Fountain 21 The Tree of Life or p.s. something I have found right under my nose, so to speak.

Silly me.
Having said on my Fountain 21 post:

  "Dore-L'Eglise
 c. 15th-16th Century stone cross depicting baby Jesus swaddled 
and patient in anticipation

 of his ultimate crucifixion thirty-three years later.

 

I have never seen this iconography on any of the hundreds of French stone crosses that I come across in my travels.....etc etc..."


                            
                   I then found this small (10x15 cm), low relief image of the swaddled baby Jesus.

It was hanging on the wall in my bedroom where it has hung for 15 years and suddenly, in my more domestic travels with a dusting cloth, I see it afresh.

The inscription INRI, Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm  (Latin for "Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews") that was mounted above Jesus' head at the time of his crucifixion by the ironic Pontius Pilate, is replaced by a little plaque inscribed with "Arbor Vitae" at his feet.


I am always fascinated by the process of communication and the power of the symbolic inferences in the words we so easily use willy-nilly.

The Tree of Life can mean many things, sacred and profane, to many people:

• Mesoamerican world tree
• Tree of life (biblical), a tree in the Garden of Eden
• Tree of life (Kabbalah), a mystical concept within the Kabbalah of Judaism
• Tree of Life (Latter-day Saints), described in the Book of Mormon
• Tree of life vision, a more detailed description of Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life contained in the Book of Mormon
• Etz Chaim, a religious Hebrew term for "Tree of Life"
• Yggdrasil, the world tree in Norse mythology

                        

• Tree of life (biology), a metaphor describing the interrelatedness of living things through evolution
• Tree of Life Web Project, a collaborative project providing information about the diversity and phylogeny of life on Earth
• Arborvitae (Latin for "tree of life"), Thuja, a genus of coniferous trees
• Arbor vitae (anatomy) (Latin for "tree of life"), the cerebellar white matter, named for its branched, tree-like appearance
• Baobabs (sometimes called the "tree of life"), a genus of African tree
•  arbor vitæ uteri, a part of the canal of the cervix
   

• The Tree of Life, English version of Geedka nolosha (1988), a short film from Somali writer and director Abdulkadir Ahmed Said
• Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life, a 2009 BBC documentary
• T.o.L. ("Trees of Life"), is the collective name for the creators of the film Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
• The Tree of Life (film), a 2011 film directed by Terrence Malick
•  

• The Tree of Life, novel by Chava Rosenfarb 1972
• The Tree of Life, novel by Hugh Nissenson 1985
• The Tree of Life (Bernice Summerfield), a 2005 Dr Who novel by Mark Michalowski
• The Tree of Life, an exposition of magick written by Israel Regardie in 1932
• Tree-of-Life, a plot device in the Known Space science fiction stories

==Sculpture==*Wrap Sculptures series, Edenic collapsed-volume wrap sculpture "Trees Of Life" installations developed by Peter G Pereira, New York City

• Metaphor: The Tree of Utah, a sculpture in the Utah desert also known as the "Tree of Life"
• Tree of Life (craft) a clay sculpture style associated with Metepec, Mexico State
• Tree of Life (Kester) a Mozambican sculpture now in the British Museum
• Tree of Life (White), a sculpture at Mitchell Boulevard Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

• The Tree of Life (Cecil Taylor album), a 1998 album by Cecil Taylor
• The Tree of Life (soundtrack), a 2011 album by Alexandre Desplat; in association with film directed by Terrence Malick
• Tree of Life (Lila Downs album), album by Lila Downs
 

• The Tree of Life (Disney), the icon of Disney's Animal Kingdom
• The Tree of Life (module), an accessory for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game
• Tree of Life Christian Schools, a private school system in and near Columbus, Ohio
• Tree of Life, Bahrain, a solitary tree in the desert of Bahrain
• Árbol del Tule, a huge tree in Mexico also known as the "Tree of Life"
• The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center run by Gabriel Cousens

Wikipedia, again I bow down to you as a starting point and an ending point and all the points in between for the information/misinformation you so generously give.