The Magic of Trees

The Magic of Trees

I enjoy my tree friends, I have one in particular in my magical garden that I sit under for hours. She shares her secrets of life with me, she shares her magic. I have deep reverence and gratitude for the trees, they still give us fresh air needed for our life, regardless of our ungrateful behavior. Thank you my tree friends for all that you do. 

Trees connect us to the natural world; they act as primary symbols of the sheer power and presence of nature. They are steadfast, ever-present, strong, long-lived, and they sing of the earth and their place within it. They are the storytellers of location, and they mold and form the landscape we are familiar with. They bring personality and attitude to our locales, and they offer respite, shelter and protection to those who live within them or near them. They are important not only in the spiritual spectrum but also on a purely physical level: they provide us with the clean air necessary for life; they absorb the toxic gasses that would poison and eventually destroy oxygen breathing life forms...the symbolism of trees...were perceived as transmitters of wisdom.

The Love of Trees. Trees teach us about the nature of where we live or the places that we love to visit and spend time amongst. Even the solitary tree in a courtyard of a hospital or the office block where you may spend most of your day has a story; they have something to tell us about the nature of being and the mysteries of life. They are individuals, each one with its own unique personality and sense of place. To spend time among the trees-to observe the turning of the great wheel  and the drama of the sun and moon on the of their being-alter the way in which we perceive them. We may pass these creatures every day and rarely pay attention to them, and yet they are there, ever-present, silent sentinels of the passing seasons.

They inhabit two worlds. Their roots are hidden in the dark, damp underworld, unseen and yet filled with potential. Their trunks reach up from the soil, strong, resilient, lifting its spirit towards branches that become twigs and buds and leaves; with arms outstretched they reach for the skies, where their cells open to the air. They are simultaneously hidden, apparent and present. If we watch and listen with our subtle sense they become teachers of mystery; in the Celtic continuum they are transmitters of secrets who whisper of a deep connection to our ancestors had with the land beneath their feet. And just as we are the sum total of all that has been before us, so are the trees, for each oak contains the memory of all oaks since the dawning of the species; in a magical sense they are as much our ancestors as the human that have long since died.

To watch is to learn, to learn is to feel and that feeling causes us to move closer to the tress and to the mysteries they are privy to. They absorb the world and process it slightly differently than we do, but they are a part of us and we are a part of them, the particles of our breath are absorbed through their leaves. They sense our stories just as much as we sense theirs. The only difference is there is no expectation-we don't have to connect to them, to commune with them, to move closer to them in order to learn the mysteries of being-but if we were to, we would be transformed by it.

The Tree of Life...further mystery can be gleaned with we consider the tree that exists within us...The trees of our world teach us to look inward to the place of mystery that resides within us, and we can access this by focusing on our own internal tree. The mystery of being and the truth of magic lie hidden within us. The branches of our Tree of Life can be seen in expression-it is our consciousness, our psychology, and the wonder of the mind. It is the expression of our life force, our beauty; it demonstrates that we are alive. We are the Tree of Life; it is not something that exists out there or is confined to the dusty corridors of arcane occult sciences; we are it. The Tree of Life is exactly that - life - and it lives within you.

Tree Meditation, connect with your inner Tree

Above excerpt taken from The Book of Celtic Magic: Transformative Teachings from the Cauldron of Awen by Kristoffer Hughes

 The Mother Tree, Learn about the sophisticated, underground, fungal network trees use to communicate and even share nutrients. UBC professor Suzanne Simard leads us through the forrest to investigate this underground community.

Trees are our closest spiritual relatives in the plant kingdom, with their roots reaching into the underworld and their branches like arms reaching towards the sun. As such, they are excellent first point of contact with then inner spiritual landscape and its inhabitants. Many tress have a strong individual presence. Others have something more like a hive consciousness, and others can act simply as a window or bridge into another reality. Like people, they have distinctive personalities and even moods.

Excerpt taken from Faery Craft: Weaving Connections with the Enchanted Realm by Emily Carding

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 There are Trees

There are trees in the mountains

Growing on the edge of the sky.

And these trees in the mountains

Sing to me as a go by.

They sing to me of the old ones

Who once lived where I now stand.

They sing to me of the Mother

And the sacredness of land.

There are trees by the ocean

In mist and fog they grow so tall.

And these trees by the ocean

Are sending out their plaintive call.

They're calling us to remember

That we all must live as one.

They're asking us to surrender

Our deeds of greed and destruction.

There are trees in the city

Chocking on smog and pollution.

And yet these trees in the city

Give their very gifts to everyone.

They give us breath.

They give us beauty.

They shelter us from rain and sun.

We must honor and protect them

For the next generations.

There are trees in the moonlight

Their shadows cast upon the ground.

And from these tress in the moonlight

Our roots of peace can be found.

They hold the magic and the memory

And the hope of what's to come.

We walk their path of love and beauty 

and a new world is begun 

There are trees. There are trees. There are Trees.

Excerpt taken from Kathyrn Ravenwood's Chapter "On Becoming a Tree Priestess" in Stepping Into Ourselves: An Anthology of Writings on Priestesses edited by Anne Key and Candace Kant

Deforestation

Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses. An estimated 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest, which is roughly the size of the country of Panama, are lost each year, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Some other statistics:

• About half of the world's tropical forests have been cleared (FAO)
• Forests currently cover about 30 percent of the world’s land mass (National Geographic)
• Forest loss contributes between 6 percent and 12 percent of annual global 
• carbon dioxide emissions (Nature Geoscience)
• About 36 football fields worth of trees lost every minute (World Wildlife Fund (WWF))