Tolkien Tide: The Beginning of Days
Quenta Silmarillion
Of the Beginning of Days
I always forget there were lights before the two trees, and that Morgoth destroys them too.
I wonder if Tolkien's gendering of the trees (and, I believe, the Sun and Moon to come) is meant to be reminiscent of the little we know of Norse conceptions of them: the Sun as woman and Moon as man. Or perhaps he simply inverted that compared to all the other mythologies he would have been familiar with. I feel like I have seen him comment on that in the letters but I can't remember.
We all remember, or at least I assume, that the "gift" of Eru to humankind is death, but here it's actually full free will -- the freedom to act and yearn beyond the set limits of the Music, something even elves can't do. And death is merely one of the means of accomplishing this. Humans are meant to participate in the Second Music, and I'm drawn to thinking of Tikkun, the Lurianic idea of humanity participating alongside God in the healing of the world.