THE GREEN MAN ORO Editions

Spring drew on...and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 1847

Our story of the search for wisdom of place begins with the Green Man. His character is based on the protagonist known as The Fool, who is traditionally represented by the primary card of the major arcana in the tarot allegory. Like the Fool, the Green Man is about to undertake a journey with confidence and faith. He is poised to step off the precipice and into the magical realm of the genius loci The precipice represents the edge of the known world, the border of the regions in which dwell the hidden forces of nature.

The Green Man is a folkloric forest figure typically portrayed with attributes of both wild nature and human nature. Garbed in leaves and branches, the historical character remains vivid in our collective imaginations, sharing traits with Dionysus and Pan as well as with Robin Hood and ‘‘Jack-in-the-Green’’—who appears to this

Dionysus was the Greek god of agricultural productivity and renewal based on the myth of his rebirth. Like his Roman counterpart Bacchus, he became known as the god of wine and was often associated with sensational festivals of abandon that took place in nature.