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A Childhood with Elms

11/2/2019

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American Elms (Ulmus americanus)
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My early childhood spent playing on the lawn with dogs, and with daydreams, was overseen by tall, swaying elms. I used to lay on my back and looked up to where their crowns almost met, at the always-blue Colorado sky. I knew their trunks as individuals that I can still see.  The one nearest the back steps had an inverted V scar that wept sap on its west side. It occasionally shed a limb onto the roof, worrying my father. The one by the swings, with phlox growing under it, was small and slender with bark almost black. My father said it was a different species. For awhile, there was a washing line tied to it. The biggest one grew in the corner by the alley and seemed a giant to me. There were three more along the side of the yard by the street. Neatly spaced and similarly proportioned, they stood like brothers.

Elms ringed the whole house. They were responsible for keeping it cool in summer. In return, we watered our shaggy, eccentric, old-fashioned lawn, and the elms drank, too.

Near the driveway there was an old crone of a mulberry, making it risky to hang out washing or park cars when the berries were in season, because the birds shat a loose profusion of violet emulsion everywhere until the mulberries were gone. We never ate them.

Further out, toward the vegetable garden there were more elms, but they were wild, unkempt, brushy things with crooked branches. I had a tyre on a rope on one big horizontal branch which my father pronounced safe enough. Overlooking our little plum orchard there was a climbable one, although not being an athletic child I never got very high. When my pet turtle died my mother helped me bury it under that tree, in a tin box. Sometime later I secretly dug it up to see what had happened. It was red as rust, like the box. The climbing tree was my witness.
When the plums came ripe at the end of the summer my father and I picked them, filling buckets and baskets and bowls, and stuffing ourselves all day long. It must have been the perfect environment for them, because the only care they got was water. I don't remember anyone making jam or drying them. I think we just ate as many as we possibly could and gave the rest away. The cherries were a different story. I think there were two trees, maybe three. They produced something we called Black Rag cherries. They were seriously sour, which I considered a major disappointment, but my mother would be in a flurry of excitment, because she used them to make cherry pies.
My mother was a legend in her own mind at making cherry pie. We put the cherries through a mechanical cherry pitter which screwed to the kitchen table, and you turned a crank. What didn't go into pies then were frozen for more pies later. I've never liked fruit pie. They say my mother's pastry was first class, but I didn't care for that dry, flaky stuff. Still, it was a few days of diversion and I thanked the gods of the supermarket that we could go there and get some nice sweet cherries that could be eaten fresh, and not wasted in pie.
Half our house was heated by an ancient furnace in the basement. The other half, built by my father and his friend, was heated by a fireplace that opened into two rooms, which we called dens. A family of three people, with three different rooms to sit in. That was us in a nutshell. We each needed our space. There were sofas and TVs and bookshelves everywhere. I always managed to get a seat by the fire, and so by the time I was eight or nine I tended it. Cleaned the grate, took out the ashes, carried wood, built the fire and kept it going. To this day, when I don't have a fire to tend I miss doing it.
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It was under the wild elms that I used to help my father cut firewood. As well as a good supply of fallen elm branches, he had a collection of massive pieces of cottonwood (the other main local tree) which we would try to split with metal wedges and big hammers. We had hand saws for cutting the elm branches. It was hard going, but I worked my apprenticeship from gathering and breaking kindling to carrying and stacking, taking one end of the two-man saw, through to solo sawing and taking the odd swing at those wedges with the hammer. Usually, we talk about the combined ages of two people working together, but in my father's case, I think you would need to subtract my age from his to really understand the situation. As I grew, and could do more, he was able to subtract my years from his own age, and continue cutting as much wood as he could at fifty, which was his age when I was born. At ten, I could take ten years off his fatigue level. At eighteen I left home, and when I came back for a visit, my father had bought his first chain saw.
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So I've made it this far without mentioning the dreaded Dutch elm disease. I've always felt that it's unfair to define an entire genus of trees by a disease. Yes, Dutch elm disease has killed countless trees in Europe and North America, but plenty have survived, and people's unwillingness to plant them, or even tolerate them, has also contributed to their absence from the modern landscape. Since the 1920s, programmes in many countries have been working to finding resistant trees in the existing population as well as breeding new varieties with resistance. No elm tree is completely immune to Dutch elm disease, as far as we know, but there are beautiful and resistant varieties available in the US and in Britain.

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English Elms (Ulmus procera)
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Wych Elm (Ulmus glabra)
It's also very likely that although there has been a surge in problems with the disease since the 1920s, it has always existed. Historically, there are reports of what sounds like the disease in the 17th and 19th centuries in England. Looking back much further, we know that there were big declines in elm populations in NW Europe around 4,000 BC and 1,000 BC. The first decline has been blamed on neolithic farmers, who probably were partly responsible, because they cleared land for agriculture, and also coppiced elms for animal feed. However, it appears that some form of the same disease we see today was also partly responsible. Perhaps the disease is in some way cyclical. Maybe it is more prevalent when elm trees become too numerous and crowded in an area. Maybe human activity has played a part, too, by moving the diseased wood around, by overplanting in the historical period (especially the 19th and 20th centuries), not to mention the added stresses that industrialisation and intensive agriculture put on nature.
PictureSiberian Elm (Ulmus pumila) in Colorado
In the area where I grew up, the Siberian elm (often wrongly called the Chinese elm) has become very common. It is now listed as an invasive species in many parts of the southwestern US, and there is no doubt that is has changed the landscape of plains and semi-desert areas, which are not known for large trees outside of riparian belts. Siberian elms are fast growing and extremely drought resistant, and these are the reasons that they were originally planted for shade around houses and along city streets. These are the same reasons that they are now considered to be invasive. Because they are extremely deep and wide rooted, Siberian elms find enough water to survive where few native trees can. This also means that they cause a lot of problems with underground water pipes, septic systems and the like. Most elms are a bit brittle and tend to shed limbs in storms, and Siberian elms are a bit worse than most. These facts, coupled with the huge number of little seed pods they shed in spring (think pale green snow) have earned them the derisive name of "junk trees". However, especially with climate change making shade and tree respiration more desireable than ever, biologists are beginning to suggest that maybe they are not so bad after all. And that green snow, it turns out, is pretty good in salads.

As a child, it never occurred to me that all this tree politics was going on, and when I did get to hear about it, it made me sad. I'd never doubted that trees were persons. I had relationships with them. Not "I shall now sit down and commune with this tree-being" type relationships, just unselfconscious relationships that happen when you spend a lot of time with another living being. That's still how I feel about trees today, and I still love elms.

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Land Songs is a collection of eleven poems each touching on the spirit of the land. Enjoyable and challenging by turns. Love letters, eulogies, rants . . .
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This morning, on Lughnasadh

1/8/2013

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I went to bed last night not really knowing how I would celebrate Lughnasadh, but I awoke this morning before sunrise with a feeling of urgency and a sense of what I would do. Looking at the clock I could see that I only had a few minutes until sun up, so I hopped out of bed and pulled on my work clothes, since they were handy. Instead of lighting my candle and filling my quaich as usual, I put them in my bag along with matches, and spring water. On my way through the house I picked up the notebook which contains the "What I Could Do" exercise I had written a few days ago, which tells of some of my skills, where I got them and who I've passed them on to. I cut a slice of the bread I baked yesterday evening, and stepped into the garden to pick a lovely red tomato. (And I forgot the incense, darn!)

I walked across the pastures toward my grove of cottonwood trees. We've recently had quite a bit of rain (after a very long drought) so I was noting the progress of different stands of grass, calculating how many months of grazing I think we'll get, relieved and thankful that things are finally green and growing! I had snatches of the traditional song "The Keeper" in my mind as I walked. "Sing ye well? Very well! Hey down, ho down derry-derry down! Among the leaves so green-o!" Except I sang "Among the grass so green-o".  Meanwhile a small bank of clouds in the northeast delayed the visible sunrise a little.
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My grove of old cottonwoods, seen in autumn.

At the trees I unpacked my things. These cottonwoods are huge and old and twisted, with bark covered roots above the level of the soil. There is ample evidence that cattle spend a month or two here each year, and an irrigation ditch runs along behind the trees. There's no water in it most of the time - certainly not this year. I unpacked my things and struggled a bit to get the candle lit (it was firmly encased in glass, I'm careful with fire outdoors). I took my boots off and enjoyed the feeling of the cool, damp, sandy soil. Not having really prepared anything I went ahead and said my usual morning devotional prayer, with just a few additions, then blethered on for a bit, thanking the gods, ancestors and spirits of nature for various things. I opened my notebook and read out my "skills list" and gave thanks for them and those who taught me.

I offered a bit of the bread to the four directions, and then went around the grove offering a bit to each tree. I noted that across the ditch there is a little sapling in the neighbour's field. It looked like he had ploughed and planted around it. Nice! I finished by offering my tomato, and singing a few verses of John Barleycorn that I could remember. Then it was boots on, pack up my things and walk back to the house.

Sometimes, rituals like this feel very good. I would enjoy more community ritual, but keeping it personal and making it up as you go along also has its charms.

Blessed Lughnasadh!

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A tonic for Spring

27/3/2013

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It used to be a common folk belief that in winter, as things slowed down, our blood got thicker. Then in the spring, it was a good idea to take a spring tonic to get the blood flowing freely again. While the belief about the blood is quite a comfortable one, it doesn't seem to have any basis in reality. However, the taking of a spring tonic is still not a bad idea. Early bitter herbs are a good choice, nettles and dandelions taste great, and of course, there's hawthorn. After all, in common with our ancestors, we tend to move less and eat more comfort foods in the winter, so when these things become available it's a good idea to get our digestion going properly, pep up our liver and improve our circulation.
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Hawthorn as defined in my oracle

When hawthorn leaves are green and tender in the spring, people will sometimes munch on a few, or gather some to add to a salad. Animals are also attracted to them at this time. Equine herbalist Hilary Page Self recommends hawthorn for horses with both laminitis and navicular syndrome, because of its good effect on the circulation of blood to the feet. When I lived in Scotland it was common to see native ponies stuffing themselves on hawthorn leaves in spring. That was a good choice to follow, as it is in the spring that the lush grass is most likely to cause the metabolic upset that leads to laminitis - which is an extremely painful and potentially lethal condition.

As spring moves into May the hawthorn (also called May, or May tree) blooms. These blossoms were a traditional part of May Day celebrations, being used to deck the May queen and May king, Maypoles, and the entrances to houses. However, there is a well-known taboo against bringing hawthorn into the house, as it is believed that it brings death. In fact in some areas it is known by the name "dead man's froth". I always found this strange. Why would a flower associated with spring, fertility and health also be associated with death? Then I came across an essay by Paul Kendall on the wonderful Trees for Life website. The following passage offers a good explanation:

Mediaeval country folk also asserted that the smell of hawthorn blossom was just like the smell of the Great Plague in London. Botanists later discovered that the chemical trimethylamine present in hawthorn blossom is also one of the first chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue. In the past, when corpses would have been kept in the house for several days prior to burial, people would have been very familiar with the smell of death, so it is hardly surprising that hawthorn blossom was so unwelcome in the house. It has also been suggested that some of the hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) folklore may have originated for the related woodland hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata) which may well have been commoner during the early Middle Ages, when a lot of plant folklore was evolving. Woodland hawthorn blossom gives off much more of an unpleasant scent of death soon after it is cut, and it also blooms slightly earlier than hawthorn, so that its blossoms would have been more reliably available for May Day celebrations.

Hawthorn has a strong association with fairies, particularly in the sense that the areas around some hawthorns were places prone to offer openings into the fairy otherworld. They are also the most common species among clootie trees, which although they are now mostly Christianised sometimes have fairy lore connected to them.

The Roman goddess Cardea had hawthorn as her sacred plant. How interesting that she was a goddess of doorways! I tend to think of the gods and goddesses of Rome in relation to the elite citizens of urban Rome, but Cardea must have been popular with the country folk, as remnants of belief in her seem to have survived at least into the 19th century in some parts of Italy and perhaps beyond. Usually this was in tales of ill or bewitched children being cured with charms of hawthorn hung outside their windows. It makes me wonder whether Europeans further west and in Britain also once had a goddess of hawthorn and/or thresholds. It was said that Cardea was able to "open that which was closed, and close that which was open."

door into summer, tina marie ferguson
The Door Into Summer
artist: Tina Marie Ferguson


Hawthorn in the form of agricultural hedges is, of course, used to enclose pastures and fields. A well laid and maintained hawthorn hedge is as stockproof as any barbed wire fence, but has many advantages beyond looking prettier. It provides a windbreak for the animals it contains, a source of medicine, and the haws (berries) are somewhat useful as a food, if not very tasty. The real benefit is to nature, though, in the form of food and shelter for many small animals, plants, birds and insects. It's no wonder that hawthorn is such a strong symbol of spring, fertility and the summer to come.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like Thoughts on Hawthorn for May Day.

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Land Songs

A collection of eleven poems each touching on the spirit of the land. Enjoyable and challenging by turns. Love letters, eulogies, rants . . .

8.5" x 5.5"

17 pages

See product page for more information.

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The waning moon and the clootie tree

28/2/2013

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While some folk practices in Britain may be on the wane, the tying of clooties is definitely increasing. Here, I explore adding the moon's pull to the process.

Tide rising, tide going out. Times of power and times of rest. More and more I'm thinking about the rhythm of my life - how to tie that in with the phases of the moon and with the wheel of the year. Sometimes our desire to bring new growth, new stuff and new adventures into our lives is very strong. Other times, it feels more important to get rid of some things. Negativity, pain, anger . . . you know. There are all kinds of techniques, spells, charms, or whatever you choose to call them, which can allow us to let go of things which aren't helping us. Have you ever thought about how the waning moon energy might help with that?
waning gibbous moon
Dotted around the British Isles you can find trees, usually next to holy wells, called "clootie trees". In Scots a clootie is literally a cloth, whether a rag or an item of clothing. There is an old saying, "Ne'er cast a cloot 'til May is oot," meaning don't discard any items of winter clothing until the end of May, while a "clootie dumpling" is a pudding steamed in a tea towel or a piece of muslin. On these clootie trees you will see strips of cloth and ribbon, and even entire pieces of clothing at some locations, hung on the trees. These might be offerings of worship to some saint or deity, but at many trees the tradition is one of requesting the removal of illness or some other trouble. The idea is that as the cloth decays, so the problem will fade away.
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clootie tree
I live in a very dry place where the chances of finding water at all, let alone a natural spring, are slim. However, I do have some beautiful cottonwood trees on my farm which have gotten their roots into enough water to grow very large. The energy around them is special to me, and without giving it much thought I spontaneously began tying the occasional clootie to them. Some are acts of worship, and others are requests to take things away.
While I know that it is traditional to work with the full moon, it is worth considering that it is actually only truly full for a moment, so I am trying something new, working with the waning gibbous moon. This time in the moon's phase is still bright and power-filled, but because it is also waning, I feel that the power of removal and decay is particularly present. If you have something that you want removed from your life, what better time to ask?

I like to write things on my strips of cloth. That might be the name of a deity - in which case I prefer to use something beautiful or precious like a favourite piece of ribbon, or it may be a word representing something I want to get rid of, in which case a strip torn from any old rag will do. Luckily, I'm in good health and I have not had to use this for illness, so I can't say what this kind of healing feels like for a physical ailment. In the case of other negative things I know that many of them are in my life because I resist letting go of them. This is particularly true with negative emotions and attitudes. What I seem to feel happening here is a kind of insistent reminder to work on the resistance itself, and perhaps a bit more resolve and strength to do that than I had before. If my clooties are aiding that process, then I think they are a great help.
You don't need me to walk you through this process step by step. If you like the idea, take it and make it your own. Do the things that will make it meaningful for you. Do what feels right. And may the waning moon assist you!
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like The New Moon another exploration of the possibilities of working with the moon.
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Once upon a time, deep in the forest . . .

24/2/2013

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Woods -
Quiet and contemplation. Connection with ancestors and the distant past. Veneration of nature.
There is nothing like the deep peace of deep woods. Whether in stillness or filled with birdsong, in every season it is something special. Some people say it's all the extra oxygen, the energy of the trees themselves, the filtered light, or even the smell of moss. Who am I to argue with any of those things? When I wrote the definition of this card it came easily, and yet if you asked me why I made those choices I might say, "they just came to me" but I would be thinking "how could it be anything else?"

All of nature has its appeal, but given a choice of a place to go to relax, to be quiet in my soul, to think or to meditate, I would choose woods. There is great peace there, but little loneliness. If it is a healthy, fairly natural wood it will be filled with birds and animals, and very possibly people, too - walking, working, perhaps riding horses. It's usually possible to find a bit of solitude, though.

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After the ice age, forests slowly covered much of Europe. This took millennia, but eventually Britain and much of Europe was covered in forest, probably much of it closed canopied and dense. This would have made overland travel difficult and dangerous, and is one reason for concentrated coastal settlements in early Europe. People positioned themselves for the best of both worlds - abundant fishing and abundant firewood and game. They also lived near the best source of travel and trading - the sea. It was only when they made the gradual shift from hunter-gatherers to herders that their relationship to the forest changed.
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This changed the forest, too, gradually widening the open areas into pastures, and gradually taking more wood products out as lifestyles changed and populations increased. This new way of living was carried further and further inland. As natural clearings were enlarged for settlements, and growing crops became more important, people began to have a new relationship with the forest. Paths through it connected hamlets and villages and people had more business in the woods. It still remained a place of mystery and possible danger, yet slowly became a place much loved and depended upon, as well.
As Europe moved into the middle ages, the age of kings, things changed again. Laws of the forest were enacted from Russia to England which decreed that the chief products of the forest - wood and game - were the property of the kings. This, too, was a gradual process arising from feudalism, which reached its height in Britain and France under the Norman kings. Yet, unfair as it was to the native peoples of the land, it slowed the clearing process.
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Sherwood Forest (artist unknown) Plenty of clearings here.

Out of these various times, different heroes, monsters and lore of the woods developed, and while moorland and coastline can also be wild and mysterious places, the forest retained a hold on the imagination in a unique way. That might be partly because so much remains hidden from view there, but I suspect a kind of ancestral or collective memory also plays a part. Even though our earliest European ancestors may have been loathe to venture into the woods without good reason, we ultimately look back to a time when the all encompassing forest was the norm. As each era sees more felling and clearing, each generation looks back, often with longing, to a time of more trees, of deeper woods. In this way, the forest becomes our past, holding our ancestors under its canopy, decaying and being reabsorbed under its leaf litter and moss.

Trees are a kind of sister race to mankind. We live amongst them, journeying through our lives side by side, yet at such a differing pace. So many of the trees we meet were old when we were born, will live on after we die. We are relative mayflies and gadflies - with our short lives and great mobility, compared to the static, stable and stoic trees. Yet the spirit of the woods is more than the sum of its parts. There is a peace there. It contains the sum of abundant life and abundant passing and decay in an endless circle. A microcosm of our lives, our spiritual yearnings, our fears, our connection to nature and to the past.

I know that many of you are filled with these longings, and the desire for these connections. Go to the woods if you can. Go deep enough that you don't see out into that other normal and mundane world. Sit. Listen. Meditate. Dream. Walk.

Further reading:
British ancient forests were patchy by Sara Coelho - results of a scientific survey, which gives an easy-to-read overview of the long history of British woodland.
Into the Woods: On British Forests, Myth and Now by Ruth Padel - a really wonderful read, looking at the many roles played by woodland and nature in the British psyche, and beyond. Highly recommended!

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like The Blackface Sheep Speaks

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Sacred Stewardship 

18/1/2013

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For me, cattle are a symbol of sacred stewardship.

cattle oracle meaning
image: Jim Champion

People often joke about horsewomen, that their barns are tidier than their houses. I suppose that has described me, at times, but it took on a new level of truth after I made a shrine to the goddess Epona in my feed room. Somehow, creating a sacred space there created a desire in me to make things a little more beautiful. Beautiful might only be a well swept floor and tidy corners in a lowly barn, but it feels good to make it so. It feels good, at the full moon, to enter a clean space, to see the concrete floor gleam a little in the moonlight.
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For a variety of reasons, I have had difficulty creating sacred space in my house. I've lived here something like four years now, and haven't been able to figure out where to put an altar. When I lived in Scotland I had a fire (gas) with a nice marble hearth. Without really planning it, that became my altar. It just had a couple of nice statues and candles. In the evenings when I was alone I often sat by the warmth, on the nice rug, and felt close to my gods. Later, when I renovated another room in the house, I made another, similar hearth and did the same.
When I moved back to Colorado I tried hard to find a nice place for an altar in my new house. I really disliked the corner where the wood stove is. I don't have much money to fix it up, and it's very ugly, and although I don't really know anything about Feng Shui - I'm sure that somehow the energy in that corner is very blocked, the heavy stove is at a bad angle, etc. So - no nice alter/hearth anymore. For several years I have tried to figure out where to put the altar, and I can't seem to find it! There is one corner of my bedroom I kept considering, but took no action. So sometimes I just create one somewhere for an hour, and sometimes I go outdoors under some big trees...sometimes I go to the feed room.
Epona shrine
sacred cottonwood trees
Just recently I began doing a short morning devotion, and I wanted to NOT have to go the the barn. Brrrrrr! Of course, now the corner of the bedroom that I was thinking of had a stack of boxes of books in it. I neatly covered them with a nice cloth and I have been using this as a morning altar. So things have evolved nicely, and I think I can soon graduate to some nice piece of furniture there instead of the boxes!
simple home altar
So what has this got to do with the Cattle card, and it's definition? The other morning, having done my little devotion, I drew a card for meditation, and it was Cattle. Several things connected to sacred space came up for me. I noticed that having created the altar in my bedroom, and using it daily had encouraged me to clean and tidy up in there, and to deal with a long-standing problem of dust blowing in around the old wooden sash windows (which I dearly love). It led me to ponder the questions of sacred space and respect of the sacred self, and if all that I am is connected to all that exists, then in a sense all is sacred and exists in sacred space. This is actually quite hard for me to accept, because I struggle with resistance to my current environment. (Perhaps, in noticing that, I am noticing a key to unlock the thing I am really struggling with!)
When I consciously create a space as sacred, or consciously choose to see all that surrounds me as sacred, I am more likely to be inspired to steward it well. I don't currently have much money to throw at things like this, but when I take a little trouble to clean/repair/paint things that need it - not for the sake of impressing the neighbours, but in an acknowledgement of the sacred - I will always feel better, and those who enter that space will feel better, too. For some readers, I will be stating the obvious, I know. I didn't have the benefit of being raised to think like this, and it doesn't come naturally. For me - it's very exciting to think of it in this way.
Understand that everything is your conspicuous wealth. Your stuff, your health, your family, your friendships. To hold it in sacred space is to steward it. To steward it is a very practical act of honour.

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I am dead, yet I live.

12/1/2013

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Elder (sambucus nigra) is one of my favourite trees/herbs. It's also a card in my oracle deck.
I'll let it speak for itself!

elder tree oracle card
Elder 
Incredible usefulness. Boundless potential for growth. Offering solace to many.



Unco weather hae we been through:
The mune glowered, and the wind blew,
And the rain it rained on him and me,
And bour-tree blossom is fair to see! 

There was nae voice of beast ae man,
But the tree soughed and the burn ran,
And we heard the ae voice of the sea:
Bour-tree blossom is fair to see!

                ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
                    "The Bour-Tree Den"
I am the bour tree. I stand on the hillside awaiting spring. I am dead, yet I live. I wait. I am patient. Lashed by rain, shaken by wind, blanketed with snow and riven by frost I wait. As the season softens to mud and warmth I feel my leaf buds growing, soon they begin to unfurl and I can once more drink the sunlight and feel the moist air tickling and teasing them.
elder tree winter sun
elder in bloom sambucus nigra
In the heat of early summer my flowers open, and I am beautiful. I am decked as a bride and loved and adored by all. The breezes jostle my heavy branches, laden with nectar and pollen, I am a friend to all who buzz and flutter and caress me. Birds have their nests within the world of my branches, and insects also call me home. My fragrance attracts many visitors who are intoxicated by my bounty. I have much to give! Plenty to spare! My blossoms heal the sick and strengthen the blood and wind of the healthy. Take all you need.

Slowly, the petals drop, giving way to little green nodules. In time they increase and grow red, then purple and almost black. The weight of my fruit bows me and cracks at my branches, but I stand firm. The ground beneath my boughs is littered with shed branches and shoots which fell in such battles past - but I live on! Children may make toys from such trifles. Now the birds are thick in my branches, eating their fill, and sharing with some who walk on four legs, and also on two. I am transformed into sweet drinks and food for winter by those ingenious ones.
ripe elderberries
Now my leaves begin to dry and change colour. They lose their sensitivity and begin to fall to the ground. At my feet, the earth is changing. The soil beings to breath more and more slowly. I long for rest, for clean coldness. The winds come and rip the death rags from me. The sap recedes. I am become bones. Blackened bones. I am dead, yet I live. I wait.
elderflowers detail

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    Kris Hughes - writer, hedge teacher,  pony lover, cartomancer,
    cat whisperer.


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