Amanda Frayer artisan // illustrator // designer

Pine is considered a tree sacred to Dionysus, the god of wine. He is often depicted holding a thyrsus, a staff topped with a pine cone. This symbolizes fertility and regeneration. His followers, the Satyrs (goat men) and Maenads (wild women), also carry thyrsi. As does the Egyptian solar god, Osiris, and the Catholic pope. In fact, Vatican Square has a large sculpture of a pine cone. Catholic architecture and ornamentation often include pine cones.

Pine cones are a sacred symbol for human enlightenment and the third eye. The pineal gland, shaped like (and named after) the pine cone, is at the geometric center of our brain and considered by many to be our biological third eye, the “Seat of the Soul.”

Depictions of Hindu deities interweave serpents and pine cones. In some cases, the gods hold a pine cone in an outstretched hand. Shiva, the god that danced the world into being, is portrayed with a head, or coiled hair, similarly shaped to a pine cone and interwoven with serpents.

One theory proposes that the pine cone is the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which led to Adam and Eve’s banishment from the Garden of Eden. This idea seems consistent with the appearance of pine cones with serpents across cultures.

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Believed to bring the wearer: abundance, fertility, peace, good fortune, health, immortality, love, prosperity, protection, purification, regeneration, enlightenment

Other associations: alleviating dark moods, purifying a new home, the third eye chakra or pineal gland, predicting the weather, staying the course through difficult times

Spirit animals: crow, raven