Pine, Spruce and Fir trees - Doris Potter

In the darkness of December the plant world goes to sleep.  The leaves have fallen from the trees. The green part of the plants are withering, decaying - returning from their summer journey to the mineral world and the earth. Most seeds are embedded deep within

The plant kingdom is now in the earth, mingling with minerals, the metals and the humus– pausing- preparing for new life in spring.

 Daylight hours have reduced to a minimum. If you walk in a conifer wood during this period of time everything seems muffled and slow; the beats of life are almost imperceptible. Yet a majestic and silent force hovers in the air, an extremely vital presence watches over this season: the spruce tree, and with it all the evergreen trees.

  Nature invites us to pause and to contemplate.

  Perhaps we have brought an advent wreath indoors , hanged up a green wreath on our door or are intending to bring a spruce tree inside the house for Christmas, as has been done in Northern regions since ancient times.to ward off evil spirits at the time of the winter solstice.

Pine and spruces belong to the oldest trees on our Earth and are steeped in mythology, part of stories and rituals

In Celtic mythologies the trees climbed out of the water onto the land. The main attributes that Celtic Druids found while admiring this particular tree include honesty, dedication, and fairness, as you can observe the tree growing straight upward.

  The Greeks suggested that the enduring Spruce tree represented constant, eternal life and was labelled 'The Tree of Birth'; its scented evergreen needles signifying resilience and strength. 

When standing opposite a fully grown spruce one experiences the uprightness   the clear form principle by which it is governed.

 It encompasses a somewhat triangular overall shape, showing his relationship between heaven and earth. The branches gesture upwards and are metamorphosing downwards responding to gravity; the ones closer to the ground honour the earth with a swinging receiving gesture, becoming heavier and denser.

The plentiful prickly needle drink in much light but are well protected by a waxy substance. The pine and fir tree expresses form and regularity, particular visible in the pine cones sheltering the seeds. After a 2 years period of ripening these female cones will start releasing the seeds when the conditions for germinating are favourable. The cones will open in warm weather and close when it is wet and cold, a process that can take many years. The female cones are situated in the upper parts of the tree while the smaller male cones are present in the lower part, to reduce self-pollination.

All conifers are characterised by their evergreen needles, which typically are “leaves” that seem to be reduced to hardened veins. Each needle has a resinous waxy covering and is filled with a fragrant sap.

The needles are plentiful and have a strong relationship to light as also has the whole tree. However when standing underneath you can experience a certain darkness and a feeling to be closer to the earth; in summer heat we can appreciate the cooling shade - in winter the sheltering warmth.

The spruce tree extends itself with its scent beyond its physicality. It is pure and fresh, encourages us to breathe deeply. Unusual in the plant kingdom this occurs also in winter.

You may experience something of an awakening in your innermost core. I read somewhere in our anthroposophical literature (unfortunately I did not find the reference), that the presence of trees at a certain point in our evolution helped the human being in its ego development and to gain uprightness.

Are we perhaps still having an inkling of remembering of this enormous event in our past when we look at a spruce tree?

  Not surprisingly we can sense in what direction the healing qualities take us:

It may help:

• in the relief from muscle tensions and spasms, pains

• Calming body and soul,  thus help in situations of stress, mental fatigue, sluggishness depression and clearing sadness.

• clearing colds and flu

• improving the circulation , such as swelling due to arthritis

• It is used to treat, hyperthyroidism, rheumatism, arthritis, stomach aches, dyspepsia, bronchitis and asthma.

• It also can externally be used as an oil. it to reduce cracking, dry skin and peeling, also in dermatitis, eczema and psoriasis.

You can drink pine needle tea or you can obtain your “home-made” pleasantly  fragrant massage  oil by steeping pine needles in an almond or olive oil or by  adding a few drops of essential oil.

But most of all I hope my small contribution will give you background and anew relationship when you celebrate Christmas. The spruce tree an amazing symbol for the birth of our own Ego.

Let’s hear the words Rudolph Steiner  composed for the Saturn column in the first Goetheanum:

Thus speaks the leaden Saturn

Through the trees of the shaded forests

The pines the beeches and cypresses,

O man feel the responsibility

For the need of your time and all mankind

With Inner devotion take hold

Of the work that life sets before you.

Gold, Myrrh and Frankincense - the Three gifts of the Wise Men to the Christ Child- Doris Potter

Did you ever wonder about the significance of these three gifts?

Traditionally these substances were highly valued and venerated for thousands of years. They were used in rituals, also common gifts of offering to Kings and initiates. We for example know that Apollo, the Greek sun god, was offered substances of Frankincense and Myrrh.

In ancient times we had priest- kings who were initiated so that ruling also had a spiritual dimension. According to Rudolf Steiner the Sun was the region of the Christ being before coming to the Earth. Zarathustra, also known as Zoroaster, was the first man initiated into the Sun-Christ mysteries through Manu. He was the founder of the second Post-Atlantean epoch. He founded the school of Zoroaster through which Hermes (Egypt) and Moses (Hebrew Stream) were initiated. Zarathustra makes his etheric body available to Moses and his astral body to Hermes. During later incarnations the Zarathustra ego had to incarnate into other astral and ether bodies that were less evolved.

Through Hermes and Moses the Sun Mysteries and the preparation for the incarnation of the Christ forces were streaming into Egyptian and also into Hebrew culture. Both streams know about the Christ being still abiding in the Sun sphere and preparing to come to Earth, but they develop their own Mystery Centres.

In the 6th century B.C. other Mystery Centres were created through a further incarnation of the Ego of Zarathustra as Zarathos or Nazarathos in Chaldea. As Nazarathos he was in contact with the wisest of the Hebrew pupils through the Babylonian captivity. Nazarathos was also the initiator of Aristotle in Greece. Zarathustra, in the form of Zarathos or Nazarathos, had been honoured in the highest degree by generations of pupils in the Mystery Schools of Babylon, Chaldea, and Assyria.

In the following six centuries, this teaching had permeated the traditions, ceremonies, and culture of the Chaldean Mystery Schools. The being of Zarathustra was honoured and recognised as their wise master and expected to incarnate again. The spiritual leaders, known as magi, trained in these schools to perceive the planetary rhythms of the cosmos, and looked forward with longing to the next appearance of their great teacher and master. They expected it to occur at the end of six hundred years after his first incarnation. As the time approached when this should happen, these wise men knew that the time had come for their master Zarathustra to be reborn, and they followed his star. The gospel of St Matthew tells this story of the Jesus child, (who is also the incarnation of the Zarathustra individuality), and the visit of the wise men bringing the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to this kingly child.

This child will later offer his individuality to the other Jesus child, the child spoken of in the Luke gospel, who carries the life forces of the Buddha and the forces of the Adam soul. These two beings prepare the physical body for the Sun- Christ being which enters into the adult Jesus-being at the Baptism in the Jordan.

Apparently, the Zarathustra child was quite a weak child but very intelligent. Knowing that his constitution was somewhat vulnerable, the three gifts he was presented with were likely of more than symbolical value.

Let us look at these three substances and how they are used to this day, also in anthroposophical medicine.

All three substances were traditionally used in ceremonies belonging to the Sun Mysteries in many different cultures.

Gold. Rudolf Steiner gave insights from his own spiritual research about the gift of the gold, connected to the Sun forces: It was meant to strengthen the growth of the physical body of the Jesus child.

Gold is a dense substance found in the layers of the Earth; it used to be found as shiny nuggets, as it is resistant to deterioration through water and air. In recent research one has found traces of gold in meteoric iron and researchers assume that Gold came this way through the cosmos into the layers of the Earth.

When holding an item of gold in our hands we seem to instinctively know that it is precious, evoking a feeling of warmth and perhaps an unconscious memory of our own Sun nature.

Gold is a very heavy metal but malleable, and it can be pulverized or spread out into minute particles or extremely thin foils. These particles can become almost weightless, and are able to float in water. Like the Sun, gold can contract to dense heaviness or spread out and be almost weightless.

The symbol of Egyptian writing for the Sun is a point surrounded by a circle, indicating the radiating out from a dense centre. The same symbol was used for gold.

Traditionally the solar forces relate to our heart, where our blood flow finds its centre and from where it disperses through our circulation to the capillaries. Medically gold is used to strengthen the heart and circulation. As a remedy it also can balance soul dispositions, when for example a person is depressed, too drawn to the pain of the Earth, but also when a person is manic and out of themselves.

The balancing effect of gold is widely used in all kinds of medical remedies, from cancer to inflammatory conditions like arthritis, to immune disorders.

Aurum (gold) with its balancing, harmonizing qualities is also widely used in anthroposophical medicine, very often in combination with other remedies.

Frankincense, the second gift, was for the development of a harmonious soul life. Frankincense is the resin from a small tree (Boswellia sacra or carterii) native to North-east Africa and Southern Arabia. Since ancient times it was used in solar ceremonies and traded all over the world.

The tree grows on very dry land, using water from the night that comes as dew. Its crown sprays out from a single trunk, quite close to the ground. The gesture of the whole tree seems to want to grow up into the light, lifting itself against gravity. This is repeated in the beautiful white flower.

Aromatic resins appear, when a plant can perform more photosynthesis than it needs for itself, in other words in the resin are the excess solar forces. For harvesting frankincense resin, a wound has to be inserted into the tree’s bark. It will bleed the precious scented sap for about 8 months. Tear-like drops will dry up and can be collected from time to time.

The tree was sacred and looked after by specially chosen guardians, who knew how and when to harvest. In Arabia all the harvested resin was kept in temples dedicated to the Sun. When the resin is burned it releases fragrant smoke into the air, lifting our souls streaming upwards, thus helping us to find ourselves.

In ancient times frankincense was used very widely in ceremonial and sacrificial practices, often burned to smoke at sunrise and sunset. It was also eaten, used in perfumes, oils and medicinally.

Frankincense helps with swelling, joint inflammation and inflammatory intestinal diseases, and has been found to replace cortisone. (Medical supervision is necessary, as it may affect the kidney negatively).

Rudolf Steiner pointed out that the resin of the frankincense tree not only protects the plant but also enables it to reconnect itself to the world of stars from which its growing impulses come. When introduced into the human body, it strengthens milk production in the mother and when passing from the mother’s milk into the infant helps to optimize development of the young brain. In adults it optimizes mental functioning.

Myrrh was to enhance the spiritual development of the Jesus-Child.

Myrrh is resin from the Commiphora Myrrha tree, like frankincense native to Southern Arabia and East Africa but with a very different gesture. As the pictures show the plant has something contrived about it, thriving in arid rocky ground in cooler parts in these countries. Leaves and flowers are small, and the latter seem to appear directly out of the branch. They are very fragrant, and the scent is like that of the resin. It seems the whole plant is holding back the forces that form its substance, its main purpose being to create a surplus of aromatic scents and aromatic resin.

Myrrh was sometimes burned in ceremonies that included birth or burial practices, but morecommonly was made into oil, medicine or perfume and was traded widely as a precious substance.

As a remedy it was used and is still used to this day for wound healing. From modern research we know it has very strong antibacterial and antiseptic qualities, so much so that all kinds of research are done, right into flavouring and preserving foods and beverages. It has also been used as an astringent, an antiseptic applied to inflamed sores of the throat and mouth, to stimulate menstruation, and as an antispasmodic.

The oil was used by the Egyptians for embalming and for processes that have to do directly with the passage of consciousness into a higher spiritual world. Gold, frankincense and myrrh, diluted and potentised, are used in biodynamic agriculture.

On the 6th of January (Three Kings’ Day) they are sprayed around the boundary of the land, inviting the elemental world to help protect the land from unwanted influences. This was developed by Hugo Erbe.

Dr Karl Koenig was the first doctor who started to develop homeopathic medicines with the Three-Kings substances. He particularly researched its use for autistic children. He felt it could help children whose souls had difficulties to be in their bodies, and that the Three-Kings gift could accompany their journey on the Earth.

Today Anthroposophic medicine has a number of remedies containing these three substances in a potentised form. For example, Aurum comp. as drops, pilules, injections, Aurum comp. ointment or massage oil. It is generally supporting patients who are on a difficult soul journey, such as having to cope with illness and pain, threshold experiences, or when people have difficulties facing death when their time is near. These medicines can help the patient to find more peace, relieve pain and assist in the connection to their ‘I’ organisation and spiritual self.

I think the gifts of the Three Wise Men may be ever more important to accompany us in our present time, and into the future when we may struggle with all the technical progress, to find our true path and the right relationship to our bodies here on the Earth.

In this sense I am wishing you a peaceful Christmas time.

References: Sommer, Markus, Healing Plants. Floris Books, Edinburgh. 2014.
Steiner, Rudolf: The Gospel of St Matthew. Rudolf Steiner Press, London. 1985.
Truding, Lona. A Miracle for Our Time - studies in esoteric Christianity. Temple Lodge, London,1994.
Bock, Emil: “The Childhood of Jesus”
Renta, Ross. “Frankincense and Myrrh…. “ Lilipoh Magazine, Fall 2004, issue 38.
Erbe, Hugo. Working with Elemental Beings - Bio- Dynamic Preparations. Private publication.