Ogham: B – Beith/Birch

Birch’s day is the first day of the new year, the beginnings of new things, the beginning of a new cycle.

Shining One

The word birch means bright and/or shining in many languages including a Sanskrit root “Bhräjate” “it shines” and “bhurja” for birch. Indo-European and proto-Indo-European tree names are (*bherH-ģ-o ) as meaning  “shining”, “bright”, “gleaming”. It’s also known as finnbheann na coille “the bright lady of the woods”.

Shining … sun-bright … giving off light. The glimmering white trunk of the tree in northern woods is stunning and gives the truth to the naming.

The thesaurus gives us the following for bright and shining …

Bright … Vivid Intense Dazzling Light Clear

Shining … Unblemished Immaculate Glowing Radiating Virgin Original Primeval

That last word, primeval, is significant here. The birch is one of the primeval trees, one of the first trees in the world and one of the first trees to help reclaim old building sites, to bring them back to nature. It and the Scots Pine work and live together.

Sit-with these words, see what gifts of insight they offer you at the beginning of the year.

Birch Tree

New Beginnings

In Scandinavia the farmers use it’s leafing to time the planting of wheat. In many countries Birch is the earliest tree to put on leaves, and one of the trees that begins to make new land along with the Scots pine.

You have just worked with the first vowel tree, Ailm, the Scots pine. Both trees work with newness and ask you to always be open to all possibilities, but without being so gullible that otherworld is able to send you off for a tin of striped paint … LOL. This is the sort of paradox-line you continually walk as a shaman, always having to discern what is both true and pertinent to the moment. You must learn to know when you are being tested. It will be to see if you are really awake or just bumbling along on auto-pilot J.

Birch is the tree of inception. What does this mean? Here are some words for you to sit-with and ponder on to help open up your mind and intuition to what Birch and inception is about, what Birch does, what its job is.

Inception … begin, set up, start, set in motion, commence, inauguration, open, origin, foundation, launch, establishment, creation, activate, initiate.

Sit-with these words. What pictures come into your mind from them? Take them into your journey as foci, guiding and directing you towards finding the spirit of the wood.

Kenning

In the medieval kennings, the verses associated with Beith are:

• Féocos foltchaín: “Withered foot with fine hair” (Word Ogham of Morann mic Moín)
• Glaisem cnis: “Greyest of skin” (Word Ogham of Mac ind Óc)
• Maise malach: “Beauty of the eyebrow” (Word Ogham of Culainn)

Kennings are knowings … not knowledge! To ken something is about having an acquaintance with it, a cognisance of it, and understanding of it, an awareness of it. To have any or all of these things of another ensures you have a new beginning of your relationship with it … be it animal, vegetable, mineral or human. The birch is a tree of kennings.

Broomstick

The birch twigs make the flying tail for the witch’s broomstick … so the birch is about flying too. The French broomstick’s handle is traditionally of hazel – the tree of Elen of the Ways, so giving the broomstick its ability to find its way across the worlds. In Britain it is often given a handle of Ash, Gwydion’s tree, the shapeshifter’s tree that helps with the flying between worlds. The birch twigs are tied to the stem with fine willow strippings, bringing in the goddess Brighid = she of the Bright Fiery Arrow. The birch gives the broom the shining, glimmering light of otherworld to light the ways which it will travel.

Birch Tea Benefits, particularly their anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral properties, have been highly regarded for centuries.

The broomstick is used in many traditions as a method of cleansing or purifying a space. In some cultures, the rite of jumping the broom is considered an important part of a marriage ceremony, signifying new beginnings and a clearing away of the past for a new future. This ritual has seen some resurgence in popularity as more and more Pagan couples celebrate handfastings.

Take all of this into your meditations for the beginning of the year.

Elen Sentier

behind every gifted woman there’s usually a rather talented cat …

 

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Ogham: A – Ailm: Scots Pine

Ailm

Ailm’s day is 25 Dec: Sun-Return – the day the sun begins to move again after the Midwinter standstill/solstice

• Winter Solstice is 21^st December, the 3-day standstill is 22/23/24 December
• Sun-Return is the day the sun begins to move again after the 3-day standstill of the Winter Solstice; i.e. 25^th December.

This is an important turnaround in the year. We go from the days getting darker and darker, there being less light every day up to the solstice, the 21^st December, to the changeover. From the 25^th December there is gradually more and more light each day up until the summer solstice when it turns around and after 25^th June there is less and less light each day until Midwinter.

• Midwinter is about the rebirth of the sun.
• Midsummer is about the death of the sun.

Ailm is about birth. It’s watchwords  are “I am the womb of every holt”.

Womb is a word to take into your sit-with. What is the womb? What does it do? Think about how the spark of life enters the womb, fertilises the seed, how the seed grows within the darkness to finally birth out into the light. All of these things are what Ailm is about – in every sense, plant, planet, star, animal, human, building, country, nation, idea, book, painting, cooking, each journey you make in the everyday world, everything … yes, everything, goes through this cycle. Ailm holds this energy for the Earth and all her creatures, including us.

Scots Pine

In Britain, this principle is often held by the Scots Pine, an ancient tree that is about breaking up land so that it becomes earth and soil that will support growing things. When you understand the principles that Ailm holds and guards for us all you can ask to be shown the wood – in your land – that will be right for the spirit-house of Ailm where you live. This is about working with the land where you live, not trying to force the land into working in a way some human has written about and, as such, has become “gospel”. We all need to learn to change ourselves to fit with the world rather than trying to make the world fit with our wants.

• The following from Paul Kendall of Trees for Life is good.

Scots pine has a long and rich history in mythology. In The Golden Bough, James Frazer relates various stories involving pine trees from classical mythology, which may or may not have been Scots pines, such as how the ancient Egyptians buried an image of the god Osiris in the hollowed-out centre of a pine tree. He writes that “it is hard to imagine how the conception of a tree as tenanted by a personal being could be more plainly expressed.” As a symbol of royalty the pine was associated with the Greek goddess Pitthea, and also with the Dionysus/Bacchus mythology surrounding the vine and wine making, probably as a fertility symbol. Worshippers of Dionysus often carried a pine-cone-tipped wand as a fertility symbol and the image of the pine cone has also been found on ancient amulets as a symbol of fertility. For the Romans the pine was an object of worship during the spring equinox festival of Cybele and Attis. As an evergreen tree the pine would also have symbolised immortality.

The Scots pine groves or ‘shaman forests’ scattered over the dry grasslands of eastern Siberia were considered sacred by the Buriats, a Mongolian people living around the southern end of Lake Baikal. These groves were to be approached and entered in silence and reverence, respectful of the gods and spirits of the wood.

Closer to home, Druids used to light large bonfires of Scots pine at the winter solstice to celebrate the passing of the seasons and to draw back the sun. Glades of Scots pines were also decorated with lights and shiny objects, the tree covered in stars being a representation of the Divine Light. It is easy to see how these rituals have given rise to the latter day Yule log and Christmas tree customs.

In the old Gaelic alphabet, where each letter is denoted by a tree whose name starts with the letter, the Scots pine is not listed under its Gaelic name of Guibhas but rather under P for Peith, which is the alternative Gaelic for the tree. Guibhas (pronounced goo-ass) crops up in several place names in Scotland both in its native Gaelic, such as Allt na Ghuibhas in Wester Ross and Glac a Ghuibas by Ardgower, ‘Pine Stream’ and ‘Pine Hollow’ respectively, and as Anglicised derivations such as Dalguise and Kingussie; Goose Island, Lough Derg, may originally have been Isle of Pines, not geese.

Note  … I use the Guelder rose for Peith but am very content with it being Scots Pine.

Scottish folklore surrounding the Scots pine seems to be fairly sparse. This may be due to the sort of uses to which Scots pine was put, mainly as a building material. In the days of wooden boats and ships several of the products of the tree proved useful in shipbuilding. The high resin content of the sap of the pine means that the wood is slow to decay. The tall, straight, flexible trunks proved to be ideal for masts and spars (witness Beinn nan Sparra, Hill of Spars, in Glen Affric), and the wood was also used for the planking, and sealed with pitch made from the resin (which was also used to seal the beer casks!). In fact there used to be a ‘superstition’ about not felling the pine trees for shipbuilding during the waning of the moon, as the tidal influence of the moon was said to affect the resin content of the wood; and indeed botanists now recognise the complexities of sapflow in plants which are to some extent affected by the gravitational influences of the moon’s cycles.

Hugh Fife, in his book Warriors and Guardians – native highland trees, suggests that as much plant folklore stems from the uses and influences of the plant on people’s everyday lives, and that as the uses of Scots pine were mainly on a larger, industrial scale, less lore about the pine has evolved or persisted, ie no rituals for annual harvesting, coppicing, medicinal/herbal uses and the like. There are nevertheless some medicinal uses derived from the pine: the resin and needles of the pine have been used, particularly as an inhalant, to treat respiratory problems and as an expectorant, and also have antiseptic and disinfectant qualities. The Bach Flower Remedies recommend pine to treat despondency, despair and self-condemnation.

A persistent theme in the folklore of Scots pine is their use as markers in the landscape. In the Highlands there is a recurrent theme that they were used to mark burial places of warriors, heroes and chieftains.

In areas further south where the sight of Scots pine may have been more unusual and their use would have stood out more, they can be seen to mark ancient cairns, trackways and crossroads. In England they were commonly used to mark not only the drove roads themselves, but also the perimeters of meadows on which passing drovers and their herds could spend the night. There is also the possibly more fanciful suggestion that Scots pines were planted in England by Jacobite farmers or sympathisers.

This relates them strongly to Elen of the Ways, and to her sister the Apple Woman and Washer at the Ford (Morgan). Elen is the lady of the roads and tracks. Morgan is the Lady of the crossroads, the Greek goddess, Hecaté, is similar to Morgan.

What does Ailm mean? Here are some words for you to sit-with and ponder on to help open up your mind and intuition to what Ailm is about, what it does, what its job is.

Birth, nativity, beginning, origin, dawn, start, founding, opening, foundation, creation, initiation, begin

You can see that both the words this month are about similar things – beginnings of various sorts. And both trees are  initiators of change, they break up concrete and stone and rock, they help make the stone into soil that will support new growing things.

Take all these ideas, concepts, together and feel your way into them. Feel into the similarities … and the differences. Both differences and similarities are important. The words are not all the same. The concepts that each of the spirits hold are not the same, you cannot interchange one with the other … but they support each other, they work together. This is important! It is how the world works J.

Humans tend to work from a competitive basis, against each other, against anything they perceive to be in their way. Working with the rest of the world is not something most humans have even contemplated yet, let alone had a go at living! You have the opportunity to begin working this way for yourself … as you begin the course.

Sit-with the words. What pictures come into your mind from them? Take them into your journey as foci, guiding and directing you towards finding the spirit.

Elen Sentier

behind every gifted woman there’s usually a rather talented cat …

 

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Ogahm: Iolo – Yew

I – Iolo: Yew

Samhain & Winter Solstice

Metal – Lead

Planet – Saturn

• I am the tomb to every hope
• Death & Rebirth

Iolo is one of the five vowels of the ogham tree alphabet, representing our letter I.

Yew Cauldron

Yew is the longest lived of all British trees, holds great knowing and wisdom. It’s been the coffin-maker’s tree for ages. It was also the tree of weddings, the bright red yew-berries were thrown as good-luck charms over newlyweds, offering their sweetness.

Normally I would talk about this tree at Samhain but I saved it for winter solstice this year. Here in Britain this year we have snow, lots of it, an unusual occurrence for us for the past 20+ years. Now global warming is really cranking up the winters are changing and becoming more severe. No-one knows yet how the new patterns the Mother is making in the weather will pan out, we may get a set of hard winters and then a set of wet, soft ones … we must wait on her and see what she gives.

In case you didn’t know, Solstice is 21^st December. Astronomically this may be slightly different each year but for purposes of celebration many folk stay with the 21^st. this year we had the added blessing of a blood-moon this morning. The energies were amazing where I lived but I couldn’t physically see much because there was a high mist covering the whole sky. I could sense the covering of the moon, the eclipse, but not see it with my physical eyes.

The 21^st is the beginning of the solstice period, the period of three days when the sun appears to rise at the same point on the horizon. This is very well marked at Stonehenge, and at other less well known stone circles. Our ancestors knew …

The three day period of apparent standstill ends with the sun appearing to move forward, rise in a slightly different place on the horizon on the 25^th December. In our tradition it’s called Sun-Return and signifies the birth of the King. In early mediaeval myth here in Britain this became the birth of Arthur but before that it was the birth of the Mabon, the eternal child who brings us the journey of the soul. It’s not surprising that the Christians took it up and used it for the birth of their winter king who – like all puer eternis – shows us the soul journey.

Sun-Return is the day the sun begins to move again after the 3-day standstill of the Winter Solstice; i.e. 25^th December, and is a symbol of birth out of death. Archaeologists still seem to like to say our ancestors would have been afraid the sun was never going to come back but this is a highly denigrating view. You only have to watch the sun return one year to see it will. If you’re particularly fearful then maybe it takes two or three years … so you’re probably aged five or so when you’ve got the hang of it, especially if your parents take you to rituals and give you the stories.

Besides, people who could build such accurate time-pieces as Stonehenge and the other circles would hardly be so dumb as to not know about the seasons, that would make no sense at all. Sometimes we appear to have gone backwards in our common sense and be trying to pull our ancestors back into the childish habits of thought many people live in now.

Yew’s watch-words are “I am the tomb to every hope”.

What does this mean? What is a tomb? The thesaurus offers the following …

• Ossuary Grave Sepulchre Mausoleum Burial place Charnel house Necropolis,

A place where things/people are buried after they have died. In the case of ossuary it is a place of bones, a charnel house where the relics – the bones which take perhaps millions of years to decompose – are stored. The word necropolis refers to a city of the dead, a physical vision of the place where the ancestors live. It makes some sense of the habit the Christians picked up of “relics of saints”, the bones. They again use the idea from the far more ancient pagan tradition of keeping a small part of the body an ancestor had once worn as a link back to the ancestors. Unfortunately they mostly don’t know about this tradition and meaning, however the innate human knowing does usually get some sort of a handle on it.

But why the tomb of hope? This can sound frightening to many. Hope … what is this? The thesaurus offers lots of possibilities for this word …

• Confidence Expectation Optimism Anticipation Faith
• Chance Likelihood Possibility Potential
• Desire Aspiration Dream Plan Wish Goal Yearn Long Look forward to

Hmm … what do you make of all that?

And then there is the Greek story of Pandora’s Box. The story goes that

Pandora, whose name means “giver of all” or “all-endowed”, was the first woman on Earth. Zeus command Hephaestus, the god of craftsmanship, to create her, which he did using water and earth. The other gods granted her many gifts – beauty from Aphrodite, persuasiveness from Hermes, and music from Apollo.

After Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus, Zeus sought reprisal by handing Pandora to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Pandora was given a jar that she was ordered not to open under any circumstances. Despite this warning, overcome by curiosity, Pandora opened the jar and all the evils contained within escaped into the world. Scared, Pandora immediately closed the jar, only to trap Hope inside.

This story is very like the creation of Blodeuwedd by Gwydion and with perhaps som of the same purposes. Hope is a funny, tricky thing. W often say things like, “my hopes were dashed”, “there’s no hope”. Hope can turn very sour and evil when we have pinned all our faith on it and it doesn’t come to pass as we expected … as we’d hoped!

This takes me to a gift I was given many years ago. One of my teachers told me he went into every situation “full of expectancy but without any expectations”. Do you get that?

He is open to anything that may come but without pinning his own ideas, wants, needs, expectations on it. He leaves room for the universe to be, he walks the universe’s path rather than trying to constrict the universe into walking the path of his own small desires.

So the watchwords of the Yew make some sense now?

If we bury our little personality hopes, desires, wants, then we make room for the big gifts the universe wants to offer us. The yew takes in these petty personal desires and composts them for us, buries them, allows them to decompose and go back into their constituent atoms so they can be remade anew into the good things that Life, the Universe and Everything really needs.

It also makes sure we don’t try to make everything live by our own scripts. We put space and boundaries around ourselves and allow others to be different. We can still grumble about the difference – inside out own space! – as long as we leave space for others.

So we put our hopes into the tomb the yew provides for us and go out to find the new path.

This is the death and rebirth thing of this time of year, of the going down of the sun and his/her return after the three days, to begin a new cycle, to begin the stirrings of springtime, of the herbaceous plants who demonstrate this so beautifully for us by dying down into the ground over the winter and then springing back up out of the soil as the seasons change.

Ponder on all this for the season of Sun-Return. I’ll talk more about the planet Saturn and the metal Lead later on today.

Ogham: Ruis – Elder

The moon-month for Ruis is  25 Nov – 23, the time of the Winter Solstice.

Elder is the tree of doom … Tree of the Cailleach, Hag, Crone

It is a witch-tree, along with rowan and blackthorn, associated with death, magic, magic wands and enchantment. It’s a chancy tree as we say in Britain, one to be very careful with.

Its berries are black, carry the black cup of forgetfulness. This is forgetfulness of the little self, the personal self.

If we do not learn to forget ourselves, to put our personal needs behind those of the planet, then we bring doom onto all, look around the world now, think about the harm that has been wrought by human selfishness … how humans consider all things must be for our good and trying to make sure that only the things we want exist or happen. The unfortunate biblical phrase “gave dominion over” suggests to most folk that god gave us this planet as a kiddies playground and that it’s fine if we pull the wings off flies, etc.

Elder Berries

Take all these thoughts into your work with the spirit of Ruis and see what comes.

• Doom, Kismet, Karma, Fate, Destiny, Luck, Fortune, Chance
• How do these words relate to the old word geas, the word for duty, one’s soul-job, life-job?

Take these words into a sit-with to bring you closer to the essence of Ruis.

The Elder is again about endings and beginnings, maturity. Although the Elder is easily damaged, it recovers and is rejuvenated easily.

The Elder is also strongly connected with the workings of the Faer. The soft wood has a lightweight core that can be pushed out to create a hollow tube – perfect for a Faerie flute!

Elder was also planted near dairy barns, in the belief that its presence would keep the cows in milk, and prevent collected milk from spoiling.

Elder Flowers

The flowers and inner bark are famous for their therapeutic qualities often brewed to fight fever, cough, and sore throats. The flowers make excellent wine and champagne. The berries are very good for a cordial that helps with winter colds and such as well as being an lovely drink in its own right.

I make elder-flower cordial every spring and always keep a bottle to be opened at Midwinter and drunk over the time of the solstice – from 20^th to 25^th December. The 25^th December is Sun-Return, when the sun again appears to move forwards after his standstill from 22-24 December. I use this to remind me that death and rebirth are two faces of one coin. As the sun arrives at the shortest day so he pauses, waits for the three days, then moves on ensuring that the light increases again. It is a time of the rebirth of Sun, a time of new beginnings.

Hopi Prophecy …

I came across this prophecy again today as I was editing this piece … it’s very apposite.

The 6 things to consider are exactly what I’ve been saying to myself since the autumn equinox. And the last line, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” is a fundamental part of the Rainbow Warriors course. I’m glad to be reminded of this now as we come up to Sun-Return. The Rainbow Warriors are the 144,000 warriors of the Rainbow … the sum of the petals in the seven chakras that are the life within each of us. We are indeed the warriors who can save the Earth, and we are the ones we have been waiting for.

This knowing, nouse, goes all around the Earth, from the ancient eastern sutras, the Hopi, and the Celts … and everywhere else throughout the world.

The prophecy …

You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered …

• Where are you living?
• What are you doing?
• What are your relationships?
• Are you in right relation?
• Where is your water?
• Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of
the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a
halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

–The Elders, Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation

Work for Ruis

I think taking the following, from the prophecy, and sitting with them, working with them, is a very useful at this time. They are all about taking a clear-sighted (clairvoyant) look at where you are and then asking Otherworld’s opinion on how appropriate this is for you now.

• Where are you living?
• What are you doing?
• What are your relationships?
• Are you in right relation?
• Where is your water?
• Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

Where are you living?

This is more than just your physical house-address.

Are you living in your …

• Body? Do physical things rule you?
• Feelings? Are you pink & fluffy?
• Thinking? Are you a head-case?
• Intuition? Are you off with the fairies?

I chose some tough examples of where you might be to give you an idea of what I’d like you to think about when you do this exercise. It will undoubtedly link, thread, to you physical abode as well but don’t be narrow and simplistic in your work on this.

What are you doing?

Again, don’t just think about your job, although this will be an important aspect for your work on this subject.

Are you doing anything? Or are you just faffing about, stuck on the fence, not doing anything really, just marking time?

What might you be doing?

What would make your heart sing? This is really important! Likely it’s your soul-job and so very necessary for you to get in touch with … and right now is a really good time!

What are your relationships?

Oooo! This is a tough one! We all come acropper here, probably several times in a lifetime. And we are all very touchy and tetchy about having anyone say we’re getting our relationships all round the backs of our necks.

Who do you have relations with?

• Husband/wife/partner?
• Children?
• Boss?
• Staff?

And now we come to the less well-known ones …

• Your home – the place where you live, that you are guardian to
• Your garden – ditto
• The animals who live with you

o   And what about all the ones who are squatters in your home … mice, spiders, rats, flies, fleas, bed-bugs, bats …

o   And the germs, microbes, viri, bacteria, etc. …

• Then there’s your car, bike, mode of transport
• The neighbours
• The trees and plants around you
• Your furniture, fridge, curtains …

Hmm … had you thought of all those are part of what you have relations with?

It could be quite a long session, this one, where you first of all need to say Hi to all the things you’ve been ignoring for the past umpteen years …

Are you in right relation?

And are you in the right, the appropriate relations with all of these things?

If you weren’t even aware there could be a relationship then that was likely a bit off for a start, so you’ll need to do some mending with those things.

Where is your water?

Ha! Another deep one.

Did you know that you are about 70% water?

So where is your water?

And then there’s the water that enables you to live … it comes from the tap? Yes … but where does it come from before that? And what’s been done to it along the way, before it gets to you? Are these good things?

Some of us are still fortunate to have our own springs, water that bubble up from the land where we live. This is sacred. All water is sacred. The Earth, Terra, is called the Blue Planet because, from space, the enormous masses of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans dominate what you see. Earth has a fantastic amount of water, it’s what enables life as we know it here.

So … where is your water?

Know your garden

As a gardener, this is just so important to me but it’s not just about a physical plot of soil.

Garden – the Persian word for garden is paradise. What is a paradise?

• Utopia, rapture, joy, delight, nirvana, ecstasy, bliss, heaven

Take these words into a sit-with and see what gifts they bring you.

Truth

The prophecy goes on to say …

It is time to speak your Truth.

This is often the hardest thing for us to do. Too often we fear to be ostracised if we do it and so conform! In psychology we call it living by someone else’s scripts. A sign of maturity is when we can say this is me, no matter what you say or think.

How much do you live by other people’s scripts?

The work you’ve done on the other questions will help you let go of this and speak your own truth.

Look within …

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This comes out of finding ways to speak your own truth. All the gurus who brought you to where you are now must go. As Buddhists say … If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him!

Can you understand that? It’s very important. As long as you rely on others, have gurus whose precepts you follow devotedly you are still living by other people’s scripts, however “worthy”. No guru worth her or his salt wants you to follow them, they all look forward to seeing you break away, find your own path, your own truth.

To return to the mythos I love and work within, the Arthurian one, all the knights who entered the Enchanted Forest in search of adventure – the adventure of discovering themselves – were expected to do so by finding their own way in. No knight followed a path already laid down by another knight.

Take this idea into a journey, see where you enter the Enchanted Forest, and what you find there.

Good questing on this time of Midwinter and Sun-Return.