This is an old thread from a long time ago. It was quite popular and before (TTT) came out. I'm reposting this thread for the new people to read, think about & respond too if the wish!
Spirit, Energy, Matter & Trees.
At one time in Britain, its culture, myths and fables, seem to be a part of heritage of society that is being daily and increasingly neglected. Which I am sure Tolkien was aware of and in his own way tried to make a difference through his literature.
I read once that the ancient people of the island believed that trees could talk! I hope you don't laugh! but at one time, in the society of this ancient culture there were people who talked to trees. They were called Derwydd, the modern derivation of this word. Which has no connection to present day practitioners is Druid. The Derwydd was the 'Oak-seer', the men of the Oak glades, to some called the wizards of life. These people were the thinkers, and the few remaining educated earthlings of Britain who's mind was open to the harmonics, vibrations of matter, the *Music of the Heavens* and all living creatures.
It's obvious that Tolkien wanted to interweave a closer connection to nature with his imaginative creations the Ents. Them being this ancient long-lived race of creatures! That resembled deep-rooted trees while they slumbered and tree-like beings when they awoke. I find the concept of the "Ents" fascinating!
It is surprising how human beings so filled with their own self importance can be unaware of a sometimes more subtle systems at work. As I have already suggested plants and trees growth processes are greatly affected by sound waves. From an experiment it has been proven, beyond a shadow of doubt... that harmonic sound waves affect growth, flowering, fruiting and seed-yields of plants. Music I guess affects all living organisms. Musical sound can be perceived to lie within the very hearts of atoms. From a philosophical perspective atoms can be seen as centers of pure energy, and the lowest elements in the spiritual hierarchy.
I am very much looking forward to when the (FOTR) encounters Treebeard, an Ent, or tree-shepherd. I can't wait to see when the hobbits tell him of Saruman's treachery, and watch the wraith of nature (Treebeard and the rest of the Ents) march on Isengard for an epic battle.
I've spoken of just a few things, but I wonder what everyone's thoughts are on the significance of the Ents. And the importance of their role in Tolkien's work. Be it ecological in nature or creative characterization etc.
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Music I guess affects all living organisms. Musical sound can be perceived to lie within the very hearts of atoms.
I find this quite intriguing. I never thought about it before, but it seems so obvious that soundwaves would interact with our atoms, perhaps rearranging the paths of orbiting electrons. This in turn could affect the polarity of atoms and molecules, and possibly have cumulative consequences throughout our whole body and especially our brain. Though it may never be possible to determine exactly how soundwaves affect our atoms, it's possible that some of the great musical architects such as Bach were unwittingly tapping into this phenomenon when they created their soul-stirring music. I am also reminded of the Gregorian monks and their powerful and harmonic chants. The power of certain harmonies to facilitate meditation may lie in their interaction with our base atomic structure. Thank you for bringing this idea to my intention, it will require further thought.
-Gimlet
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That was very interesting indeed. My parents always had music playing when I was growing up. In my very early childhood, my parents had a limited music collection, so I heard a lot of the same stuff over and over again. Later they aquired a lot more music, and the old stuff wasn't played as much. Plus, I started buying and listening to my own "new" music. But eventually I started listening to the music that I had heard so often in my early childhood (and in the womb). The feelings of warmth, comfort, sentimentality, and happiness that it brought me are indescribable.
On another note: If your sig is from Monty Python & The Holy Grail, then I must thank you for clearing up a line that has eluded me for 15 years.
-Gimlet
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You're welcome!
"This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Tell me again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes...." 
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate...
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Hi Gimlet,
The power of certain harmonies to facilitate meditation may lie in their interaction with our base atomic structure. Thank you for bringing this idea to my intention, it will require further thought.
"Great thoughts" I'm looking forward to it! It's interesting the second time around this thread is off to a different start from the original thread. 
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Paul, it's funny, I was thinking about staring a thread about trees, and how they may be the "elves" of our world (in a very loose sense).
They live for centuries - ancient and yet renewed every year.
If we thought of trees as sentient beings, what would their perception of us be like? Our lives would seem brief and ephemeral to them; yet we shape the world in which they exist. If there was true memory in the rings of growth, what perspective could they give us of human society and civilisation?
There are living trees in the UK that were alive when the industrial revolution took place; when Cromwell overthrew the sovereign; when Shakespeare was writing.
 If only they could talk!
Tolkien captured the ancient nature of the trees perfectly in his creation of the Ents. He understood that there was no older example of life than the ancient oaks and ashes, yews and beeches. What better, or more relevant, vessel for ancient wisdom could he have chosen than the trees?
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate...
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"they may be the "elves" of our world (in a very loose sense). "
What an interesting way to put it. I also have been thinking about trees a lot these days. Now that it is spring, the woods behind my house is coming to life and many of the smaller trees have leafed out. It's on old growth woods with many very tall trees and open glades beneath. The taller trees are still greening and their tops are thinly leafed as yet, but by summer they will be completely green.
Perhaps it's just imagination, but I think of the big trees as being spiritual beings. They do have voices- I hear them speaking through their rustling leaves and crackling branches all the time. Even in winter when they have no leaves, you can hear their trunks groaning in the cold and the branches clicking together. At night you can see stars through their branches and it’s easy to think of them as great regal beings, adorned with stellar jewels, dancing slow, graceful dances in the dark wood.
The trees live in complete harmony with the rest of the creatures, as I think it was intended for Man to live. They shelter and feed the birds and small woodland animals, sharing themselves freely and in a very connected way. Sometimes, when I see them looming over my house, or hear them in the wind, I feel that they are trying to pull us Humans back in, singing a song to lure us into our place with the rest of the world, a place where we lived once before. Trees just seem to have a connected-ness to the world that we don’t. They are rooted in the material world of the soil, yet they live in the spiritual world of the air.
Now we Humans live exclusively in the world of the air, we don’t sink roots into the material soil of the world- we only walk on it, and yet we live as though we were part of the material world and struggle to find our spiritual selves. Perhaps this is what makes trees so special- they live in both levels simultaneously and effortlessly.
"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew..."
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Now we Humans live exclusively in the world of the air, we don’t sink roots into the material soil of the world- we only walk on it, and yet we live as though we were part of the material world and struggle to find our spiritual selves. Perhaps this is what makes trees so special- they live in both levels simultaneously and effortlessly.
I don't have any add on thoughts Athene...I just think it's a beautiful profound paragraph.
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Thank you athene, that was a fantastic post.
I too have woodland in front of the house (mostly old oak and beech trees). When the wind blows (very often here on the coast!) they make a wonderful sound, like the sea roaring.
Trees are an intriguing combination of the ancient and the newborn. If one takes the time to spend some quiet moments among them, it really can become a spiritual experience.
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate...
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A very beautiful and thoughtful essay on trees, Athene.
As a gardener, though, you must sink part of your life into the material soil of the world. The soil, although most of us ignore it, is a teeming world of organisms and microbes that is a miraculous universe unto itself.
Trees are directly connected to this universe, and depend on it for survival. And it is the leaves and skeletons of trees that enrich the soil and continue the natural cycle of growth and decay. Trees are, in many ways, an extension into air of the soil universe.
Humans are extensions, too, we just don't like to think about it!
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Sometimes, Val, I wonder if gardening isn't an attempt to connect up with the whole world on both levels. Think of the symbolism of sinking your fingers into the soil like little roots. [roots]
"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew..."
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To me, the future of the world is separating into two camps. The gardeners, who see the Earth's biosphere in an endless source of magic and beauty, and the technologists, who see the natural world as just a stepping stone to the stars.
The two visions are really pretty well expressed in two recent films. LotR, which sees nature as the source of spirituality and myth and wonder. And AotC, which mostly sees nature as barren deserts inhabited by amazing technological cities and bizarre galactic outposts.
This is probably too general, but it feels about right ...
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Hi Bella,
Paul, it's funny, I was thinking about staring a thread about trees, and how they may be the "elves" of our world (in a very loose sense).
They live for centuries - ancient and yet renewed every year.
If we thought of trees as sentient beings, what would their perception of us be like? Our lives would seem brief and ephemeral to them; yet we shape the world in which they exist. If there was true memory in the rings of growth, what perspective could they give us of human society and civilisation?
I think that's a great train of thought! I encourage you to create a hybrid thread off of this one if you wish. This fundamental exchange of ideas is the heart of this board.
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A few years ago, my husband and I traveled there to visit a friend of his; they went to business school together.
Biggi took us out in a boat to visit this sort of Icelandic Ayers Rock that sits in the middle of a bay in a remote part of the country...aside from Reykjavik, just about the whole country is remote.
Anyway - we were planning to hike up this amazing structure (with a 5 year old!). Now, In Iceland, if you want to view their natural wonders, you will never encounter a park ranger, protective fence, warning notice, a boat dock or even rope ladder. If you want to walk right up to the edge of a waterfall or into a field of boiling sulfuric mud you can do this and no will bother you and 99% of the time you're the only people there too. Icelanders feel that if you do something stupid, you either deserved what you got or you're not paying attention have somehow angered the Old Norse mythological creatures that inhabit the landscape.
Biggi firmly believed in these creatures too, and preceded to tell us about the particularly vicious one that guarded the rock we were about to climb.
Needless to say - we decided against it - and I was dissuaded by more than just the 30 degree incline of loose rock in front of my eyes.
"Yes - but what about Second Breakfast?"
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Hi Phyllis, Interesting story! I had a friend once who went to Iceland and she brought back pictures of blue snow. That's right, blue snow! Somehow the snow and the landscape developed this phenomenon. It was remarkable to see in pictures, I can only imagine what is was like in real life!
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I'm glad you reposted this thread. It called to mind several things for me.
The first is Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology, that connects the nine worlds. It is an ash. Odin hanged himself on it to gain knowledge of the runes; it shelters the three Norns who measure and cut the threads of our fates; under it is Mimir's well, which gives foreknowledge; it is being gnawed away at the roots by Nidhogg; and more. Actually, here is an interesting link that explores some of the things it represents.
http://members.aol.com/jebco1st/Paraphysics/tree.htm
All other trees are echoes of the world tree. It is easy to see why it is such a powerful image for peoples who grew up with the forests of the old world. The tree connects earth and heaven. Its roots, trunk and branches are the past, present and future. Like men, it lives and dies; like gods, it watches ages come and go. It goes through the seasons like we do, but a single year for a tree also represents the whole life of a man, from budding to flourishing to withering and fading away. Like us, it reproduces itself, and it expands into every niche that will support it, and it is tenacious in hanging onto life.
For me, as for a lot of people in tree-growing climates, the tree is the single being that represents all of nature. It is emblematic.
They have done studies demonstrating that people who can look out of their windows and see trees are happier and calmer than those who cannot. And people wonder why New Yorkers can get a little grumpy...
Curiouser and curiouser!
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Very thoughtful post alice, I appreciate the link! and promise to read it.
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 by -
CTS-1
(Tue May 13 22:33:24)
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First, I think it is important to note the source of the Ents. The Ents' lives are, unlike humans, entirely preordained by the Music of the Ainur. They are also the product entirely of the thought (i.e. the song) of Yavanna.
As such, the Ents are best described as both: a) sentient plant life (i.e. a vision of what would happen if plant life realized both mobility and consciousness- as opposed to Old Man Willow, who managed sentience without mobility); and b) necessarily limited. Recall that the Ents exist for the benefit of the trees, not the other way around. They have no separate destiny.
In all of Tolkien's work, only one group exists in such a way as to carve a destiny independent of the Music of the Ainur. Not the Ents, or the Elves, or the Valar, or even the rebellious Ainur like Morgoth and Sauron. That unique gift, o my brothers and sisters, is given to the mortal, often unwise, often misguided latecomers, us.
That is what makes us unique. Despite our flaws, we are the only group with unlimited potential.
Look- he's trying to think!
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"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew..."
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lacedemonians
(Tue Jun 10 10:47:02)
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 UPDATED Tue Jun 10 11:16:44 |
Athene - Thanks for bumping this thread - I missed it the first time around.
These posts are some of the most impressive I have seen. Athene, you are such a romantic!
Isn't it interesting how so many of the elements of the Norse mythology are similar to the Greek! For example the three female fates that spin and cut destiny. Just as Indo-European words can be traced back to prehistory, I've often wondered if there was in prehistory a common lost spiritual way of life that the various mythologies are reflections of. Even the patriarchal God of Judaism might have his roots from this past.
Because the sound of wind through the trees is meaningful to so many, there are words for the quality:
susurrous
\Su*sur"rous\, a. [L. susurrus.] Whispering; rustling; full of whispering sounds. [R.]
adj : characterized by soft sounds; "a murmurous brook"; "a soughing wind in the pines"; "a slow sad susurrous rustle like the wind fingering the pines"- R.P.Warren [syn: murmurous, rustling, soughing]
sough
\Sough\ (?; 277), n. [Cf. Icel. s?gr (in comp.) a rushing sound, or OE. swough, swogh, a sound, AS. sw?gan to rustle. Cf. Surf, Swoon, v. i.] 1. The sound produced by soughing; a hollow murmur or roaring.
The whispering leaves or solemn sough of the forest. --W. Howitt.
2. Hence, a vague rumor or flying report. [Scot.]
3. A cant or whining mode of speaking, especially in preaching or praying. [Scot.] --Jamieson.
Source: Dictionary.com
"O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!"
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kiplingkat
(Tue Jun 10 11:09:34)
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| UPDATED Tue Jun 10 11:55:52 |
As yes, the New Agey "vibrations" belief.
There is no evidence that ancient Druids belived in "vibrations". The Druids were strict ("strict" as in "we'll kill you if you breathe a word of this to anyone") oral traditionists. They wrote down nothing. Their true traditions died out over 900 years ago. What is called Druidism now is a mish mosh of Victorian occault spiritualism and patriotism. It popped up at the same time that Authur became hugely popular again and scaences were in vouge as a parlor games. We can gain hints from the momuments left behind, read Ceasar (obviously biased) accounts, but other than that, what the druids really did worshipped is a guessing game.
The idea of "vibrations" governing the dynamics of the universe were pulled from Enochian & Kabblistic magick by Alistair Crowely (talk about a genius nutter). What is interesting is that this an aspect of a theory in the current theories of thermal dynamcis. And here someone with more knowlege than I should pick up the conversation.
I think the concept of "vibration" is the human mind's anology for a energy we cannot truly understand. We just aren't smart enough to comprehand the universe in its power, complexity and subtlety. To my personal beliefs, I think the energy is living joy. Not happiness, but the wild joy of life itself.
That being corrected, things to think about are: How much the Victorian resurgence of pride in English traditions, like the Reinvention of the Druids, have to do with Tolkien's wanting to create a "Enlgish Myth"? And how much did the Victorian interest in the occult and spirituality have to do with Tolkiens reshaping of the story?
"If they find me racing white horses, they'll not take me for a buoy"
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[...What is called Druidism now is a mish mosh of Victorian spiritualism and patriotism. ]
Same thing happened with Irish myths purported to be ancient but were actually written in the 19th century.
Unfortunately much of Norse mythology was also lost because it wasn't written down. Even the original "Beowulf" manuscript barely escaped destruction by fire. "Beowulf" truly is authentic.
It is interesting how quickly a belief system, complete with traditions, can be created. But despite how fervent the desire to escape the common herd, these beliefs are usually just extrapolations of the thinking of the times.
"O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!"
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The natives in my country, Mapuches base their organization and their beliefs around a Tree, that's sacred for them, the Araucaria these trees take hundreds of years to get to their adult stage and the Mapuches believe that it's sacred for them, that it protects them, they also feed from its fruits.
A couple of weeks ago i heard about a legend from the mapuches, that when a boy was lost in the woods, he asked the tree to give him some protection, he even gave the tree his shoes as proof of his devotion, and according to the leggend, the tree took its root out from the earth, "walked" to where the boy was sleeping and formed some kind of shelter around him. And Later, when his mother found him, the tree followed both of them 'till they were out from the forest safely.
I guess that the idea of the old forests having some kind of life beyond what we already know of them has always been in our minds. The trees protecting each other, or protecting us.
Smile... tomorrow will be worse
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"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew..."
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athene-5
2 days ago (Thu Jul 17 20:20:03)
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"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew..."
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