The words 'tree' and 'true' [they are both 'treow']

SACRIFICE. The outer symbol of an inner work, an inner interchange between the gods and men-man giving what he has, the gods giving in return the horses of power, the heroes of Strength to be his retinue, winning for him victory in his battle with the hosts of dissolution..."

"The work of the Aryan is a sacrifice which is at once a battle and an ascent and a journey, a battle against the powers of darkness,an ascent to the highest peaks..."

"The principal features of the sacrifice are the kindling of the divine flame,the offering of the 'ghrta' and the Soma-wine and the chanting of the sacred word..."

"The object of the sacrifice is to win the higher or divine being and possess with it and make subject to its law and truth the lower or human existence..."[from 'Key To Vedic Symbolism', by Sri Aurobindo]

This is all too uncanny for words! The same emphasis on battle; the same joyousness! Not one scrap of Xtian style importuning-no, 'please God, give me more of this and less of that'-pah! Can we not see the mighty tree and roots of our Aryan Master Morality here? And all this from the word 'lark'! And in Nietzsche do we not see Nietzsche as the fruits of this tree...and Zarathustra, the sacrifice?

I'm moved by the relationship between the words 'tree' and 'true' [they are both 'treow'] in O.E., as they sum up the pagan faith known as 'Asatru' in its ethical and spiritual facets.As to fire, we must recall the Viking practice of cremation [and Hindu sutee] and the Zarathustrian belief in the ever-living fire; -like-wise the same belief is found among pagan Romans. When the fire is extinguished, then the world will end, or at least, the Aryan world. Of course the myth of Prometheus is central here [the latter's eternal torment is just another example of the eternal recurrence]. posted by WilliamNietzsche at 9:52 AM