Welcome Myal:
I am the Myal: Abba Kwamé Penín Sáaba. For Myal, the Tree is a sacred representation and link to being one and in sync with everything most important. In this article, I want to give a brief explanation of the legacy of the Tree, and why it is an important figure in Ourstory.
The word tree, stems from deru in Proto Indo-European. It is known as δένδρον or déndron in Greek. It is also referred to as flora in science, etz in Hebrew, kum and odum in Asante, khet in the Medu Neter (Ancient Egyptian Divine Words), and is a very special and ancient symbol. It was represented by many cultures in ancient times and was synonymous or interchangeable with beings worshipped. The tree was/is a part of concepts such as balancement or equilibrium, chaos and order, good and evil, life and death, night and day, healthiness and sickness, vegetation and drought, and blood sacrifice. It is also related to celestial occurences such as our planet's rotation, the sun, the shifting of the planet's axis (vernal equinox), and what we percieve as time.
The types of tree species that were involved in the above philosophical, spiritual, and/or religous ideas were many (Tamarisk, Sycamore, Cedar, Evergreen Date Palm). The main ones that will be focused on in this work is the Oak, the Acacia, and the Cotton Tree.
The Acacia Tree
Pictures of the Tree of Life (Acacia) in Ta-Mery
THE SACRED TREES
Our present world, because of the events that took place during what I call the Industrial Commerce of Human Kidnapping (slavery), has been dominated by only a few types of tree symbols while the others were/are shrouded or invisible. The most famous of these trees are the Christmas Tree of the Christians, and the biblical trees of good and evil and life. What we do not understand or comprehend is that those trees stem from older traditions. In fact, these trees, are the result of the mixing of older tree concepts of an even older time period.
The Original Christmas Tree was never about the Mass of Christ (Greek: Kristos/Medu Neter: Karast) or the Mass that originates from the Catholic Church. The Church and the Christ were added later. The tree, the Oak in particular, was taken from the Druidic Priesthood blood sacrifice ritual. It consisted of healing and magic rites. The Druids were located in what is now Western Europe (Germany). The sacrifice of blood with the tree was already a part of the Germanic Tribes, before the doctrine of Christianity, so there was a commonality in symbols.
The ritual of the tree was originally called Yule, where the Christians get the Yuletide song. The Yule (tree) is an old Germanic pagan ritual and festival where the tree was adorned with fruits, paper, and other things. Because of Roman imperialism and the need to have the new state religion dominant throughout all its provinces, there was an effort to make sure that all pagan culture in Europe incorporate or replace their symbols and rituals with the Roman sanctioned form of Christianity. The Druids were in a Roman province and virtually wiped out and what was left of their rituals remained within Catholic rituals.
The tree for the Catholic Church was attributed to the Nativity Scene dedicated to the birth of Jesus. Martin Luther, in his protest and demand for reform, took the Catholic meaning of the tree and changed it to the Tree of Life and the Garden of Eden for his movement. Ironically, that was not far from the truth.
Martin Luther 1483-1546
An Example of the Christmas Tree
The Tree of Life and of Good and Evil are concepts that were grafted and put inside the bible. It's taken from the older tradition of the Khet Ankh (Tree of life) of Iusaset, the Mother of all mothers, and Atum, in the doctrine of the College of Iunu (Heliopolis) located at the bottom of the world (north). This is why the heritage of first people are associated with a tree.
TREE BEINGS OF WORSHIP
As said above Iusaset and Atum are beings associated with a tree, specifically the Acacia Tree. They are fertility beings and is of the original story of the Tree of Life. The popular being named God(English substitute of Elohim and Theos), an attribute of the Norse Aesir Odin, became associated with the tree of life story in the bible around the 4th Century C.E. because of a man named Ulfilas. Odin (Where we get Wednesday), in the person of God, was worshipped by the Germanic Tribes of Northern Europe and the children of those tribes made God popular after the 17th Century C.E. via imperialism and overcoming the French. This was also due to the promotion and propagation of one of the many Germanic language translations of the bible.
Jesus (English), or Iesoos (Greek), or Yashua (Aramaic) or Yehoshua (Hebrew), is also a worshipped tree being, despite what some might say. The Greek name of Jesus, Iesoos, is the composite of the high being Yah of Judea (Judah/Yehudah) and of the high being named Zeus, giving us Yah-Zeus. It was a normal occurence for an ancient conquering nation to add their high being to that of the conquered or vassal nation. So since Zeus is a part of that matrix, it would not be unusual to know that he also had a sacred tree that was dedicated to him. It was located at the Greek City of Dodona.
A part of his story is also a composite of the Asar (Osiris in Greek) and Ra stories put together. And both of them represents death and resurrection at the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. This short day took place in the fourth month of Akhet, Ka Har Ka, of the Ancient Egyptian Calendar and the tenth month of December of the ancient Roman Calendar (Roman solar calendar was copied from Ancient Egypt). Jesus' birthday was put near the time of the solstice and replaced more than just Asar as a worshipped being. Since those other beings (ie Saturn) do not represent trees, I will only focus on the ones that do.
Asar is a symbol of fertility and vegetation and was also the first bloodletting murder before the passion of Jesus in the biblical story. Jesus' (who is also the sun) pathway to heaven is through the tree. Ra passes through heaven via the tree as a celestial vehicle. This is why the Druid Tree was easily put together with Jesus since he was/is also a Zeus Tree, Ra Tree, and Asar Tree altogether.
To go back once more to the land of the Druids, which was called Gaul (Area of Modern Germany) by the Romans, the Germanic/Anglo Saxon high being or Aesir: Thor (where we get Thursday) also had the tree linked to him. The curious thing is that both Thor and Zeus not only commanded thunder but had the Oak tree as their symbol. Thor's literal tree representative in northern Germany was destroyed during aggressive Christian proselytization in the Eighth Century C.E. (conversion).
So the tree, as said earlier, is dendron in Greek. The so-called cross that Jesus was supposedly crucified on was called σταυρός, translated into english as Stauros. It is the wood from the dendron that he was put on. Within Jesus and his apparent crucifixion on the Stauros, there are multiple trees (Ra, Asar, Zeus) behind his present day manifestation alongside the tree (Thor, Yule, Zeus) attributed to the Catholic Mass. Martin Luther, as said earlier, redefined the Christian Genesis story, which brought him closer to the truth of what the Tree's originally purpose was for: to support and to sustain life.
The nurturing side of the tree can be seen in the feminine beings or principles within. The Oak Tree was not only attributed to Zeus, but was originally attributed to the most ancient Theos named Gaia (root of Geology) that was the original being of the tree. She represented being the Mother of all the Theos and other beings for the Greeks. So it was Zeus and Gaia in the Greek Tree, and this is also seen in Miriam/Mary and Jesus. Both the Koine (Common) Greek New Testament beings (Jesus/Mary) and the Greek Pantheon beings (Zeus/Gaia) are just copies of the Tree of Life associated with Isusaset, the Mother of all Mothers, and Atum.
The Odum, the Asante Tree of Life, is the offspring of Asase Yaa (mother earth) and Nyame, the Supreme State of Being. The tree is also referred to as Nyame Dua or Tree of the Supreme Being.
This can be expressed within these triads:
Asase Yaa + Nyame = Odum/Tree (Original)
Isusaset + Atum = Khet/Tree (Original)
Gaia + Zeus = Dendron/Tree
Miriam/Mary + Jesus = Stauros/Tree
Silk-Cotton Tree in the Bahamas
The association but not the origin of Jesus and Asar/Ra/Zeus is known by some. The association but not the origin of why Jesus and the Christmas Tree are linked is known by many. What we also do not know of, or even comprehend, is the Kum (tree) of the Ancient Asante and Akan. The tree is associated with how the nation's settlements were first established by the workings of an Asante Priest (Okumfo). There was also a duality within the story. One tree represented life while the other represented death. Here we have a very apparent form of balancement that can be likened unto Ra (Life) and Apep (Death) via Ma'at.
In the Akan, the umbrella family of the Asante, Adinkra symbols, which represent wisdom and spirituality, also contain symbols of the tree. Those symbols represent the mercy of Nyame (Supreme State of Being) and the endurance and perseverance of the individual. These Adinkra, as well as others, are from West Afrikan teachings.
Nyame Nti - The Pardon and Mercy of the Supreme State of Being
Aya - Endurance and Perseverance
The Silk-Cotton Tree, Odum in the Asante and another form of the Kum, was used in the community rituals to cleanse individuals and the family spiritually. Like in other Afrikan derived traditions (Santeria, Lucumi, Candomble, Vodoun), these eventually came to work together with our interpretation of Colonial Christianity and produced spiritual expressions such as the Native Baptist and/or Kumina (Pocomania) inside Yamaye-Xaymaca (Jamaica), the country that is part of my background and origins.
North Afrikan contributions and Western Europe distortions to the tree came in contact with the West Afrikan tree doctrine, and the latter was almost entirely destroyed in the Caribbean in the 19th Century C.E. The residue of this Sacred Tree Doctrine remained embedded within the discipline of the Myal Order and was told to me by my elders in Yamaye. This is what I represent.
So the reverence of the tree is a part of our sacred culture. The irony about it is that the Druid, the Norse, the Greek, the Ancient Egyptian, and the Asante trees were/are enslaved by the Christmas Consciousness during the time of Slavery (Semi-Feudalism). Christmas as a super marketing and capitalizing machine reached its present state in the early 20th Century. The commercialized tree and all of its symbolic associates was set up (and still is) to deceive the entire world.
Ra inside the Wesekhet (Solar Barque)
THE TREE IS AN ANCIENT BEING
As I said earlier, the tree symbolizes a variety of concepts, each of them dealing with opposites. The Asante Kum tree was about life and death and is an analogy to chaos (Apep) and order (Ra), which is controlled by Ma'at, the straight and just way.
Ra was originally protected by the Neter Set/Sutukh in the tree vessel in order to stop Apep from devouring Ra during His travels throughout Gerek (night). This represented the rotation of the planet in relation to the sun. Rotation is further emphasized by the seasons or the repeated cycles of the Akhet (Flooding), Peret (Harvesting), and Shemu (Drying). In this instance, it symbolizes the time of Asar's passion, his life, death, and transfiguration. Asar is fertility so Asar's new life is represented in Peret season. These events, for the ancients, occurred millions of years ago, and the tree is a symbol of that long lasting cycle of events.
Asar represented in green showing fertility, the color of vegetation
Scientifically speaking the tree is a long-lived being. A single tree can potentially live for thousands of years, and the tree genus is more ancient than a significant amount of life on this planet we now call Earth. Specifically, the tree is manifested from its plant mother (Iusaaset) called algae in the oceans. It evolved to its present state 240 million years ago (M.Y.A.) way before the time of what is called Homo Erectus. It was the main vehicle in changing the atmosphere of the planet by making oxygen become more abundant than carbon dioxide causing animal life to thrive and grow on the surface.
THE DESTRUCTION AND ENSLAVEMENT OF THE SACRED TREE
Like I said earlier, the tree is enslaved by this world. There is a religious, political, and economic grip on trees and because of this, much life was/is being destroyed and eliminated because of the lost of ecosystem. On the religious/economic end, the tree was distorted and became a symbol of blood drinking and flesh devouring, reflecting a collective death sentence masquerading as human resurrection (in the case of Jesus). The popular Abrahamic religions (which happened to be filled with many tree symbols), all contain the tree but deny the truth of the tree's rightful place in nature, and in Neteru, and Nyame (Asante Supreme Being).
On the politico-economic end, our most ancient trees, particularly in Afrika, is also being wiped out by ecoterrorism. It is common knowledge that there are major forests within Afrika and within South America that play a huge role in sustaining our atmosphere as well as containing plants to cure present diseases and those yet to come.
Greed and an abuse of economics is behind this problem, and the Christmas Tree is the great ruse of our enemies. It is the greatest representation of European rooted technology abusing nature. This misrepresents and twists the idea of this Living Being. We understand that the Christmas Tree is:
1) Made for show and for the belief in blood cannibalism (Yule and Jesus) promoted by today's popular religion.
2) A facsimile of the True Sacred Tree (Kum/Odum/Khet) and is being sold and spread across for the sake of mass consumption and greed.
3) It appears in each home to represent fairy tales of dead men associated with Christianity (Jesus and St. Nicholas).
4) It helps in promoting lies
The ancient trees are our elders and one of our eldest cousins (before we were, the tree was). If we do not put a stop to this, our denying the spiritual truth of this sacred being, our Mother, the planet will defend it and all of the Wise People, the species called Homo sapien, will be destroyed in the wake.
We must free ourselves from the Deru the origin and root of the word tree (we use the word tree throughout this post because many are not use to the Khet, Odum, and the Kum). We must free ourselves from the Oak Tree of Yule, of Thor, of Zeus (now known as the Christmas Tree), of the Stauros of Jesus, and of death and blood. We must come back to the Nyame Dua, to the Kum of Asante, to the Khet of Ta-Mery, the real sacred Tree. Only through reclaiming the Khet and Kum is their knowledge, wisdom, and comprehension. And this reclamation will unify the family, cleanse and restore the soul, balance the ecosystem for all carbon-based life, oxygen, and carbon dioxide.
While the Green Movement is a striving towards the tree and the planet as a whole, it is not enough to just fight on those levels. We must spiritually revere and venerate the tree with ourselves and our ancestors as we did in the past. It is a part of the key to Global Unity for all Indigenous People.
We, the Myal, bear witness to the sacred tree doctrine of all Indigenous Nations. We also hold in high regard the Kindah Tree of Accompong, Jamaica. It is our tree of resistance, courage, and most importantly, family unity.
Thank you for reading!
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Blessings upon your entire being!
