As Above, So Below

Posted: December 26, 2025 | Author: David | Filed under: consciousness, Little Green Thumbs, Portfolio - Elena's work | Tags: hildegard-von-bingen, mother-trees |1 Comment

Two wise women demonstrate the ancient wisdom, passed down millennia, of the Emerald Tablet: “That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above,”  

The “Sibyl of the Rhine” is our first wise woman, the polymath writer, composer, philosopher, mystic and visionary of the High Middle Ages.  The Abbess of several Benedictine monasteries, the breadth of her intellect included being a founder of scientific natural history in Germany.  A truly remarkable and wise woman was Hildegard van Bingen. 

Hildegard’s central theme was Vriditas, a Latin term meaning “greenness” but with added nuance of vitality, growth and lushness; the creative life-giving force of nature and spirit.  Simply stated, physical well-being is the “greening power” of Gaia, that relates both to the physical and to the spiritual.  As above, so below; all life is one, all is connected.  

Her scientific master work is the Book of the Subtleties of the Diverse Nature of Creatures.  Divided into two sections, the Physica is a comprehensive treatise and medicinal catalog of plants, fish, birds, insects and minerals, while the Causae et Curae emphasized the causes of disease and their corresponding natural treatments.  

Hildegard closely observed the plants in her monastery’s garden and how – as Babs Mahany wrote – “stem and bud absorbed the sunlight [which] brought the fronds’ unfurling.”  Her closely observed empirical observations combined with mystical visions detailed that which is above ground.  

The “wood wide web” scientist, the forest ecologist and professor of the underground, is our second wise woman.  Dr. Suzanne Simard is a titan among modern scientists, who challenged the conventional view that ecosystems are competitive and forests are simply the source of timber or pulp.  Over decades she researched and discovered the cooperative nature of forests through roots and fungal networks, the mycorrhizal, that facilitate nutrient, water, sugar and carbon exchange; a chemical signaling between trees communicating stress and providing a network for communal support.  

Dr. Simard identified century old “Mother Trees” that nurture younger seedlings, sending nutrients outward to feed and sustain the weaker, baby trees.  Her Mother Tree Project is rooted in the idea that forests are deeply interconnected ecosystems, social creatures demonstrating traits of cooperative civil society.   

Soil is not “dirt,” but a vital and complex life source of sharing and exchange, the basis upon which life unfurls.  The soil maven Nance Klehm in her book, “The Soil Keepers,” described it: “When we stand on land, we stand on the ones who have come before us.  We stand on our ancestors.  We realize we have inherited their legacy, the way they perceived land, the way they lived with the ground, the way their hands worked the soil, or didn’t.”

As above there is light, so below there is darkness; 

As above vriditas unfurling, so below nutrients and sugars flow; 

As above oxygen creation, so below communication and exchange; 

As above the lotus flower, so below the mud.  

All is interconnected, the cosmic dance of Gaia.  

The Emerald Tablet is a foundational text, attributed to the Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus, who integrated Greek and Egyptian wisdom into a body of knowledge on the interrelationship between the material and the divine.  The teachings influenced both Pythagorus and Plato, formed the basis of Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, were key to Renaissance humanists. 

The Emerald Tablet was most likely written in the Syriac language of the Fertile Crescent, but the first extant text appeared in the Arabic, during the Islamic Golden Age, written by Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, the “Father of Chemistry.”  From the 12th century onward multiple Latin translations followed, introducing the text to Europe and then in 1680, seven years before publishing his magnum opus The Principia, Isaac Newton made an English translation.  More recently, it significantly influenced the work of Madame Blavatsky, William Butler Yeats, and Carl Jung.  

And two wise women, 900 years apart, exemplify the enduring truth of “as above, so below,” the essence of the Emerald Tablet.  Here is the full text in English from the Arabic of Jābir ibn Ḥayyān:

Truth! Certainty! That in which there is no doubt!

That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above,

working the miracles of one [thing]. As all things were from One.

Its father is the Sun and its mother the Moon.

The Earth carried it in her belly, and the Wind nourished it in her belly,

as Earth which shall become Fire.

Feed the Earth from that which is subtle,

with the greatest power. It ascends from the earth to the heaven

and becomes ruler over that which is above and that which is below.

حقا يقينا لا شك فيه
إن الأعلى من الأسفل والأسفل من الأعلى
عمل العجائب من واحد كما كانت الأشياء كلها من واحد
وأبوه الشمس وأمه القمر
حملته الأرض في بطنها وغذته الريح في بطنها
نار صارت أرضا
اغذوا الأرض من اللطيف
بقوة القوى يصعد من الأرض إلى السماء
فيكون مسلطا على الأعلى والأسفل

________________________________________

Snow here, photos by Elena where marked.

---