So, this story today needs some explanation first.
This story comes from a time before “Yggdrasil”, the tree of life. The “Lament Tree” came first… and this is how this story starts and how man came to adapt, heal and learn. Shamanically, the story leads you to learn to interface with the natural world, to teach yourself.
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Many people know of a ‘Tree’ called Yggdrasil. Some people call it the Tree of Life, some call it the Tree of Knowledge. In many different cultures, there is this belief of the tree which connects heaven, the cosmology, the cosmos to the earth in some different belief systems, different cultures they have the bottom, the root system weaving the three fates and they are weaving the life of the different humans, that’s what they are doing, that’s their job.
So, this story is about the time before Yggdrasil or, more appropriately how the tree became Yggdrasil. So, in a way, it’s like a creation story. For many cultures, Yggdrasil was always there like God. Always has been there.
But for my people it was not always there it was something that was created so its like a creationary story. Before it was called Yggdrasil and known as the Tree of Life or the Tree of Knowledge, we called it ‘Lament Tree’, but it was the ‘Lament Tree’.
And it was not one tree. One tree was the Lament Tree. What we mean by that was it was not one tree for the whole world. There were Lament Trees for everybody everywhere.
The Lament Tree was utilised by humans because humans were very aware that something made them eminent, made them different from their neighbour, their wife, husband etc. They were very aware of that so they assumed, like many of us do now, that there was, they used the word spirit now, that there was something that was within them that made them this way.
As an extension of that, they assumed that anything that was in the world, therefore, had to have a spirit because even if you had this oak tree and this oak tree, the same kind of oak tree they would not grow in the say way. They would have branches in different places.
So, they assumed like humans that there was spirit in that.
They were also aware that the tree, for example, was a very solid, strong, wise is a good word, that was in a way more than them, because the trees that they used for the Lament Tree was very old. They were big, old trees so for a human they were aware that this being had been here much longer than they had and therefore it had acquired a certain majesty about it.
So, a Lament Tree was always the tree in the forest or the wood, or the bush around them that was the one that exuded the most majesty, gave off the most that kind of strong energy and of course they imagined that there was a spirit in that tree and made it what it was.
So, for many groups they would have in their closest surrounding forest or wooded area they would have one tree that they would call the Lament tree.
The Lament Tree was utilised for humans to go to and discuss their worries, perhaps they couldn’t get this child, perhaps they were not good hunters, perhaps the chief was unable to control people, perhaps there was an unruly child, all of these types of things. The same sort of issues that are today are also there.
So, they would go to the Lament Tree, they would put their right hand on the tree and often their forehead on the tree so, they could connect like that (forehead against the tree) and they would pour out to the Lament Tree all of the things that were troubling them. All of the things that were a burden to them. They would give it to that tree.
They would share it, they wouldn’t give it, they would share it with that tree because very often and you will find this in your own life when you have a burden that you keep to yourself it can be detrimental to the self, if you can just share some of that burden, just tell somebody and somebody can help you, be compassionate with your, commiserate with you, give you some advice then that burden often becomes less than, and you can see more clearly. There is a saying ‘A burden shared’, so is the same thing with the Lament Tee. There would be this sharing of the burden.
So, when the person had done this, they felt they still had the problem, they still had the burden, but there was a lightness about it and perhaps they could cope better.
The interesting thing however, is that what they then found throughout time they would go to the Lament Tree and they would share their burden and then they would go back to their life, maybe things changed, maybe they didn’t, but often then later they would go back into the woods to gather, to hunt, to do whatever and they would just be walking, maybe not even thinking about that issue or that burden that they went to the Lament Tree about, and they would touch another tree, maybe they would brush passed something, maybe they picked some fruit, whatever it was and often as if it was like a lightning bolt in their head they would get an answer, or they would get clarity or they would have this feeling of understanding of the issue they went to the Lament Tree about, or they might even have forgotten about that issue with the Lament Tree, but all of a sudden it came back and it was not just clear for them, not just an unburdening of it, but they were given knowledge that could assist them.
So, as time went on and generations, humans were always quick thinkers but sometimes these things take time, they realised that the trees were talking to each other. Talking to each other. So somebody would go to the Lament Tree who was the majesty of that wood forest, bush and then that information, that burden was then dissimilated to the other trees and somewhere along the line, it was dissimilated so much that clarity came and there was an ability for the tree to understand and give an answer or to give advice, not the Lament Tree but the others that were around it and for some groups initially this was thought that this is like a magic, and that forest or that wood was enchanted, it was an enchanted area and it was perhaps there were elementals there taking the information from one tree to another and passing it on. Absolutely possible. Absolutely possible.
They also discovered the people realised the benefit of this they were able to take their fear away and they were able to look and see what was going on here in this place and some bright spark noted that around the trees, the Lament Tree were these mushrooms, called fungi. Different kinds, not all the same but they were around the tree and then they looked at that and thought that was odd and by chance the bright spark then went to the Lament Tree to try and see, the tree that had given them the answer, the knowledge, to look at that tree to look at it and they noticed around that tree there was this fungi.
Not all the same, but it was there. And then they thought this is a very interesting discovery and then they started to look at all the different trees that had spoken and then they noticed that there was this fungi, they noticed that there were paths of fungi all through this wooded area.
So, they got a Shaman who was a diviner, because many Sharman’s have a particular skill. This one was a diviner, maybe you call it a ‘Seer’ to come and to look at this space and what this Sharman discovered was if you were up in the tree and you looked down and it was like you could see through the top layer of the ground, you would see that it was like a connection that was lighting up, like all these different colours lighting up and they realised that the fungi was like a conduit. It was a conduit through the forest, it was like the mail service.
But of course, they did not have a mail service, it was the messenger service through the forest!
They realised that that was something that was unique to the natural world. Before they would just walk through the forest and they were not so careful, they would pick the fungi, they would step on it, it wouldn’t mean anything to them and they realised that this was something of the power of it, that there were all of these connections, just under the surface, and it was going from this tree to that tree to this plant and it was all around and it was the fungi that was being the communicator.
What did this mean in practical terms? In spiritual terms, there was that feeling of getting an answer, like relieving your burden and getting an answer but in practical when they started to look at what messages could be sent it was very interesting what they found. Because what they found was that the forest being a wooded, mountainous area, that it was providing what the people needed because when they came to the Lament Tree with: we don’t have enough food, we don’t have enough water, this and that, the forest was sending through the fungi, this tree was disseminating this information through the fungi to the other trees and all the plants around and the forest was able to provide what was required for their needs.
So, they realised there was a lot more going on in this natural world, in this forest than they every imagined. It wasn’t something that was just a tree that it grew up and it was its own entity, yes it was, but in this are it was a living, dynamic organism and they realised the importance of that and that they had this living dynamic organism there that was helping them. That was teaching them, it was giving them what they needed.
So, this was a revelation to them and it actually changed the way people looked at the natural world, they didn’t just look at it and say: ‘This is where we get our food for, this is where we get our animals and materials to make shelters’ and what have you, they looked at it as something that was actually alive, dynamic, with a mind and so that changed the way that people looked and interacted with the natural world.
As a result of that Yggdrasil was born because they realised that the tree of majesty, the Lament Tree was much more than just something that you put your burdens to, something to share with. It was the ‘Fount of Knowledge’ because when you think about it the humans were putting all of their or some of their knowledge into that Lament Tree as a result of that that tree was disseminating that information to the fungi, all around it, all around it and so that tree became the Tree of Knowledge, but also the Tree of Life because it was giving that information so that the forest could provide what the humans really needed.
Yggdrasil. That’s how we have Yggdrasil.
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