I am not sure if this is the right place for this thread, but neither did I want to put it in the conspiracy section.
I'll begin. My blood ran cold tonight when I learnt the police have called their investigation and up coming arrests in the Savile case as Operation Yew Tree.
To begin at the beginning, I am sure those of you who watched the various olympic ceremonies will remember the two burning effiges...the phoenix at the closing olympic ceremony and the face of the Greenman (also burning) at the close of the para-olympics. I think we can all basically agree there were a lot of other 'pagan' symbolisms in the ceremonies. Now both these symbols represent birth/re-birth, the rising of the old ways etc. I always felt we were being put on notice, if you will, with the not modern as such, but modern if we relate the phoenix to Harry Potter, thus subliminally getting at the young, and the 'old' with the symbolism of the greenman.
Now what does this have to do with the yew tree....well here are a few excerpts for you...
"IRISH/GAELIC NAME :- Ioho RULING PLANET:- Saturn SEASON:- Winter
ABILITIES:- Guardian to the Door of Rebirth. Rest after the struggle of life. Divination. Dowsing. Bows. To do with the element of earth.
One in Perthshire The Fortingal Yew is claimed to be up to 9,000 years old. Yews are mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086 and one of the oldest weapons found is a crude yew spear from the Old Stone Age. The yew is one of Irelands five magical trees, it rivals the oak, hawthorn, elder and rowan in magical importance.
www.growingnative.co.uk/folklore.htm
"The Yew, Taxus baccata , is an ancient tree species that has survived since before the Ice Age and as such as been revered and used by humankind throughout the ages. All races of the Northern Hemisphere, especially the Celts, the Greeks, the Romans and the North American Indians, have a right and powerful understanding of this unusual and remarkable tree. Because of its longevity and its unique way of growing new trunks from within the original root bole, it has now been estimated that some English Yews are as much as 4,000 years old, their presence spanning ages of time and history. No wonder the Yew is associated with immortality, renewal, regeneration, everlasting life, rebirth, transformation and access to the Otherworld and our ancestors.
The entire tree is poisonous - wood, bark, needles and seed. The only part which isn't is the fleshy part of the seed. Be aware of the dangerous aspects of the Yew if you handle the tree or work with the wood. It is one of the reasons why it is known as the death tree.
www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/yew.htm
"Our ancestors often chose for their sacred sites places where Yews were growing. If there were none nearby, they planted Yews in places where they wished to worship (see my last post for more on sacred sites), most churchyard Yews being far, far older than the buildings that have sprung up beside them.
Why the north door? Look inside the north door of churches and you’ll often find an old pagan image of some kind carved into the stone above it: a green man, or a sheaf of corn. These were put up in order to pay tribute to the old ways. The north door was “the devil’s door”: not because evil things lurked outside, but because it represented an acknowledgement of the power of nature, the call of the wild, which The Church wished to demonize.
When the early missionaries were sent to “convert” Britain, the pope urged them to use the old places of worship as their own and to appropriate existing religious days as holy-days. Hence the midwinter Feast of the Unconquered Sun became Christmas, the Feast of the Unconquered Son and the spring Festival of Eostre, goddess of the dawn, became Easter, the date of Christ’s resurrection.
It was a smart move, helping The Church to take a hold in a way that it might not have done.
essitolling.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/yew...es-for-the-new-year/
Hmmm....maybe it's just me. Maybe I am over tired...but I don't think so.....I'll keep looking...
Jane
