Vine (Muin)- some excerpts from a chapter of my Tree booklet

Vine/Muin

Robert Graves brings up the idea that vine could also be represented by blackberry brambles. There is much relevant symbolism there, taboos, fairies, wine, devils, and Christ’s blood.

“The vine was sacred to the Thracian Dionysus, and to Osiris, and a golden vine was one of the principal ornaments of the Temple of Jerusalem.” RG

The Venus Flower

I included the perfectly geometrical cycle of Venus on her travels, which forms the shape of a flower, because of the transition from Virgo to Libra in Western Astrology, correlating to the time of Muin. Venus enters the picture, with all her transitional and lush beauty of the harvest time of year (in the Northern Hemisphere). This is the time when the sun is lower in the sky, illuminating things, the fragrances begin to be sweet with harvests and leaves collecting their sugars. Things that are close to the earth glow, as if the sun is taking extra care to add warm hues and a different spirit of light. The tilt of the earth brings on an entire mood. Like vines, there is a collective urge to work together and be involved in harmonic situations, whether it is sorting the harvest, celebrating the Autumnal Equinox, preparing for the cooler weather and lighting fires, or playing music. Birds come together as well, they fly in clusters, as one collective mind, forming patterns in trees or in the sky. It is said that Vine connects one thing to another, reaches across with its tendrils, and this connecting force can be compared to that in humans as well, in both visible and invisible ways.

Crow/Raven with Halo of Stars on Sticks

Stars on sticks is one of my ways to represent earth connecting with air or ether, and the ultilisation of hidden light, especially in relation to Virgo/Mercury. The crow is like a messenger, bringing things here and there in its beak, spending time in trees, building nests and tending to things. 

In Northwestern Indigenous Canada, there is the myth of Raven cleverly stealing the sun from a box contained in a mysterious hut. There are also other boxes containing the auroras, the moon, and the stars, all the light of the world. Raven becomes black having been burnt by the sun, either as he exits the smokehole of the hut, or by the carrying of the sun itself, according to different versions. Previously Raven had white feathers. This also implies a sense of transformation, from one aspect to its opposite.

Because of Raven the light was made present in the world, rather than staying hidden and contained. He is a tricky instigator of change and growth in various cultures, wise in his own way, selfish, and useful, sometimes accidentally. He can also be a shapeshifter. 

On another note, there are in Norse mythology, the ravens Huginn and Muninn, Odin’s messengers. There is a peculiar translation to a verse in Corpus Poeticum Boreale by Gudbrand Vigfusson, “The Sayings of the Hooded One”:

“Thought and Mind [his two Ravens] fly every day over the mighty earth

I fear for Thought lest he never come back, but I am still more fearful about Mind. . . .”

Thought relates to Huginn and Mind, Muninn. John Lindow believes this to be representative of the trance-state journey of shamans, in the sense that this Grímnismál  stanza “would be consistent with the danger that the shaman faces on the trance-state journey.” 

There is the idea of communication between worlds and also the nature of the mind. It seems to be implied here that mind contains a certain power that thought doesn’t. Presence of mind, consciousness, and being active in discerning and utilizing thoughts is an ongoing theme in this series of illustrations.

Others, like Anthony Winterbourne, don’t connect Huginn and Muninn with the thought processes of gods as much as to fylgja, that is “shape-shifting abilities, good fortune, and the guardian spirit—and the hamingja—the ghostly double of a person that may appear in the form of an animal.” It seems that cultures all over the world equate ravens and crows with shapeshifting, communication, transformation, intelligence, and mystery.

 The stars on sticks represent enlightened ideas and connection to the divine world, the mysterious places, and also brilliant visions. There is something starlike when a beautiful, unique, meaningful illumination sparks, seemingly from inside oneself. The halo represents that it is bigger than just the brain and the individual. It is a great enigma. There is also something practical about the usage of these thoughts and connections, and the twigs represent that aspect as well.

Lotus Flower (Nelumbo nucifera)

Resembling somewhat the five-petaled Venus flower in her travels around the earth, the lotus also represents form and symmetry. Here is represented the ongoing recurrences of patterns, formed by particles, vibration, movement, and light. 

The lotus also represents transformation. The cool, shadowy depths of the water and the flower at the mild surface are connected by a long stem. Interestingly, the lotus is able to maintain a high temperature, up to 35C, even as the weather cools down around it, just as warm-blooded animals are able to do. A lotus can also live for a thousand years and grow up to 8 feet tall.

In Buddhism, the story of the lotus mirrors the spirit/mind. It begins deep in the darkness and the mud, tightly wound up in itself, and over time and practice, it gradually rises to the surface, encountering life experiences along the way. It continues onward towards the air and light, where the petals open to the sun, which represents awakening or enlightenment.

It is said in legends that lotuses grew in the footsteps of the Buddha, and statues of him often show him sitting on a lotus. The six-syllable Sanskrit mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” (ॐ मणिपद्मे हूँ,) (ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པ་དྨེ་ཧཱུྃ in Tibetan), refers to the lotus flower. It begins with the syllable Aum/Om, a sacred vowel/syllable which represents Atman, or the ultimate reality, and is followed by Mani, which means jewel/bead (the intention towards enlightenment). Padme is the lotus (wisdom), Hum stands for the spirit of enlightenment or indivisibility. 

Some believe this mantra to be of a feminine quality, evoking a female deity named Manipadmi, or “she of the lotus jewel”, as some texts present her this way. She would be the vidya (wisdom) and consort of Avalokiteshvara (a boddhisatva embodying compassion), as a kind of Shakti to Shiva relationship.

In Hinduism, the story goes that Brahma was born out of a lotus, which sprouted from the navel of Vishnu. Once born, he proceeded to divide the lotus into three sections, the heavens, the earth, and the sky. Then he divided himself into male and female, as he felt lonely. And then things went on from there. 

I tired to resist sharing parts of this scripture but was unable to, due to its beauty and symbolism. The mystical lotus evidently carries some real potency from culture to culture. These following excerpts are from The Birth of Brahma Ji: Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 3, Chapter 8

"SB 3.8.13 — The subtle subject matter of creation, on which the Lord’s attention was fixed, was agitated by the material mode of passion, and thus the subtle form of creation pierced through His abdomen.

SB 3.8.14 — Piercing through, this sum total form of the fruitive activity of the living entities took the shape of the bud of a lotus flower generated from the Personality of Viṣṇu, and by His supreme will it illuminated everything, like the sun, and dried up the vast waters of devastation.

SB 3.8.15 — Into that universal lotus flower Lord Viṣṇu personally entered as the Supersoul, and when it was thus impregnated with all the modes of material nature, the personality of Vedic wisdom, whom we call the self-born, was generated.

SB 3.8.16 — Brahmā, born out of the lotus flower, could not see the world, although he was situated in the whorl. He therefore circumambulated all of space, and while moving his eyes in all directions he achieved four heads in terms of the four directions.

SB 3.8.17 — Lord Brahmā, situated in that lotus, could not perfectly understand the creation, the lotus or himself. At the end of the millennium the air of devastation began to move the water and the lotus in great circular waves.

SB 3.8.18 — Lord Brahmā, in his ignorance, contemplated: Who am I that am situated on the top of this lotus? Wherefrom has it sprouted? There must be something downwards, and that from which this lotus has grown must be within the water.

SB 3.8.19 — Lord Brahmā, thus contemplating, entered the water through the channel of the stem of the lotus. But in spite of entering the stem and going nearer to the navel of Viṣṇu, he could not trace out the root.

SB 3.8.20 — O Vidura, while searching in that way about his existence, Brahmā reached his ultimate time, which is the eternal wheel in the hand of Viṣṇu and which generates fear in the mind of the living entity like the fear of death.

SB 3.8.21 — Thereafter, being unable to achieve the desired destination, he retired from such searching and came back again to the top of the lotus. Thus, controlling all objectives, he concentrated his mind on the Supreme Lord.”

And then a few stanzas later:

"SB 3.8.26 — The Lord showed His lotus feet by raising them. His lotus feet are the source of all awards achieved by devotional service free from material contamination. Such awards are for those who worship Him in pure devotion. The splendor of the transcendental rays from His moonlike toenails and fingernails appeared like the petals of a flower.”

We can sense this mystery of origins, the seen vs the unseen, the source of all being represented by the lotus stem reaching far, far below surfaces, into a great navel. There is present also the sense of creativity, the fertile forces of water, humility, awe, and divine organization.

Krishna is sometimes named “the Lotus-Eyed One”.

There is another (related) way one can interpret the lotus, and that is the idea of its roots, like a person, being planted in the earth, yet the mind is near the sun, the non-material sense of divinity. There is the idea of a pulling upwards to the light, which can also be the light of the mind, disintegration of matter into air.

Moon Cycle Halo

The moon in its waxing and waning cycle indicates ongoing transformations, travels through constellations, time, the divine feminine, and a multi-aspected relationship with the sun. Together the Sun and the Moon represent the marriage of opposites, called the coniunctio, which in Jungian terms, leads to individuation. This could be discussed eternally, but there are a few relevant aspects which I have found interesting as these drawings were created. Marie-Louise von Franz, probably my favourite author/translator/psychoanalyst/lecturer, described the moon this way in her book of lectures called “Alchemy (An Introduction to the Symbolism and Psychology)”. 

“Now the moon is feminine, it is a receptacle for the dead, it is responsible for all waxing and waning phenomena on earth: the growing of plants and their withering, the menstruation of women, the ebb and flow of tides, the becoming and dying again, and it therefore rules the corruptible world.” Whereas the sun is shadowless, and radiant, simply “emanating goodness”. 

Alchemically speaking, the moon has been considered to be the source of dew, which heals and is correlated with the aqua permanens. Edward Edinger wrote, “Isis was called ‘dew,’ and it was the dew of her tears that brought together the dismembered fragments of Osiris.” (Edinger, Edward, Anatomy of the Psyche). 

Jung said, “Luna secretes the dew or sap of life…’This Luna is the sap of the water of life, which is hidden in Mercurius!’…Usually it is said that from the moon comes the dew, but the moon is also the aqua mirifica that extracts the souls from the bodies or gives the bodies life and soul. Together with Mercurius, Luna sprinkles the dismembered dragon with her moisture and brings him to life again, ‘makes him live, walk, and run about, and change his colour to the nature of blood.’ As the water of ablution, the dew falls from heaven, purifies the body, and makes it ready to receive the soul; in other words, it brings about the albedo, the white state of innocence, which like the moon and a bride awaits the bridegroom.” (Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, CW. 14, par.14)

It also represents intuition, water, the astral world, mutability, dreamlife, inspiration, nurturing, flexibility, the unconscious. In relation to Muin/Vine, I’m intending to portray the feminine on another level. Parallel to the ethereal beauty of conscious human connections and activities, and those in physical nature, (the sun was mentioned earlier as a prominent seasonal luminary going through a sensual phase, lighting things up seemingly from within), there is the unconscious, ongoing, internal lunar aspect of the self, guiding us in ways we are not always aware of. There is outer light but there is also inner light.

The Knapp-Hall tarot deck describes a process under the “La Lune-The Moon card”, the 18th major trump card. It is said, “Man in his quest of reality emerges from the pool of illusion.” The moon also has a way of fooling us with our emotions, the watery internal tides which rise and fall. There is a quest to overcome being drawn in by the power of emotions, while yet being in touch with them in a productive way.

The new moon can represent a dark goddess/dark mother, or a time of quiet when people (and creatures) may withdraw, restore and regenerate. It represents a time to consider potential, knowing that the moon will gradually wax fully again, and we can again be filled with (hopefully refreshed) “the body of water symbolic of the unconscious” (Yolanda M Robinson, PhD, The Revised New Art Tarot) as well as new experiences which will further lead us to internal lumination.

The waxing moon, like the above mentioned lotus flower, can represent the travels from darkness to light, from unconsciousness to consciousness, by means of acknowledging our dreams, meditating, or doing something creative which stirs the undersides of us into action, bringing up symbols and new realisations. The waning moon is the emptying, the using up, the gradual darkening.

The Roman goddess Diana is also representative of the new moon, in that she is a nocturnal virgin huntress and also protector of animals. She stands for crossroads, fertility and childbirth. She is seen as a triple goddess, as well, combining forces with underworldly Hecate and Luna. She has been called Diana Lucifera, which means “light-bearer”. 

The moon and its cycles obviously are in tune with menstruation and fertility as well, the number of days coinciding perfectly. Robert Graves noted this as well in terms of the Celtic Tree Calendar, stating, “Since there are thirteen consonants in the alphabet, it is reasonable to regard the tree month as the British common-law ‘lunar’ month of twenty-eight days defined by Blackstone… there are thirteen such months in a solar year, with one day left over…Moreover, twenty-eight is a true lunar month not only in the astronomical sense of the moon’s revolutions in relation to the sun, but in the mystic sense that the Moon, being a woman, has a woman’s normal menstrual period (‘menstruation’ is connected with the word ‘moon’) of twenty-eight days.” (The White Goddess).

All in all, a halo of changing moons revolves around her head, connected with her mind and her moods, as she continuously evolves, being in touch with that mysterious feminine aspect which is beneath and beyond surfaces. Being in touch with the symbolic world, interpreting meaning, sensing all those enigmatic aspects of life which spark us into creativity and curiosity, is what is meant to be illustrated here. There are hidden moon goddesses all over the place, entwined in our activities, in our milk and honey, in the times we choose to withdraw into our private caves, when we swim in lakes, while we sleep, while we are out in the garden, witnessing all the changes that are beyond us and our control, new flowers becoming fruit.

40 Days, 40 Nights - a poem 

40 days 40 nights

40 days to fall

And relieve eyes

Of the tension hope brings

40 days for new bark to grow

And cover the raw trunks that

Are my legs

40 days for my soul

To travel from the bottom 

To the top to the bottom to

The top

On its own

Like water collecting sugar

Up the maple

Setting leaves on fire

Yellow and copper as suns

And dripping out

Through bored holes

To be boiled down

Into sweetness

Evaporated back to clouds

40 days to be clean of emotion

40 days and eyes aren’t eyes anymore

Legs aren’t legs

Bones aren’t bones

But the simple math of the gods

Equations craftily crafted

To create form for poems,

Vessels for soluble souls

40 days and my love goes

Straight to God.

—

40 nights among insects

Crickets moths night things

An eye glows flashing

An absent star

Declaring itself

Silently

40 nights in the gradual

Blackening of

Internal time and non-matter

To begin to be free

And true

40 nights alone downstairs

In the basement of the

Basement of the

Basement of the basement

Without a bed

Without a light

Like a fish on the floor of the sea.

40 nights letting thoughts

Aspirations loves dreams

Rise like steam

The only heat of me

Drifting upstairs and up ladders

And up mountains

Without me