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March 2nd, 2018 
Awake Goy By Ron McVan
The Green Man is one of those Sleepers. But while he slept, he also dreamed in Preparations for his return and his dreams filtered into the dreams of musicians and composers. Wagner rediscovered the voice of myth in music. In doing so he revealed new resources of sound through which the emotions of Nature and the intertwining of man’s fate could be expressed. He gave his successors all over Europe and North America a fresh orchestral palette with which they could paint the spirit of country and landscape in sound. This coincided with the revival of interest in folk song, music, dance and lore in the exploration of which many composers such as Bartok and Vaughan Williams were to take part.” ~ William Anderson
“Bind me ye Woodbines in your twines, Curl me about ye gladding Vines, And oh so close your Circles lace, That I may never leave this Place. But, lest your Fetters prove too weak, Ere I your silken Bondage break, Do you, O Brambles, chain me too, And Courteous Briars nail me through.” Many people who have spent time in the solitude of the forest have at one time or another caught a glimpse of, or felt the presence of The Green Man, if even only in your mind’s eye. Part human and part plant, we might might say that he represents the male side of Mother Nature. The Green Man to this very day remains an image deeply primal, and an image that runs equally as deep through the collective consciousness of humankind. Aside from his affirmative leafy face of Nature with all of it’s regenerative aspects, he also portrays the archetypal traits of his divine origins as the Teutonic god Wotan or Hermes. Their character traits likewise run through the Green Man as the Hero, Trickster, Warrior, Lover, Skillful musician and in our modern world he takes on the added role as conservator. He is a man blessed with true sovereignty of self. The composite of leaves and human face symbolizes the union of humanity and the vegetable world of Nature. This human face of Nature personified, represents an archetype known to be very wise and knowledgeable, for he utters the laws of Nature and all of her mystic secrets. The Green Man is very much Wotanistic and Apollonian, yet at times he can also show strong Dionysiac traits as well.
As the Green Man returns in the spring after his triumph over winter he brings forth to mankind fresh truths and emotions necessary to fulfilling the potentialities of the future. In essence he signifies irrepressible life. There are relative similarities to be found between the Green Man and the Wickerman, and both are an essential part of the seasonal spring ceremonies. The Wicker Man also is a symbolic image of Nature that plays out his role in the form of a burning sacrifice to insure our hopes for the future and a bountiful harvest. The Green Man in the guise of Jack in the Green, appears at the ancient festival of Beltane, on the first of May. Hidden in a costume of leaves, he dances until his time has come (end of spring). Then, amid cries and groans, he is ritually decapitated, struck with staves, laid low, so that along with old John Barleycorn, (beginning of autumn) the cycle of the year may then end and continue in another form. The Green Man is related to all the vegetative deities and serves as a symbol of renewal and rebirth or ‘Renaissance’ representing the cycle of growth with the coming of the spring season. Each and every year all of life awaits the promise of spring—the cauldron, the chalice beginning to fill. The time for plowing, for preparing the seed, the time of quickening. The young woman’s time, Imbolic. The love making of Beltane. The Green Man is known to also posses the powers of making rain and fostering the livestock with lush green meadows.
The May-pole, representing the Green Man who personifies plant life, was a powerful fertility symbol. It both embodied the vegetation spirit and contained his seed. Placed, phallus-like, into the womb of the Earth, the seed it held could then be given life, so that all forms of life might flourish. The old European custom of burning a tree in the May bonfire hints at the God’s sacrificial death. Being both plant and provider of seed, the Green Man had a dual role: when he grew out of the Mother Earth as a plant, he was her “son”, but when he made the Earth fertile with his seeds, he was her “lover”. The Earth Goddess, Great Mother, and her son-lover, The Green Man who lives, dies, and is reborn.
The head in Celtic mythology is the repository of power. When libidinal power is drawn upward from the roots and directed through the body, as in the case of the Green Man, consciousness is flooded with energy. The head then becomes the source of poetic inspiration, music, intellect, art, and science. This is represented by the twigs, foliage, and fruit of the Tree of Knowledge gushing from the mouth of the Green Man.” ~ Nicholas R. Mann
The archetype in its highest form expresses ‘Unity’, and unity is found when the male and female forces of Nature are in balance and man must also play his part in that essential union with Nature. Without a perfect balance the existence of humanity is certainly doomed. Through the intelligent force and urge of the all high Creator God and our numerous god archetypes Mankind finds the strength that he needs to meet the challenges of the uncertain perilous life we must contend with. Likewise our gods need us as much as we need them, for without humankind the purpose of our gods would have little meaning. Nature can survive perfectly well without mankind, but now that we are crucial to the well being and survival of Nature on this planet we must all take each and every precaution in holding up our end of that vital balance. As things stand at this moment, we are more like a cancer to the entire existence of the planet and Mother Nature cannot bear much more of the abuse. Mother Nature can bear incredible abuse but there very surely exists a definite line of no return and if the balance of Nature dies, we all die! Nature must always be respected!
Our remote ancestors said to their Mother Earth: “We are yours.” Modern humanity has said to Nature: “You are mine” The Green Man has returned as the living face of the whole earth so that through his mouth we may say to the universe; “We are one.” ~ William Anderson
Of the many guises of the Teutonic god Wotan, the Green Man is certainly one. As such, he symbolizes the triumph of Life and the coming Spring over Winter and Death. Other figures that relate to the Green Man are the Celtic god Cernunnos, Sylvanus, Derg Corra, Okeanus, Green George, Jack in the Green, John Barleycorn, Leaf King, Robin Goodfellow, Puck, and The Green Knight. All of these name are likewise known to have a link with the All High god Wotan, to include the story of Robin Hood whose teacher was ‘Herne the Hunter’, who was in actuality Wotan in the guise of that horned and all wise deity. In Britain, May Day was connected with Robin Hood, not unsuitably, since that great outlaw lived in the greenwood and dressed his men in Lincoln green. Robin was well known as a rouge, a prankster, an archetypal figure whose center of operations is the green forest, an archetypal Otherworld or Never-land which lies beyond the predictable and the known—all of which gives him a decidedly Pan-ish air. The word “Robin” has various connotations: in Cornwall, it was a term for “penis”, and Robin Hood has indeed been depicted as the phallic lord, with ram’s horns and legs, leading a coven in their dance. He has also been linked with Merlyn, the great wizard of Arthurian legend who, in the forest of Broceliande, transformed himself into such a Shape as eyes had never seen before—-the Ward of the Wood, part-animal, part man—-around whom all the wild beasts gathered in such a multitude that none could tell their number. In the blood of Robin Hood flow two ancestral streams: that of the Green Man, spirit of vegetation, in his leaf-colored costume; and that of the satyr, goat, or stag, the spirit of wild Nature and phallic Horned God known elsewhere as Pan, Dionysus or Cernunnos. If any two figures can be said to sum up the spirit of May, it is those of Maid Marian and Robin Hood. Maid Marian, is yet another Maiden and yet another Mary, closely identified with the May Bride of the Saxons and later with the May Queen. She is the White Lady of the woodland who could shape-shift herself into a deer, and who joined her lover and his “coven” or band of merry men, for their wild revels in Sherwood Forest. The story of Peter Pan, who enters the earthly world from Never-land, clothed in green leaves ties in with the Green Man archetype as well.
Green is the color of ‘hope for eternal life’, and the ‘green pastures’ are the eternal meadows of heaven. Green is also frequently worn by fairies and, for some unknown reason, it is the color of envy. In some locations of the British Isles, the fairies are called “Greenies” and “Greencoaties”. The original Santa Claus character derived from Wotan who was in distant days depicted with deer antlers and wreathed in ivy. Later in the early 20th century the Coca Cola company in their advertising campaign, transformed the Wotanic image of Santa Claus into the image we have come to be familiar with today during our Yule season. The Yule tree, symbolic of the Wotanic ‘Yggdrasil’ (world tree) becomes symbolized as an evergreen tree which is a tree known to always remain green, the ‘Tree of Life’ that never dies. Many old European customs involving holly, ivy, and other evergreens mark, or look forward to, the renewal of life in the spring. The Green Knight is depicted as an immortal giant whose club is of the holly-bush. The use of clubs, is a typical symbol of the Green Man. Sir Gawain, who appears in the Irish version as Cuchulain, something of a Celtic Hercules, make a compact between them to behead one another at alternate New Years—meaning midsummer and midwinter—but in effect, the Holly Knight spares the Oak Knight, which he has the power to do being that he is really the vernal Green Man who rules over the abundance of the wild earth, and god of the forests and woods.
No! Humans cannot be distinguished from animals, from wildness, from nature, from the unconscious realms. We cannot be distinguished from the intense communion our bodies share with these things. Our distinction is self-made, and if continued will lead to our demise. Through our bodies, our somatic processes, and especially through sexuality, we awaken to awareness of the interconnections, not the separations between things. We awaken to all the nuances of life. Sexuality possibly holds the most powerful key for our return, for our re-creation of ourselves. Sexuality is the nature of the body itself, and through it we celebrate our unity with all the elements of life on earth.” ~ Nicholas R. Mann
The Green Man can be found weaving his way all throughout European history, prehistory and the entire Native European tradition. His image peers out upon the world in our architecture, stained glass, sculpture, painting, mythology, literature and folklore. Many similarities can be found between Man and the Tree of Life, as man himself is something of an animated version of the Tree of Life. In William Andersons book, “The Green Man” he brings out a very profound and significant point of how the Green Man works within us when he states: “We think of the Green Man as a visual image, as an object sculpted in stone or carved in wood, but the emotions he expresses transcend the form and their vitality is equally powerful when transmitted through the dance of the dramatic rituals of the folk custom and in the rhythms and melodies of poetry and song. We do not look at his leaves and blades of grass; we hear them singing and speaking to us; we touch and smell and taste his vegetation and his fruits. When an affection for a particular plant or tree is aroused in us we are linked through an emotional bond, more subtle and immediate than the effect of scent, to the greater world of vegetation of which the plant or tree is a part. It is a deep, wise world, one to which we can only respond because we possess it in our own natures, and in the instinctive symbolism of the soul, in the Tree of Life that forms the spring column, in the roots of our own feet and legs, in the branches of our arms, and in the flowering and fruiting of our thoughts and feelings in the crown of the head.”
Wild I was, Toes hardened and black, Eating bark and berries. Shaggy I became, Bent over, Until running with the boar one day, I knew I was the same. Wild I was, Legs taut and thickened, Hair matted and rank. My bed in winter, A cave, Lined with the forest’s deep leaves, But to this I attribute no shame. Wild I was, Feathered arms, Lifting from the trees. Scales across my back, I ate, The cobs in the pool of wisdom, Then a man once more I became.”
The Green Man can bring out within man the transcendental impulse to experience ecstasy and forms of awareness that lifts humans out of the recurrent patterns of the social and 9 to 5 work-a-day life which entraps and imprisons them to the beast of their own unnatural making; the beast that feeds upon and devours the souls of mankind. Author Nicholas R. Mann gives a vivid description of his own personal journey inwards into the essence of the Green Man while visiting in Ireland, described in his book, “His Story”. Here is a segment of his rite of passage into the world of the Green Man:
Without hesitation, I drink down the liquid. It tastes rich and strange. I find myself—as though propelled by a giant hand— turning around to face the stag men. I am moving backward toward the throne and the seated presence. The motion is irresistible. I find myself sitting. To my astonishment I feel the limbs of the Green Man surrounding and filling my own. I feel his powerful, shaggy legs enveloping mine. I feel his deep, knotted chest enclosing my chest. I feel his thick arms filling my own. And then, the most extraordinary thing, the power of the man, the elixir, the throne, the earth itself—which, I cannot say—begins to rise upward from the base of my spine. It is pure sexual energy. But it does not rise as I would expect, up my love member. It rises within. I have the sensation of an inverted phallus moving up my spine. It courses like liquid fire through my body. It reaches my head. It divides into two and pushes against my temples and out of my skull. I have two great horns for a crown.
I feel ecstatic. I am full of power. I am poised to act, yet at the same time I know I don’t have to do anything. The horns need stillness to be worn. And when balanced they act like two antennae—organs of great sensitivity—connecting me to the heavens, to the stars, and with threads of awareness to every living thing. I don’t know how long this moment lasts. Pure consciousness of life force has replaced thought. Yet now, there is something else. I have to stand. I have to walk back between the rows of my ancestors, the stag men. I am acutely aware of keeping the balance demanded by the great and heavy horns. As I pass them by, the stag men bless me. They reach out and touch their fingers to my brow. They touch the points of their weapons to my skin. I, in turn, touch their brows. At the exit from the cave I am faced with a grave difficulty. How do I get these horns out through the narrow opening? The problem seems ridiculous, absurd. I laugh, go down on all fours, twist my head to one side and then burst out of the cave with an exhilarating sensation of power.”
The Green Man is a benevolent entity despite his virile lusty animalism, strength and power. He is highly intelligent which may explain the gentle and understanding side of his nature. His appeal has the ability of reaching down into the deepest levels of both men and women equally. He is the true essence of life, growth and all of Natures primal life living urge. One can almost feel his vast reservoir of masculine sexual energy. When you walk through the green leafy forest, look closely and you will glimpse his face there in the shadows. Stroll through any large city and you will also see him peering out at you in forgotten spaces in carved wood, stone, stained glass, tavern signs, and even in commercial products, most familiar being, the “Jolly Green Giant”. Since the dawn of the industrial age the world has all but forgotten the Green Man, but his presence is rising with the growing urgency of the times. The more images of the Green Man that we can produce serves the world for the better. We need his image to remind all of mankind that we humans can no longer continue raping and polluting the precious life sustaining earth, water, and air that are not only vital for Mother Nature to survive, but the survival of all living life on this ever shrinking fragile planet as well.
Leaf and head, head and leaf, both are the foci of reception and transmission, interfaces of exchange between hidden and invisible chemical factories and the world outside that begins from the air round bark and leaf in the one case and round skin and hair in the other, the envelopes enfolding self from not self. But that division is a delusion: can the tree be separated from the air it absorbs and releases in different forms from the gallons of water that it draws up and then transpires to the atmosphere? Can we be considered in separation from the food we swallow, the air we breathe or the impressions we receive through our senses any more than we can from what we excrete, exhale or speak? Furthermore, can human beings be considered viable without leaf or grass or tree, the providers of our food, our air and our most delightful impressions?” ~ William Anderson
Source Article from http://www.renegadetribune.com/the-green-man/
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