Trees are a very important part
of world culture and have been at the centre of ideological conflict for hundreds
of years. Over this time they have taken the form of Sacred trees, Christmas
trees and New Year trees. In the current debates over climate change, trees
have an immensely important role to play on material and symbolical levels both
now and in the future. With the rising awareness of climate change, climate
resilience i.e. the ability to recover from or adjust
easily to misfortune or change, has become the focus of groups from
local community action to global treaties. The planting of trees is an important
action that everyone from the local to the global can engage in. Trees act as
carbon stores and carbon sinks, and on a cultural level they have been used to
represent nature itself the world over.
As symbols, trees have been imbued with different meanings over time
and I suggest here that they should continue to hold that central role as a prime
symbol of our respect for nature, and not just at Christmas time but the whole
year round in the form of a central community tree for adults and children alike.
In an uncertain future, the absolute necessity of developing a society that
harks back to much earlier forms of engagement with nature in a sustainable way
will have to have a focal point. Trees as important symbols of our respect for
nature have a long and elemental past.
The Tree of Life
From earliest times trees have had a profound effect on the human psyche:
“Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual
death and revival of their foliage, have often seen them as powerful symbols of
growth, death and rebirth. Evergreen trees, which largely stay green throughout
these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the eternal, immortality or
fertility. The image of the Tree of life or world tree occurs in many
mythologies.”
In Norse mythology the tree Yggdrasil, “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. This great tree acts as an Axis mundi,
supporting or holding up the cosmos, and providing a link between the heavens,
earth and underworld.”
Yggdrasil, the World Ash (Norse)
Sacred Trees
However, both Christianity and Islam treated the worship of trees as
idolatry and this led to sacred trees being destroyed in Europe and most of
West Asia. An early representation of the ideological conflict between paganism
(polytheistic beliefs) and Christianity (resulting in the cutting down of a
sacred tree) can be seen in the manuscript illumination (illustration) of Saint
Stephan of Perm
cutting down a birch tree sacred to the Komi people as part of his
proselytizing among them in the years after 1383.
Stefan of Perm takes an axe to a birch hung with pelts and cloths that is sacred to the Komi of Great Perm (a medieval Komi state in what is now the Perm Krai of the Russian Federation.)
Christian missionaries targeted sacred groves and sacred trees during
the Christianization of the Germanic peoples. According to the 8th century Vita
Bonifatii auctore Willibaldi, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Saint Boniface and his
retinue cut down Donar's
Oak (a sacred tree of the Germanic pagans) earlier the same century and then
used the wood to build a church.
"Bonifacius" (1905) by Emil Doepler.
Christmas Trees
Over time the pagan
world tree became christened as a Christmas tree. It was believed that evil
influences were warded off by fir or spruce branches and “between December 25
and January 6, when evil spirits were feared most, green branches were hung,
candles lit – and all these things were used as a means of defense. Later on,
the trees themselves were used for
the same purpose; and candles were hung on them. The church retained these old
customs, and gave them a new meaning as a symbol of Christ.’(p20) While there
are records of this practice dating from 1604 of a decorated fir tree in
Strasbourg, it was in Germany that the Christmas tree took hold in the early
19th century. It then
“became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as
Russia.”
Father and son with their dog
collecting a tree in the forest, painting by Franz Krüger (1797–1857)
The Russian Revolution
In Russia the tradition of installing and decorating a Yolka (tr: spruce tree) for Christmas was very popular but fell into disfavor (as a tradition originating in Germany - Russia's enemy during World War I) and was subsequently banned by the Synod in 1916. After the Russian Revolution in 1917 Christmas celebrations and other religious holidays were prohibited under the Marxist-Leninist policy of state atheism in the Soviet Union.
In Russia the tradition of installing and decorating a Yolka (tr: spruce tree) for Christmas was very popular but fell into disfavor (as a tradition originating in Germany - Russia's enemy during World War I) and was subsequently banned by the Synod in 1916. After the Russian Revolution in 1917 Christmas celebrations and other religious holidays were prohibited under the Marxist-Leninist policy of state atheism in the Soviet Union.
A 1931 edition of the Soviet magazine Bezbozhnik, distributed by the League of Militant Atheists, depicting an Orthodox Christian priest being forbidden to cut down a tree for Christmas
New Year's trees
Although the Christmas tree was banned people continued the tradition
with New Year trees
which eventually gained acceptance in 1935: “The New Year tree was encouraged
in the USSR after the famous letter by Pavel Postyshev, published in Pravda on
28 December 1935, in which he asked for trees to be installed in schools,
children's homes, Young Pioneer Palaces, children's clubs, children's theaters
and cinemas.” They remain an essential part of the Russian New Year traditions when Grandfather
Frost, like Santa Claus, brings presents for children to put under the tree or
to distribute them directly to the children on New Year's morning performances.
Trees in public places
In many public places around the world Christmas trees are displayed
prominently since the early 20th century. The lighting up of the tree has
become a public event signaling the beginning of the Christmas season. This is
now usual even in small towns whereby a large fir is chopped down and displayed
prominently in a central part of the town or village. While fir trees are now
grown expressly for sale and display, in the past the cutting down of whole
trees (maien or meyen) was forbidden:
“Because of the pagan origin, and the depletion of the forest, there were
numerous regulations that forbid, or put restrictions on, the cutting down of
fir greens throughout the Christmas season.”(p20)
Not cutting down trees
However if we look
at the origins of sacred trees the important point
was that they were not to be cut down, as respect for nature took
precedence. The
cutting down and destruction of so many trees today has become an
important
part in the commercialization of Christmas. However, growing a tree in
the centre of
villages, towns and cities as the focal point of our relationship with
nature could be a year round celebration for adults and children and
another aspect of the call for climate resilience policies
the world over. The tree could then be decorated at Christmas or New
Year. The
decorations can be removed from the tree afterwards, allowing it to
become a
focal point for other festivities throughout the year. The educational
value of
this strategy for children would also be as an object lesson in the
importance of
sustainability and conservation.
Celebrating
nature by chopping down the
material reality of nature in the form of a tree every year is a
contradiction in terms and could be remedied by encouraging people to
grow trees or buying potted fir
trees instead. Our ancestors from all over the world knew the importance
of the balance of nature and tried to keep that balance through rites
and prayers before the sacred trees. Now, in an era of climate change,
rapidly becoming climate chaos, it is incumbent on us more than ever to
develop a new appreciation and respect for nature and especially for
trees as a primary symbol of that relationship.
Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an
Irish artist who has exhibited widely around Ireland. His work consists of
paintings based on cityscapes of Dublin, Irish history and geopolitical themes.
His critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a
database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed
country by country on his blog.
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