The Great Tree —A Christian Symbol?
There is a much longer history and explanation, but in here is the core story.
When Christians went north of the Alps, we found the Celtic world decorating their sacred tree (the oak) in preparation for the Winter Solstice Festival, marking a need for the re-birth of sun and oak tree. The day before the Festival began, fruits were hung in the oak tree’s recently bared limbs. Christians, seeing this ritual, perceived the telling of an ancient text whereby there was a garden, a tree and its fruit.
From that garden at the beginning of time, humans had been expelled.
Yet now, in the presence of The Christ, lives another garden, one without end. Those Celtic Christians named the preparation day for Solstice (Dec 24) as the Feast of Adam and Eve. On that day, communities gathered to decorate the sacred tree of a new Eden, a tree located in the village square or church courtyard.
Today, rather than only apples and pears, we hand every manner of bobble in our trees. Yet the result is the same. The decorated tree awakens in us a childlike wonder and awe, a living experience of an Eden here and now.
As we gather round our trees (living or made of other substances) let us feel the deep love, wonder and generosity of the ancients made new in our midst. These qualities are our true deep self. The Christ – an Eden here and now in the deepest dark. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree how lovely are thy branches ….
To each and to all -May this Christmas be true – if today in the midst of our troubles we cannot sense it. It is true. It is true.
Historical Notes
-Dec 25 was the ancient date of the Winter Solstice. And Dec 24 was the preparation day for Solstice. named in the old Christian calendar as the Feast of Adam and Eve.
– It appears that by Victorian times that we were adding the practice of decorating individual trees in homes rather than only a communal sacred tree.
-By Victorian times, the decorated tree had become the fir. The great oak forests of Europe had been decimated.