The Wisdom of Trees

The Wisdom of Trees

The wisdom of trees, and forests never ceases to amaze and delight me. As a child, I remember spending about three weeks living my usual life and on falling sleep I would wake up to this other life. I was in a forest with huge tree. Bigger than I could imagine. They were not a kind I was familiar with and the bark and wood was red and punky. It was dry and brittle and crumbled in the hands. In my dream I would build a fire a little way up the trunk of this huge tree. I would leave it smolder and go fishing in a brook near by. I used thorn as barbs and twine from a twisting mass of flowers. Then I would take my hair and make a fly, a lure out of it. I folded it and twisted it, a few strands making it quite quickly. Then I would catch small silver fish in the shallow waters. Then I would go back to the tree. I would take a stone that was thin and shaped like a scoop and dig out  the softer charred wood. I would take some of the embers and wrap them in leaves. The thin stream of smoke passing over the fish.

Sometimes I would eat. Sometimes I would forage.

Every morning I would wake. Get dressed. Sort out the animals. Go to school. Come home and my eyes barely closed before I was back.

Scraping away, deeper and deeper. It became a tunnel I crawled into. Night after night, after night.

It became a cave inside the tree. One I could hide in and eventually stand in. 

This was my "house tree". 

After it was made, I would go back sometimes, but the making of it was intense. 

The trees were alive and knowing in ways I knew but could not express. I found it odd that people were suprised that tree were (and are) sacred. 

A forest is a cathedral to me with twisting columns of silver, green and grey expanding into ceilings of stained glass leaves. Moss prayer mats and altars for offerings a plenty. The birds and beasts shaping and showing the way to deeper and ever more sacred spaces. 

Each tree a priestess, a column, a part of the living sacred place. Healing trees, wise trees, warrior trees, smooth and rough, twisting and bowed or straight. 

I keep a piece of gorse, a twisted mossy covered root I found in Wales on my shrine. It is connected to the fae folk, to my spiritual home and to the that great green knowing. To the wisdom of trees.

I can only speak of the trees I know, the ones I grew up listening to. The holly and apple. The sycamore. The rowan and rose. The beech and ivy. Oak and heather. Those tree I swung from. Yet as each tree is a teacher they are one and just connected. 

I wax lyrical.

Bright Blessings xxx

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