Celtic Tree of Life

If anyone has ever read a book or watched a movie that had magical trees, trees that come alive, or trees with secret doorways that lead to mysterious places, the origin of those ideas can be credited to the Celtic people. Trees were a very large part of the Celts spiritual and daily life. Celts regarded trees as their source of food, protection from the elements, provider of materials to build shelters, and a source of warmth when making a fire with its wood.

The Celtic alphabet, Ogham was written in homage to trees as each letter of the alphabet represents a particular tree. Early creation stories include the vital role trees played in life and death of humans. Trees were thought to be the ancestors of mankind with a higher wisdom and an entrance to the heavens or home of the Celtic gods. It is easy to imagine how the Celts, walking through a massive forest, hearing the leaves rustle, could equate trees and the forest with an omnipotent being. From that belief we are left with a powerful symbol of the tree of life.

Trees were also associated in the Shamanic beliefs of the Druids and other Celtic peoples with the supernatural world. Trees were a connection to the world of the spirits and the ancestors, living entities, and doorways into other worlds.

The most sacred tree of all was the Oak tree, which represented the axis mundi, the center of the world. The Celtic name for oak, daur, is the origin of the word door- the root of the oak was literally the doorway to the Otherworld, the realm of Fairy. The word Druid, the name of the Celtic Priestly class, is compounded from the words for oak and wise- a Druid was one who was "Oak Wise," meaning learned in Tree magic and guardian of the doorway. Long after the Druids of old have vanished into the mists of time, the lore of trees continues as a vital part of Celtic myth and folklore.