Trees and Their Meanings

Tree. Photocollage by Myriam B. Mahiques

Mature trees, the longest lived and largest plant form, carry a beauty and life force all their own. They connect the three worlds: the heavens, the here-and-now, and the underworld. It is extremely important to protect old trees and develop our personal relationships with them. To touch or embrace a tree is to remember all the life force just under the bark.

When we express something positive and then say “knock on wood” and knock on a wooden table, we are recalling an ancient tradition. Back when everyone recognized tree spirits, it would be customary to knock on a tree to awaken the spirits to ask them to reinforce a positive experience or intention.

The ancient Celts used trees growing in rings as “cathedrals,” as sites for rituals.

There are many different sacred and symbolic trees. They have many different meanings and associations in different cultures. Here are a few:

Apple: Eden (Tree of knowledge)

Cypress: long life

Date and Fig trees: fertility

Evergreens: everlasting life; used at winter solstice and Christmas

Flowering cherry and plum: in Japanese tradition, temporality, fleeting beauty

Fruit trees: fruition; changing of the seasons; Eden

Hazel: nuts of knowledge (Fionn gained the Wisdom of the Ages and became the great hero of Ireland after he ingested salmon that had eaten hazelnuts)

Laurel: mythological evergreen used as crown for gods and Olympians

Maple: renewal

Oak: long life, solidity, trust

Olive (branch): peace

Palm tree: Paradise (when near an oasis)

Pine: strength; always alive

Pomegranate: fertility and sustenance; just three seeds kept Persephone alive during her descent to Hades

Trumpet flower: calling up to heaven

Reference:

Murray, Elizabeth. Cultivating Sacred Space. San Francisco, 1997