pine trees – The Hedge Druid

When the evening is filled with sunshine and warmth then a lowly Hedge Druid has to make full use of it. I left work earlier than usual in order to beat the traffic. Arriving at Alderley Edge I found that there were few others parked up. Today that was a benefit – I wanted a quiet space in the forest to find some answers to questions I had about The Golden Dragon.

No rods tonight – I don’t have them with me. I will have to do all of this work using my senses alone. I switch on my attunement as I pass through one of the entrances to the forest, pausing briefly in order that my aura is noticed by the beings in the forest. It is recognised. We are now familiar cousins. I wander on a wavy path towards a familiar place on a rise – it is the place of cleansing, but it has moved slightly since I was last here. Nonetheless, I absolve myself of worldly energies before setting off again on my wanderings.

As I am about to walk on when a crow squawks loudly above me, landing on a tree next to the one I am beneath. I notice it, and it caws again, it’s beady eye catching mine. I see – tonight you are the messenger, Mr Crow. Then I will follow your direction. The crow lifts up into the air and soon drops onto the top of a nearby tree. I walk towards it, and as I am about to pass a specific pine tree it caws loudly once more. I look up at the crow – this one, I ask? “Caw!”. I thank the crow for his guidance and he lifts himself away into the blue evening sky – his work is done.

The pine tree is dying. As I touch it I can feel its energy sapping away. As I commune with the tree I begin to appreciate what is happening here. Part of the work I did with the Golden Dragon in this very forest a few weeks earlier has hastened the rate at which the dying trees are killing themselves off to make more material and energy available to the living trees. This is part of the process of the living trees strengthening their existing root systems. But what a sad consequence for the weak trees! Suicidal sap! However, when you consider that trees are much more communal and inter-related than humans, then the sacrifice seems more comprehensible somehow. This is an existing cycle of regeneration, but my recent work has added impetus to that process, that’s all.

I decide to move on. The crow has disappeared, but other crows take flight silently as though to indicate my next direction. I begin to head deeper into the forest in search of more inspiration.

Read More “Calming the Golden Dragon” »

I set off on what I expected to be a simple walk in the evening sun, taking advantage of the last warmth of a wonderful weekend for weather. By the gods that warmth was welcome after the latest and coldest Spring in thirty years! For some reason I was compelled to walk along the sandstone ridges that a nearby to the village where I live. Pictures and memories of a special place kept arising in my mind like bubbles in a champagne glass. One particular ridge walk came to mind so I got out of the car and checked which direction I should head in using dowsing rods. The way I had pictured in my mind was the direction indicated to follow. What about the destination? Yes, the one I was thinking of was the most appropriate for any meditative work. Great – then I scarcely needed the rods so I put them away.

As I began my walk I was still believing that firstly this has been my rational idea, and that it was simply a walk. I’d even brought a book to read and a can of gin and tonic. My everyday self was walking around with the idea that I was just going for some kind of a light summer picnic or something. My druid self had other ideas that were bubbling under the surface, and the more I climbed the sandstone path the more these druidic senses began to make themselves heard.

As if by the same magick that was bubbling through this evening I am currently listening to “Ouses ;Ouses ‘Ouses‘ narrated by John Copper (Imagined Village).

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR-Z1lg2Q_4

In this song the narrator is talking about his granddad having his ashes sprinkled on his spot with his favourite view up on the chalk hills of The Downs. By an odd coincidence that leads me into this story.

I walked up onto the sandstone hill through freshly unfurling stalks of bracken, shaded from the remaining rays of the day by the bright-leaved canopies of giant beeches, ancient oaks and sapling birches. The path was easy for me to read. I’d been that was many times over the years, but I only ever seem to visit when the summer comes. I don’t know why. This time felt different, and I was about to find out why.

Read More “Making a Summer Nemeton” »

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