Ancient Pagan Symbols Elisabeth Goldsmith

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Besides the fact that the Sacred Tree varied in Different localities, its association with the feminine 13rinciple(the tree becoming the symbol of the matrix) is responsible for legend after legend connecting the tree with Astarte, Ishtar, Mylitta and other nature goddesses. Primitive man worshipped the divine Creator in the form of a pyramidal cone or obelisk, and the Cypress, possibly because of its pyramidal form, sometimes took the place of the conical stone of Astarte on the coins of Heliopolis. Venus of Lebanon was called the Cypress. An ancient altar has a solar god on one side and on the other a Cypress that has a child with a ram on its shoulder peeping out from its foliage. It is in a Pine that Cybele imprisons the body of Attis the spring time ,god. And Attis was said to have met his death by self-mutilation under a sacred tree. Adonis sprang from a tree. In the legend of Osiris the body of Osiris is concealed in the branches of a tamarisk bush which, enclosing the body, suddenly shot-up into a marvellously beautiful tree. In the Northern mythology the All Father is identified with Yggdrasil the Mighty Ash whose roots were in the well.of wisdom, ("wisdom is a tree of life to them that lay hold of her"), and beneath whose branches the gods met in daily council.

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