a stand, woodenness, fruitlessness, fruitful, fruity, ‘The apple never falls far from the tree’, rooted to a spot, etc., “[…] may be enactments of an evolutionary desire to return to trees” (The Power Of Trees 92). Jung, too, knew of this Nature connection, and writes: “According to ancient tradition men came from trees or plants. […] In the Gilbert Islands, men and gods come from the primordial tree” (337). Thus, it is no wonder “[…] we find stories in which trees think they’re human, as well as humans that think they’re trees” (Perlman 89). The stories reflect a psychological transformation that demands of us a recognition of the vitality of both our individuation and the trees’.

Trees provide much more than mythological import, as in time, humanity has learned to use trees for diverse applications from medicine to education, and transportation to shelter. Every house built requires more trees to lose their hold on the ground—and then to die. One need only recall the mighty forests of the ancient world, and near-distant past (in America and elsewhere), and see the minutiae of great forests enduring (n10), and the loss of tree worship foreshadows the building of a global community out of trees. Chris Maser, in Forest Primeval […], attests to the human-tree connection: “Creation is that which has, is, and will inexorably draw humanity and the ancient forest into the crucible of cosmic interrelatedness where the forest will mirror for humanity the consciousness of its own evolving self” (xv). I would add to Maser’s statement that the forest also mirrors human unconsciousness through all of humanity’s evolution.
10. There are only two World Forests left, one in Siberia and the other in South America, both of which are threatened by continuing deforestation practices.


As the forests go, so goes humanity, only it takes more time for humanity to be felled than it does a forest or tree with an axe or bulldozer, nonetheless, our civilizations will follow the destinies we map out for the trees—they allow us to breathe, and without breath there is no life but by machine. In The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh, Dennis Slattery discusses the way in which we live in the world as reflecting the particular embodiment and style with which we express our inner bodily-meaning; “In this way, the body can be imagined as the locus of both our individual and cultural mythologies. I understand the body to be both a location and a field for experience as well as for interpretation” (8). If we see the tree or tree-spirit as our inner being, and this is consistent with our inner body attunement—and by this I mean to say that if our physical tissue ‘feels’ like a tree embodied in human form—then the various cultural mythologies, especially arboreal-related myths, will inflect messages to the psyche that resonate and resound with arboreal imagery and affiliations in conscious and unconscious modes.
I have conveyed that trees are humans, metaphorically, and that trees link us with the divine, yet, there exists a deeper symbolism inherent within the tree mythologies. Campbell borrows from Durkheim, stating: “Symbols are only the vehicles of communication; they must not be mistaken for the final term, the tenor, of their reference” (The Hero with a Thousand Faces 236). As the metaphor that humans are trees divulges: trees are the vehicle. The tenor in this case is the divine in nature; the value within the mythologies illuminates nature. I see the deeper illumination as the same conclusion Campbell arrived at, mentioned earlier, that our nature is the same nature that resides in trees, or, symbolically as the tenor in this metaphor: the divine in Nature. Moreover, trees, through their linking humanity to the divine, both without and within, above and below, mirror the condition of humanity.

Appendix


Campbell, Joseph, Ovid and Scott Potter. Explication of Daphne, Buddhist, Norse, and Christian
Myth. April 11, 2004.




Works Cited


Caldecott, Moyra. Myths of the Sacred Tree. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, 1993.

Campbell, Joseph. Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension;
Selected Essays 1944-1968. 1969. Novato, California: New World Library, 2002.

--. The Hero’s Journey. Ed. Phil Cousineau. Novato, California: New World Library, 2003.

--. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. 1949. Bollingen Series 17. 3rd Printing. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1973.

--. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space: Metaphor as Myth and as Religion. 1986. Novato,
California: New World Library, 2002.

--. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology. 1968. New York: Arkana, 1991.

--. The Mythic Image. 1974. Bollingen Series C. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990.

--. Transformations of Myth through Time. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.

Gifford, Jane. The Wisdom of Trees: Mysteries, Magic, and Medicine. 2000. New York: Sterling
Publishing Company, Inc., 2001.

Jung, Carl Gustav. Alchemical Studies. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Bollingen Series 20: The Collected
Works of CG Jung: Vol. 13. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983.

Kerenyi, Carl. The Gods of the Greeks. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 2000.

Lehner, Ernst and Johana. Folklore and Symbolism of Flowers, Plants and Trees. New York:
Tudor Publishing Company, 1960.

Maser, Chris. Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest. San Francisco: Sierra
Club Books, 1989.

Ovid. The Metamorphoses. Trans. Horace Gregory. New York: New American Library, 2001.
Perlman, Michael. The Power of Trees: The Reforesting of the Soul. 1994. Woodstock,
Connecticut: Spring, 1997.

Sabini, Meredith. Editor. The Earth has a Soul: The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung. Berkley:
North Atlantic Books, 2002.

Slattery, Dennis Patrick. The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh. Albany:
State U of New York P, 2000.

Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. 1946. Ed. Joseph
Campbell. Bollingen Mythos Series 6. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992.



Explication of Daphne, Buddhist, Norse and Christian Myth


In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell psychologizes the Daphne myth, to my mind incorrectly, with the following:
“The girl [Daphne] had retreated to the image of her parent and there found protection […]. The literature of psychoanalysis abounds in examples of such desperate fixations. What they represent is an impotence to put off the infantile ego, with its sphere of emotional relationships and ideals” (62).

Yes, Daphne did seek and was granted protection, however, she did not remain a laurel tree for Apollo to draw his arms around and kiss affectionately its bark. No, Daphne spirited away to Crete, with the aid of her Mother, not Peneus, her Father, where she became Pasiphae the Moon Goddess.

If Campbell had researched the Daphne myth further, he would have found that these versions of the myth exist and this knowledge thereby would alter his concept of comparing Daphne to impotence. Indeed, if Campbell truly believes that “Willed introversion, in fact, is one of the classic implements of creative genius and can be employed as a deliberate device. It drives the psychic energies into depth and activates the lost continent of unconscious infantile and archetypal images.” (The Hero With a Thousand Faces 64), as stated, then a contradiction arises concerning the myth’s events and his own statements. For, Daphne willed the transformation that occurred to her body, she willed her beauty to change and to be transformed into a being that would not incur lust or passion. It worked, for Apollo did not in fact have sex with the laurel tree.

By removing the lens of seeing the myth through the wants and needs and psychic concerns of the hero only, a whole new world unfolds through the mist. What Daphne wanted and desired does not matter to the hero, who only seeks to conquer and penetrate. Yet, when this myth is explored along the lines of the soul’s passage through life, then it takes on a whole new flavor again. Daphne transforming into a laurel tree and then the moon goddess Pasiphae, is the soul transforming through an alchemical process that includes the body. Also, when we see the myth through the soul lens, Apollo, the sun god, god of consciousness, we must then see Daphne, who escapes him as the goddess of unconsciousness.

Therefore, we can turn our eye to what significance the soul’s movement through this myth has in relation to our own journeys. The soul has been historically split into two main separate realms, the conscious and unconscious, however, some, (Jung included) have begun to see that within each of these realms, part of the other realm coexists eternally. In other words, there is no separating them permanently. This means that the infantile and archetypal images that Campbell speaks of, along with a host of other psychological jargonese, operate within both realms, at least partially. How does this relate to Daphne and Apollo? Apollo commonly represents the conscious realm, and, Daphne, the unconscious realm in this myth. I suggest they symbolize a duality of the conscious/unconscious split. A split that illuminates although the soul transforms—one could argue that Daphne-soul has entered into an underworld journey, a creative illness, an alchemical descent or nekyia, yet, even as she does so, a bit of her stays behind—a bit of the soul, remains as a wreath around the head of consciousness: Apollo’s laurel wreath. Around the head of consciousness the unconscious wraps, encircles, tickles, pricks or rests.

Our unconscious selves are in our brains; they are our storehouses of memories, our forays into fantasy and imagination, etc. The consciousness is the realm of desire, passion and thinking, these being fueled by the unconscious. Love then arises out of the conscious, whereas revilement, in its loathsome form, comes from the intuition, from the unconscious. Much more can be derived from this myth by seeing through the lens of the universal soul, not a gender based argument, for such discussions that focus on gender lead to slinging insults and personalizing the injustices suffered upon women for millennia by patriarchy.

Furthermore, Campbell discusses the human nervous system, which discussion explains the two side nerves as being lunar and solar consciousness correlated to time. He writes: “[…] a side nerve […] ida […] lunar consciousness […] So it represents the power of life, energy, and consciousness to throw off death. […] is symbolic of life energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, the field of death and birth.” And, on solar consciousness: “The other nerve is called pingala and represents solar consciousness. […] This is consciousness disengaged from the field of time” (Transformations of Myth Through Time 140). The solar consciousness is symbolic of Apollo, and in the Daphne myth, Apollo as solar consciousness is thwarted by Daphne as lunar consciousness, meaning that Apollo was too disengaged from the field of time, too conscious, and in need of a deeper engagement with the field of time. As solar consciousness tried to embrace lunar consciousness, it instead was forced to watch the death of one incarnation, Daphne, and the birth of another incarnation, the laurel tree, thus bringing the engagement of the field of time into the forefront. The awareness of the realization of one’s life energy and ability to be in the present moment, versus thinking only, would not be forgotten, as the laurel leaf then symbolically represented victory, which I would say is metaphorical for that unity of duality, transcending the duality of thinking and feeling.

Campbell, in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, relates Ovid’s version of the Daphne myth:
The same harrowing, mysterious voice was to be heard in the call of the Greek god Apollo to the fleeing maiden Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, as he pursued her over the plain. ‘O nymph, O Peneus’ daughter, stay!’ the deity called to her […]; ‘I who pursue thee am no enemy. Thou knowest not whom thou fleest, and for that reason dost thou flee. Run with less speed, I pray, and hold thy flight. I, too, will follow with less speed. Nay, stop and ask who thy lover is.’ ‘He would have said more,’ the story goes, ‘but the maiden pursued her frightened way and left him with words unfinished, even in her desertion seeming fair. The winds laid bare her limbs, the opposing breezes set her garments aflutter as she ran, and a light air flung her locks streaming behind her. Her beauty was enhanced by flight. But the chase drew to an end, for the youthful god would not longer waste his time in coaxing words, and, urged on by love, he pursued at utmost speed. Just as when a Gallic hound has seen a hare in an open plain, and seeks his prey on flying feet, but the hare, safety; he, just about to fasten on her, now, even thinks he has her, and grazes her very heels with his outstretched muzzle; but she knows not whether or not she be already caught, and barely escapes from those sharp fangs and leaves behind the jaws just closing on her: so ran the god and maid, he sped by hope and she by fear. But he ran the more swiftly, borne on the wings of love, gave her no time to rest, hung over her fleeing shoulders and breathed on the hair that streamed over her neck. Now was her strength all gone, and, pale with fear and utterly overcome by the toil of her swift flight, seeing the waters of her father’s river near, she cried: ‘O father, help! If your waters hold divinity, change and destroy this beauty by which I pleased o’er well.’ Scarce had she thus prayed when a down-dragging numbness seized her limbs, and her soft sides were begirt with thin bark. Her hair was changed to leaves, her arms to branches. Her feet, but now so swift, grew fast in sluggish roots, and her head was now but a tree’s top. Her gleaming beauty alone remained’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 504-553). […] Apollo, the sun, the lord of time and ripeness, no longer pressed his frightening suit, but instead, simply named the laurel his favorite tree and ironically recommended its leaves to the fashioners of victory wreaths (60-2).

Here, another problem with interpreting myths arises…the lens worn determines whether or not Daphne escaping the unwanted loss of her virginity (RAPE), or, Apollo losing the object of his desire to its transforming into a laurel tree is dull. As discussed in an earlier paper, Daphne’s transformation teaches Apollo lessons concerning his evolution into a burgeoning awareness of himself. For, if the deities were susceptible to Cupid’s arrows, then they were not fully individuated (in the sense of Jung’s usage) beings, and as such, present as models for humanity. Not models to mirror or pattern our lives after, but from which to learn. However, as both Jung, and Giegerich following Jung, have suggested, the true message of the myths resonates within the paralleling of the deities as our human souls, and the action of the myth, and all that it entails to be the process of the soul moving through life.

Within Buddhism, the bo-tree and Buddha’s enlightenment underneath it are the main considerations; his mother’s grasping of the sal-tree, and its implications of more ancient goddess worship are often relegated to a brief mention, since not much survives of these rituals and mythologies. In The Mythic Image, Campbell relates the Queen Maya’s more ancient affiliation:
These dryads are depicted, then, in the act of rousing in this magical way the trees to which they are attached. And the fact that the Buddha’s mother giving birth is also represented in this pose signifies that in her the mothering power of nature (which has been represented from time out of mind in the tree and earth divinities of the popular imagination) became fruitful of its highest good; i.e., the golden fruit of the seed of Buddha-consciousness […] (Campbell 265) (n11).

The Buddha attained enlightenment underneath the bo-tree, and was born out of Queen Maya’s side as she grasped the branches of the sal-tree. Buddha sacrificed his immediate chance to ‘ascend,’ in order to compassionately enlighten all of humanity; after attaining his enlightenment underneath the bo-tree, he felt directed to stay and work toward the benefit of humanity.
It seems that the symbolism and metaphorical significance of both the bo-tree and sal-tree fade into obscurity when compared to the life of the Buddha, depicted as a mortal or human. In Transformations of Myth through Time, Joseph Campbell relates the tree directly to humanity, as being inside of us, as in humanity holds the tree within: “[…] there is the tree of life, under which the Buddha sat. And where is that tree? It’s right in every one of us” (142). Although cultures may favor certain aspects of their mythologies, for specific reasons, the psychological significance of humanity’s interdependence with nature, through the divine within each, or the tenor (of the symbol of the tree as human) is not lost. Therefore, over two millennia later, Campbell sees the tree within us. A pattern takes root here that will flutter and tremble throughout the rest of the mythological trees examined: transformation or metamorphoses, which activity is mystical and resonates with divine energy.
11. In Myths and Symbols […] Zimmer provides the potential source for Campbell’s comments: “Conspicuous among these figures are the voluptuous tree goddesses or dryads, generally represented in a characteristic posture: with one arm entwining the trunk of a tree and the other bending a branch down, the goddess gives the trunk, near the root, a gentle kick” (Zimmer 69).


A momentary look at Norse Mythology, via Odin and Yggdrasil, underscores the interconnection of humanity and Nature that unfolds in Greek Mythology. Campbell, in The Masks of God: Creative Mythology, writes: “[…] for the Germans there is the old runic script, developed from the Greek […]. Furthermore, there is the figure of Othin (Woden, Wotan), self-crucified on the World Ash as an offering to himself, to gain the occult wisdom of those runes, which is clearly a Hellenestic motif […]” (111). That the runes come from the tree, meaning human wisdom comes from the trees, does not seem to occupy the thoughts of Campbell, or others, much. In The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Campbell declares Yggdrasil “organically intact,” suggesting that the Christian trees are splintered:
The axial tree of the universe, around which all revolves, that is to say, it’s still cut in two, as it was in Yahweh’s Eden of the two trees, one, of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the other, of the Knowledge of Eternal Life. Whereas in the unreformed, primeval archetype of the World Tree, such as appears in the Old Norse Yggdrasil [….], the life-giving roots […] are of a single, organically intact, mythological image (Campbell 76).

Campbell is not implying that Norse myth is to be preferred over Christian, but, rather, that the Christian insistence on dogma and doctrine has obscured the power of the metaphor. Odin hangs himself upon Yggdrasil for nine days, piercing himself in the side with his lance and forfeiting an eye to gain the wisdom of the runes. Odin sacrifices his two-eyed vision, for a wiser, one-eyed vision, along with the ascetic austerities of deprivation and ritualistic wounding. Odin—hanging on an actual ash tree, not a chopped down and planed tree to form crossbars, and, then replanted in the ground—and Norse myth demonstrate a deeper connection with Nature that the Nordic people lived and felt.

Meanwhile, the symbology of trees in Christian Mythology runs much deeper than most practicing the faith comprehend. In the Garden, with the two trees that are one, and the original couple eating the forbidden fruit of that tree, the fall requires redemption, and this redemption is provided by Christ who later dies on that same tree as a cross planted in Adam’s head (Golgotha). In The Hero’s Journey, Campbell correlates the symbolization of the Cross to Buddha’s 49-day trial:
In the Christian tradition Jesus has, as it were, gone through the gate and eaten of the tree and become the tree, which is the Crucifixion. That’s the sense off the crucifix. Yield. Let it go. Join into your mentality not this but the divine immortality, which is in you and in all things. And so Jesus hanging on the cross, which is the second tree in the Garden, is equivalent to the Buddha seated under the Tree of Immortal Life, the Bodhi tree. Bodhi means ‘the one who has waked up to the fact that he is that which he seeks to know.’ Namely the eternal being (171).

Christ sacrificed by giving his life for humanity’s betterment, with Garden trees that birthed his need, a lance wounding his side, and a tree that terminated his life, this cosmic tree provides a very deep metaphorical symbolization. The trees in the Garden were of threefold importance: good and evil—so that dualities gain prominence, and immortality—so that human mortality is contrasted to that of the divine, and we see the separation of humanity from the divine.

Furthermore, through separating humanity from its original coniunctio with the divine, via a tree, its fruit, and a serpent (blaming the woman here seen as cowardice), the Christian myth performs another greater disservice to nature. For, the tree, then, confers the original sin to humanity, and as humanity was separated from Nature (the Garden), that Fall (separation from divinity) is due to a tree, which then opens the notion of a complete justification for razing forests, chopping down trees, and industrial logging of trees, especially since the tree caused our sorrows and sufferings. Another interesting read of the metaphor of Christ crucified on a Cross, involves the construction industry itself, which now greedily consumes the world forests, transforming trees into either horizontal or vertical crossbars in varying combinations that form trusses and home framing. So that each home built with wood framing contains an element of the Cross, which serves as a reminder of our original sin and redemption through Christ’s sacrifice.

Life's Force,

Scott Michael Potter