Page 25 - ECOlogic Book

The Burning Bush

In any wilderness the unsuspecting traveler may come upon
the burning bush, and discover that the ground on which
he stands in holy ground. Howard Thurman

In 772 Charlemagne had the sacred ash tree known as the Irminsul cut
down. The tree represented the mythic word tree, Yggdrsil, the centerpiece
of the Germanic Scandinavian religion. It was the symbolic climax of the
forced conversion of the people of Europe from the ”Old” religion to the
“New” one. It also signaled the beginning of an unparalleled attack on the
natural world which continues to this day.

It is not surprising that the tree was the first victim in this onslaught, for the
symbolism of the tree as a divine interlocutor is an extremely powerful one
in all cultures. The Yggdrasil, which the Sacred Ash represented, was to
early Europeans, “The Axis Mundi, the central pillar-axis of the world, which
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holds all the various worlds of existence together in a unitary framework.”

In early Germanic mythology, this was the World Tree upon which Odin hung
for nine days:

I know that I hung
On that wind-swept tree,
Nine days and nights
Pierced by the spear
Sacrificed to Odin
Myself to myself,
On that great tree
Whose roots are unknown.

In this poem, the resemblance to the Native American Sun Dance is striking.
Known through Native America as the dance of ultimate sacrifice, the Sacred
Sun Dance represents the sacrifice to the sun on the Tree of Life. The
Asiatic and Australian aboriginal shamanism cultures share similar traditions.

The World Tree archetype appears in every one of the world’s great religious
traditions. In the Semitic Old Testament, we find the Garden of Eden with
the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.

11 Metzner, Ralph, Germanic Mythology and the Fate of Europe, Revision, Vol.13 No. 1

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