http://hsl.wikispot.org/Moody_PineRecent Changes of the page "Moody Pine" on HSL Wiki.en-us http://hsl.wikispot.org/Moody_Pine2010-08-11 13:15:03Upload of image <a href="http://hsl.wikispot.org/Moody_Pine?action=Files&do=view&target=Moody%20Pine.jpg">Moody Pine.jpg</a>.http://hsl.wikispot.org/Moody_Pine2010-08-11 13:14:15 <div id="content" class="wikipage content"> Differences for Moody Pine<p><strong></strong></p><table> <tr> <td> <span> Deletions are marked with - . </span> </td> <td> <span> Additions are marked with +. </span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Line 1: </td> <td> Line 1: </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> <span>+ [[Image(Moody Pine.jpg,thumbnail,400,left "The Moody Pine")]]<br> + <br> + <br> + The Moody Pine<br> + <br> + The archetype of Tree has been a central element in many forms of archaic religion in general and shamanistic practice in particular. It is the axis mundi – the cosmic pole or World Tree. It is the ladder which the shaman ascends or descends in his or her ecstatic trance to access the realms of the gods and the ancestors and other spirit entities to bring back wisdom and medicine to the people. The Tree connects the world of mortal humans with the (normally) unseen worlds above and below.<br> + <br> + For the ancient Norse people, the World Tree was called Yggdrasil. Its top-most branches touched the highest upper-world, and one of its three main roots penetrated to the lowest underworld of Hel. Though the Judeo-Christian world view has spun Hel into a place of eternal torment as punishment for “sin” – and the English language threw in an extra “L” – the original Norse Hel was purely a Land of the Dead. Such a place, for shamans and other technicians of the sacred, is a reservoir from which valuable information and healing power can be retrieved to assist the living.<br> + <br> + The World Tree of the Norse was an Ash. For the various shamanistic tribes of Siberia, it was (and is) a Birch. For the Druidic Celts, it was undoubtedly an Oak. Among the Iroquoian and Algonquian peoples of northeastern North America, it may well have been the White Pine which often towered above all other species of their forests.<br> + <br> + In 1819, Jacob Moody and his family became the first people to settle in what would become the Village of Saranac Lake, NY. Later, one of his sons, Benjamin, cleared for sheep pasture the land on the hillside that is now Pine Ridge Cemetery, and the family burial plot was established around this White Pine tree behind Benjamin’s house. Today, Benjamin’s homestead is gone, but the Moody family still thrives in the Saranac Lake area; and the tree has grown to become the largest (though not the tallest) White Pine in the village.<br> + <br> + Did Benjamin Moody know about the World Tree? Did he know of its roots reaching into the Land of the Dead? What kind of messages flow up and down the trunk of this giant from the upper-world and the underworld to our middle-world? If we press our ears to its bark, will we hear the ancestors whispering, the gods singing?<br> + <br> + Photo and Text by Phil Gallos. Written 2009.</span> </td> </tr> </table> </div>