As the seat of transformation and renewal, the tree has a feminine and maternal significance:
We have seen from Ripley's Scrowle that the tree-numen is Melusina. In Pandora the trunk of the tree is a crowned, naked woman holding a torch in each hand, with an eagle sitting in the branches on her head
CW13 ¶ 418On Hellenistic monuments Isis has the form of Melusina and one of her attributes is the torch. Other attributes are the vine and the palm
Leto and Mary both gave birth under a palm, and Maya at the birth of the Buddha was shaded by the holy tree
Adam, “so the Hebrews say,” was created out of the “earth of the tree of life,” the “red Damascene earth.” According to this legend, Adam stood in the same relation to the tree of life as Buddha to the Bodhi tree
THE FEMININE-MATERNAL
NATURE OF THE TREE
The feminine-maternal nature of the tree appears also in its relation to Sapientia. The tree of knowledge in Genesis is in the Book of Enoch the tree of wisdom, whose fruit resembles the grape. In the teachings of the Barbeliots, reports Irenaeus, the Autogenes finally created “the man perfect and true, whom they also called Adamas.” With him was created perfect knowledge: “From [the perfect] man and gnosis is born the tree, which they also call gnosis.” Here we find the same connection of man with the tree as in the case of Adam and the Buddha
CW13 ¶ 419SIMILAR IDEAS OF THE TREE
Similar ideas of the tree are found in alchemy. We have already met the conception of man as an inverted tree, a view found also in the Cabala. The Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer says: “R. Zehira said, `Of the fruit of the tree'here `tree' only means man, who is compared to the tree, as it is said, `For man is the tree of the field' (Deuteronomy 20 : 19).” In the gnosis of Justin the trees in the Garden of Eden are angels, while the tree of knowledge of good and evil is the third of the motherly angels, the Naas
CW13 ¶ 420NAAS, THE SERPENT, IS THE
PRIMA MATERIA OF THE NAASSENES
Naas, the serpent, is the prima materia of the Naassenes, a “moist substance” like Thales' water. It is substantial to all things and contains all things. It is like the river of Eden, which divides into four streams (Hippolytus, Elenchos V, 26, 6, 9, 13ff.)
CW13 ¶ 420THE DIVISION OF THE TREE-SOUL INTO
A MASCULINE AND FEMININE FIGURE
This division of the tree-soul into a masculine and a feminine figure corresponds to the alchemical Mercurius as the life principle of the tree, for as an hermaphrodite he is duplex. The picture in Pandora, where the tree trunk is a woman's body, refers to Mercurius in his feminine role of wisdom, who in his masculine aspect is symbolized by the figure of Mercurius Senex or Hermes Trismegistus
CW13 ¶ 420