#elder tree

In The Most of the Tree sat A Kindly Old Woman, illustration to Elder Mother Tree, by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939), from Fairy Tales, written by Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75).

“To have Conference with a Fairy- Stroll underneath an Elder tree when the Sun is at the (highest) hottest… And stand under the Tree and say, Magram Magrano Three times and you shall see a flower spring like yellow Gold or Gold yellow And when you have it you shall want nothing. There will also appear a fair woman- Demand of her what thou wilt have And thou shalt have it.” (Grimoire, ed. D. Rankine, page 289)

Part 30: The 🍎 Doesn't Fall Far from the Elder 🌳

PART 1 HERE | PART 2 HERE | PART 3 HERE | PART 4 HERE PART 5 HERE | PART 6 HERE | PART 7 HERE | PART 8 HERE PART 9 HERE | PART 10 HERE | PART 11 HERE | PART 12 HERE PART 13 HERE | PART 14 HERE | PART 15 HERE | PART 16 HERE PART 17 HERE | PART 18 HERE | PART 19 HERE | PART 20 HERE PART 21 HERE |PART 22 HERE | PART 23 HERE | PART 24 HERE PART 25 HERE | PART 26 HERE | PART 27 HERE | PART 28 HERE PART 29 (1/?) HERE | PART 31 (3/?) HERE PART ♾️ HERE | PART 🤫 HERE | PART ❤️👬 HERE

How fitting that Part 30 is where I finally go in-depth with Tharizdun (333 baby) who, if you've read my previous posts, I believe might be referred to as Mother Goose on the show.

But for the sake of my Shavian analysis of ST's "female triumvirate", I'll also be referring to the Chained Goddess as Lilith, the primordial Mother.

🚨 WARNING: TALES FROM '85 SPOILERS AHEAD 🚨

Now, in my last post, not only did I analyze the Mind Flayer through the dark feminine archetypes of the Serpent and the Spider, but I predicted that if mysterious new girl Nikki Baxter from Tales of '85 was actually the Mind Flayer, then that likely meant that her mom, Anna, was Mother Goose.

After all, the Duffer Brothers and ST creatives had to figure out some way to lay in the idea of an even bigger "big bad" than the MF.

But never did I imagine them doing it so explicitly, and using She-Ra to do so. When the Party is trying to figure out the source (referred to as a "common ancestor") of the new vine monsters in Hawkins, Dustin comes up with this convenient analogy:

From Tales from '85:

Dustin: "Hordak. Like, controls the Horde. The biggest baddie of all the baddies, except for his boss, Horde Prime, of course."

Hordak being the MF, the Horde being the Hive Mind, and Horde Prime being MG.

Then, over the course of investigating, Dustin comes across a major clue that leads him to straight-up say it:

"Guys, I know who it is! [...] Horde Prime, the big bad who made the Queen [note the feminine title for the MF], the vines, all of it!"

Mrs. Baxter = Horde Prime = Mother Goose = Tharizdun

Of course, the real baddie they're looking for turns out not to be Mrs. B, but that doesn't mean Dustin wasn't right... But I'll get back to that in a second.

First, I want to return to etymology, specifically the meaning of the name Baxter -- BAKER.

Why is this important? This classic nursery rhyme:

Who is the Baker who baked our "birds of a feather" (the Party), into the perfect pi(e)?

None other than the author of "Sing a Song of Sixpence",

Mother Goose.

I mentioned this in Parts 17 and 19, but part of Mike's S1 Thessalhydra campaign takes direct inspiration from "Sing a Song of Sixpence", making it likely that this whole thing has been just as much her campaign as it's been Mike's.

Who's the real DM?

Well, I predicted she already had some help via Mr. Clarke, her cleric turned evil wizard, who'd been guiding the Party the entire time, feeding them information about the rules of the world the way a DM would.

That theory was only further confirmed on TF85, when Mr. Clarke suddenly took a sabbatical to make way for...

Now, what was Mr. Clarke doing on this "sabbatical"?

But back to Lilith -- *who* is she?

From Back to Methuselah:

THE SERPENT: "Do. Dare it. Everything is possible: everything. Listen. I am old. I am the old serpent, older than Adam, older than Eve. I remember Lilith, who came before Adam and Eve. I was her darling as I am yours. She was alone: there was no man with her. She saw death as you saw it when the fawn fell; and she knew then that she must find out how to renew herself and cast the skin like me. She had a mighty will: she strove and strove and willed and willed for more moons than there are leaves on all the trees of the garden. Her pangs were terrible: her groans drove sleep from Eden. She said it must never be again: that the burden of renewing life was past bearing: that it was too much for one. And when she cast the skin, lo! there was not one new Lilith but two: one like herself, the other like Adam. You were the one: Adam was the other."

In Shaw's play, God as we know him (a Father figure) does not figure into the picture until Cain invents him to justify his own barbarous actions.

The only original Creator ("Horde Prime") the play acknowledges is Lilith, who was alone, realized she was at risk of extinction, and so "renewed" herself by making Man and Woman, who would take on the burden of Life after her.

Mother Goose's Eve and Adam?

In Shaw's play, for all intents and purposes, Lilith is God (validating Arianators everywhere).

However, in Mesopotamian and Jewish folklore, Lilith (whose name means "night monster", "screech owl", or "night hag") wasn't a goddess, but a she-demon who was the true first woman, created for Adam, and then ran away from Eden because she refused to submit to him.

In ancient Mesopotamia, her name was used to refer to "disease-carrying wind spirits", or to a class of demons who were the spirits of adolescent girls who never gave birth.

She is one of the first figures representing the dark feminine, and society's view of female rebellion and independence.

Going back to Shaw's own motivator for writing the play Back to Methuselah -- Creative Evolution.

A refresher from Part 25 (that tbh, I didn't explain super-well the first time): In light of Darwin's exciting theories on natural selection, Shaw became a staunch Creative Evolutionist, based on the philosophy conceived by Henri Bergson. Where Darwin saw natural selection as entirely random, merely an indicator of which traits worked best and persisted in particular environments ("survival of the fittest", as Herbert Spencer called it), Bergson believed that, for mankind, it was our free will and unique creative impulses that drove our evolution, seemingly in perpetuity. However, Shaw took Creative Evolution a step further than Bergson. Unlike Bergson, whose philosophy led him to believe that human creativity was limitless, Shaw believed there was an end goal for humanity to achieve, driven by a version of Bergson's "élan vital", or "the Life Force". The Life Force was Shaw's term for "the driving, undeniable, uncontrollable quest of men and women to perpetuate, in fact, even improve the human race by attempting to create a higher life form known as the Superman" (Lenker, 47). Before you say anything, yes -- it's basically eugenics; Shaw's politics are very baffling.

Compared to Bergson, Shaw's view of human evolution is teleological, meaning it has a specific endpoint. In humanity's case, it would be to create an Immortal Superman.

However, if history has shown us anything, "progress" does not move in a *straight* line, but rather...

A SPIRAL

The spiral is also the symbol of the Pachamama in Peru: Mother Earth.

Representing cosmic energy and the cyclicality of life, death, and rebirth.

FYI, the mathematical formulas for the logarithmic, Golden, and Archimedean spirals, frequently found in nature, all use pi in their formulas.

Speaking of nature, check this out --

Netflix Puzzled Clues from Earth Day (4/22):

It was almost too perfect, because all three of these are symbols you'll see connect to Mother Goose --

As the title of this post indicates, if the MF is the Serpent of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, then that means MG must be the Tree of Life -- the tree granting immortality that God could not allow Adam and Eve to eat from, fearing it would turn them into gods. Hence their expulsion from Eden.

The Tree of Life, or the World Tree, also happens to be an archetype seen across many cultures' mythologies, representing immortality and fertility. I briefly discussed it in this Puzzlegate post, tying it to the Bird & Serpent motif (the bird representing the heavenly world above, and the serpent representing the underworld).

Lilith also has a connection as a spirit of trees, as seen in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest surviving written story:

Hold onto these symbols, because they come back.

Now, if this tree symbolism is sparking anything with you, it might be because of this mention in ST's pilot --

After offering Nancy a slice of pizza (pie) and having the door shut in his face, *Dustin* complains that Nancy has turned into a "real jerk". She used to be cool --

Could that mean Mother Goose is the Elder Tree?

Well, a tree has deep roots that keep it stuck in place, almost like a Chained God.

While ST fans have connected mushrooms to the MF, pine trees was a very specific reference.

Trees and types of trees have been mentioned a lot on Puzzled, but this one clue took me out when I was doing my Back to Methuselah research:

This tree? A bristlecone pine tree named Methuselah, living in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern CA.

Another real-life miracle tree?

Next symbol, the Moon.

The ultimate symbol of Yin energy, the direct opposite and complement to the Sun, and the ultimate mother figure who dictates the ocean's tides (and menstrual cycles, which in turn dictate reproduction).

Although the "Changing Woman" -- also known as the Whiteshell Woman and the Whitepainted Woman -- is technically an Earth Mother figure in indigenous American mythology, I would argue she links to the moon too.

She is also known as the Moon Woman after all, and whose face changes more than the Moon?

Check out the stories of Women in Native American mythology in the link I included -- the connections are wild.

From Episode 3 of TF85 "Evolution":

Now, after Rosario (the pie-eating, She-Ra watcher 👀) is freed from the Jerk O'Lantern monster, the dying creature releases green spores that float off...

The screen flips from upside down to rightside up, ominous music begins to play, revealing a FULL MOON.

Who else has a connection to the Moon?

Wearing her "Lost Sister" outfit, which is when MG's avatar reunites with her lost daughter, Kali the MF.

Another point for the "El is Tharizdun's avatar" camp, of which there are already many proofs. But here's one more:

Except you should... BECAUSE IT'S YOUR FACE. [Nikki was right to side-eye]

Finally, there's the World Turtle, which, if you watched ATLA, you'll be familiar with:

In many cultures, it is/was believed that the World/Cosmic Turtle carries a flat Earth on her back.

But when philosophers prod at that (then who carries the Turtle?), the phrase "It's turtles all the way down" was coined.

On the show, there's only one turtle of note -- Dustin's pet turtle aptly named Yertle (like the Dr. Seuss book) that he moves to make room for Dart (who represents homosexuality, and the MF).

Also, Dustin with the MG connection AGAIN 👀 I'm really gonna have to update that post soon.

Another famous cosmic turtle, not surprisingly, comes from the Stephen King universe -- Maturin.

"Kind, wise, loving, gentle, compassionate, benevolent", providing "wisdom, power, and aid" to those who need it.

IT's arch-nemesis (although Maturin called him "brother" her "daughter") who has false perception of the Turtle.

Here is where we run into some underlying tension that didn't make itself obvious on ST, but has reared its head on Tales from '85.

Later in TF85 S1, Mrs. Baxter decides it's time to *move again* and start fresh, viewing their time in Hawkins as a "failed experiment" (yikes, what could that mean for future ST?)

We the audience can sense this is a pattern for Mrs. Baxter, much to Nikki's disdain:

Something is amiss between mother and daughter. And I have a feeling this whole campaign has been about mending that rift, at least on MG's end.

But, it does seem like there's a lot that needs healing.

As was referenced earlier, Lilith is associated with the owl.

Who also has a famous connection with the owl? Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, and divine punisher of both --

Arachne, who was rebuked by Athena for being the better weaver, hung herself out of shame, and was turned into a spider.

And Medusa, the demogorgon Athena transformed into a monster with serpents for hair after she was raped by Poseidon in her temple.

So, Athena is so not a girls' girl.

And it seems that way for Mrs. Baxter too, who only seems to have come to Hawkins to be with her boyfriend, Daniel, whose name means "God (El) is my judge".

He shares a name with the Biblical hero who "interprets dreams and receives apocalyptic visions."

Only this Daniel steals Mrs. Baxter's *regenerative* research without her knowing and uses it to create gluttonous vine monsters that wreak havoc across Hawkins without him knowing.

A former Hawkins Lab scientist, we learn that Daniel was part of the Scientific Progress Committee and he has nothing but a watch to show for it. He uses Anna's research in hopes of finally making a breakthrough that will give him the recognition (and immortality?) he seeks.

He takes a great power and uses it irresponsibly. He takes Anna's powers of creation, and uses it to destroy.

Abusing and destroying her daughter, the Mind Flayer, in the process --

The representation of truth, the knowledge of good and evil, rebellion and independence. Freedom from conformity.

All the things Lilith used to represent.

But like I said before, progress, like time, does not move forward, but in a circle (or spiral) 🌀

Like Daniel misappropriates Anna's research, El has to reprimand her own boyfriend, Mike, for taking away her agency on TF85:

"You do not speak for me."

Makes sense given this information about Tharizdun:

Mr. Clarke, Daniel, Mike: Men misunderstanding and misinterpreting Tharizdun/Mother Goose and what she seeks to do --

Make amends with her Lost Daughter. Which means she has to go in and do it herself.

BTW, for more on ST's symbolism re: MG, check out my Puzzlgate "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" analysis post.

Stay Tuned.

“For Thy Golden Tree”

“Elder Mother”

Out of the stony soil you rise, feet in the swamps, a crown of creamy lace veils your shiny black eyes. Hollow brown veins remind me of the snakes, sleeping within your dry roots-curled and nesting a jewel of wisdom, holding hands with fate.

Ripples of skin have folded back into bark over time, the rose colored speckles under your ancient confetti change my grief to joy.

There is no more time this year, after tonight-descent

molten earth blood moves slowly back down and a nauseous perfume hangs in the air.

After waking in your shade, Elder Mother, please

forgive the stormy blue melancholy of today, and please let your pipes be filled with music.

By chance, if I should burn spinning wheels, cradles, ribbons of satin, or red thread

I will surely call upon your magic again.

Forlorn, and golden too- Venomous treasure and wicked hands- I love you.

-Corinne Boyer, written for “Folk herbalist: traditional practice, plant folklore, kitchen medicine and community herbalism”