World Tree
The tree, with its branches reaching up into the sky, and roots deep into the earth, can be seen to dwell in three worlds - a link between heaven, the earth, and the underworld, uniting above and below. It is also both a feminine symbol, bearing sustenance; and a masculine, phallic symbol - another union.
For this reason, many mythologies around the world have the concept of the World tree, a great tree that acts as an Axis mundi, supporting or holding up the cosmos, and providing a link between the heavens, earth and underworld. In European mythology the best known example is the tree Yggdrasil from Norse mythology.
The world tree is also a central part of Mesoamerican mythologies, where it represents the four cardinal directions. The concept of the world tree is also closely linked to the motif of the Tree of life.
Read more about this topic: Tree Worship
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or tree:
“I did not live until this time
Crown’d my felicity,
When I could say without a crime,
I am not thine, but Thee.
This carcase breath’d, and walkt, and slept,
So that the World believ’d
There was a soul the motions kept;
But they were all deceiv’d.”
—Katherine Philips (1631–1664)
“The wind had seized the tree and ha, and ha,
It held the shivering, the shaken limbs,
Then bathed its body in the leaping lake.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)