I refer here to the previously mentioned phallic symbolism of Rudra in the Upanishads:

(4) “We call for help below to the flaming Rudra, to the one bringing the sacrifice; him who encircles and wanders (wandering in the vault of Heaven) to the seer.”

2, 33, 5:

“He who opens up the sweet, who listens to our calls, the ruddy one, with the beautiful helmet, may he not give us over to the powers of jealousy.

(6) “I have been rejoiced by the bull connected with Marut, the supplicating one with strong force of life.

(8) “Sound the powerful song of praise to the ruddy bull to the white shining one; worship the flaming one with honor, we sing of the shining being Rudra.

“May Rudra’s missile (arrow) not be used on us, may the great displeasure of the shining one pass us by: Unbend the firm (bow or hard arrow?) for the princes, thou who blessest with the waters of thy body (generative strength), be gracious to our children and grandchildren.”[[449]]

In this way we pass from the realm of mother symbolism imperceptibly into the realm of male phallic symbolism. This element also lies in the tree, even in the family tree, as is distinctly shown by the mediæval family trees. From the first ancestor there grows upward, in the place of the “membrum virile,” the trunk of the great tree. The bisexual symbolic character of the tree is intimated by the fact that in Latin trees have a masculine termination and a feminine gender.[[450]] The feminine (especially the maternal) meaning of the forest and the phallic significance of trees in dreams is well known. I mention an example.

It concerns a woman who had always been nervous, and who, after many years of marriage, became ill as a result of the typical retention of the libido. She had the following dream after she had learned to know a young man of many engaging free opinions who was very pleasing to her: She found herself in a garden where stood a remarkable exotic tree with strange red fleshy flowers or fruits. She picked them and ate them. Then, to her horror, she felt that she was poisoned. This dream idea may easily be understood by means of the antique or poetic symbolism, so I can spare information as to the analytic material.

The double significance of the tree is readily explained by the fact that such symbols are not to be understood “anatomically” but psychologically as libido symbols; therefore, it is not permissible to interpret the tree on account of its similar form as directly phallic; it can also be called a woman or the uterus of the mother. The uniformity of the significance lies alone in the similarity to the libido.[[451]] One loses one’s way in one “cul de sac” after another by saying that this is the symbol substituted for the mother and that for the penis. In this realm there is no fixed significance of things. The only reality here is the libido, for which “all that is perishable is merely a symbol.” It is not the physical actual mother, but the libido of the son, the object of which was once the mother. We take mythologic symbols much too concretely and wonder at every step about the endless contradictions. These contradictions arise only because we constantly forget that in the realm of phantasy “feeling is all.” Whenever we read, therefore, “his mother was a wicked sorcerer,” the translation is as follows: The son is in love with her, namely, he is unable to detach his libido from the mother-imago; he therefore suffers from incestuous resistance.