Arbora Vita Music

Arbora Vita Music is a record label founded in 2001 and run entirely by its only artist Kristin Sweetland. The name "Arbora Vita" comes from the Latin Arbor Vitae meaning "Tree of Life." Arborvitae is also a name that refers to the botanical species thuja occidentalis (east coast white cedar) and thuja plicata (west coast red cedar.)

The Arbora Vita logo is derived from two separate symbols that have graced all mystical and spiritual traditions alike from ancient until modern times. Ouroboros is the name given to the image of the serpent swallowing its tail. The word comes from the Gnostic term for the "Great World Serpent" who was thought to encircle the earth. The image of this "World Serpent" is prevalent in mythologies from the Middle East to Egypt, Western Europe, Greece, Judaic, Hindu, and Christian traditions. The double ouroboros combines two serpents, one winged, each biting the tail of the other to from a circle. This image represents the eternal cycles of death and rebirth in nature. In alchemy this symbol represents the great alchemical dictum Solve et Coagula, meaning "dissolve the body and coagulate the spirit." The lower winged serpent is the body, the matter or "unenlightened individual" that must be dissolved. The upper serpent is the spirit. Its wings denote its elusive volatile quality which must be fixed in order to be embodied. The crown on its head reveals its divine nature. The symbol represents the union of opposites, an alchemical yin-yang. The image of the Tree of Life can also be traced to many cultural beginnings. Many myths speak of the "World Tree" that was somehow involved in the creation of the universe. The Maya called it the "First Tree of the World" and the Norse called it the "Great Tree of Yggdrasil." In Persia and India the "Great Tree of the World" was depicted as five branches holding the five elements of creation earth, air, fire, water and ether. In Judaic tradition the "Kaballah" (Hebrew meaning oral tradition) came from a strain of mysticism devoted to penetrating the inner meaning of the Torah, the Jewish scriptures. The tree of life or the "Sephiroth" was the key image of the Kaballah. It was depicted as an arrangement of ten spheres that illustrated the model of creation. The Arbora Vita logo incorporates an alchemical etching of the "Philosophical Tree" from a text written by J.D Mylius in 1628. This particular image is described as following "The dissolving and binding powers sit opposite one another on the branches; on the bottom left is volatile Mercury with the winged shoes, and to his right is the fire spitting Sulphur. Above them, diagonally reversed, are their forms in sublimated and crowned state. On the top level, the third Work, the two unite as lunar tincture. From this finally emerges the solid sulphur, the son of the sun. He wears the crown of three realms, vegetable, animal and mineral."