Ponderings on Ash
The ash tree is currently suffering from a devastating disease, which is threatening to denude our ash populations, just as Dutch Elm disease did to the Elm. And I began to ponder what this means, on a mystical level. To me, trees are not just trees, they are symbols and have deep meaning. When a tree becomes threatened this suggests to me that a whole level of reality is being threatened. With the Elm, I believe it was the nurturing feminine, and the delicate elven races that were extinguished, or ended (to return at another time).
So I began to look into ash, and have found some interesting information.
"the ash often appears in mythology as the father of mankind. In Greek myth Zeus is said to have fashioned the bronze race of men from ash, while oak trees are the mothers of the present race. In Scandinavian lore the first man Askr was made from ash, while the first woman Embla was made from alder, or some say rowan or elm."
The bronze race of men, brought up several sites, which referred to the bronze age, (not the historical age but the Platonian age), and gave this description...
"With the Race of Bronze arrive the eating of flesh, arms, and war ("the lamentable works of Ares"—as Hesiod puts it). Now Justice leaves the earth forever (Aratus). The most outstanding feature of the Race of Bronze is its warlike character."
Interesting that the 'eating of flesh' is one of the new generation's objections, they wish to be vegan, or at least vegetarian, and are full of passion about this.
So perhaps.. the demise or decline of the Ash tree, signifies the end of the bronze age of war and flesh eating. But the next age is iron, and certainly sounds bad, but does not mention using machines to kill, which seems to me to be a further slide into destruction.
The age of iron has no tree, but is characterised by both war, and a lack of spirituality, so that morals and ethics are entirely lost. I would say that this is very true of our current time.
The way that Plato describes this age is interesting in another way too. He speaks of a time long ago, where the magnetic poles shifted and the world turned the wrong direction for a short period. This caused the destruction of most of the animals, and left only a handful of humans. These humans then went onto begin a new golden age. Which is characterised by total peace between all humans and animals. A hunter/gatherer existence.
Considering the Holly and Oak King tradition, where the Oak King (Jesus) is born in the depths of Winter, at the same time the Holly King is actually in his highest power. Like the Ying Yang symbol, the seed of the light comes in the height of the darkness. This same principle is perhaps possible to apply to the ages described by Plato. The elven/Elm age was the silver age, and only truly died when the Bronze age was in total ascendancy, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, (Dutch Elm disease had two phases). And at that same time the seed of the Iron age was born. So now in this current time, we see the death of the Ash/Bronze age at a time of total ascendency of the Iron age. Which presumably means there is also a seed of the new Golden Age too. Perhaps this seed is the new generation who refuse to eat any meat.
Lastly, another well documented and traditionally important aspect of Ash, is this; When there was a bad harvest of Ash, or any disease in the Ash tree, it was considered an omen of the fall of the highest power, the King, the authority or highest God at the time.
