written by Cathy Skipper

Listening to trees—guides and all embracing shadows of the truth.

It was a sunny winter’s day.

I sat down on the soft forest floor, enjoying the way the light came through the gaps in the trees and rested on a clump of young hazelnut shoots lighting them up like stars within the darkness, and I let my pen write…

Listening to oneself beyond the boundaries of what we call reality. Inner listening aligned with one’s true self, the natural one who is part of all and where all resides.

Trees are our masters; don’t look any further, you have found the guides you have been looking for all your life. They do not come in human form, but are all-embracing shadows of the truth.

They will lead you at all times to your inner being, they will shine the light so that you see more clearly—they are part of you; yes, hazelnut, ash, oak, beech, pine, birch, hawthorn—they are all part of you, and they come from where you come from.

When I was learning to be a herbalist, identifying plants and learning their properties, I found it easier to look down and concentrate on the plants and herbs that grew near the ground rather than look up and somehow integrate the strength and energy that came from the trees all around me.

Even back then, a part of me recognized that although I loved trees, I had to be ready to begin to understand their medicine and feel their force and I had some more growing to do first.

Through my passion, herbal study and deepening relationship with the plants, little by little I began to look upwards and slowly one day alone in the woods, a pine tree (Pinus sylvestris) showed me a doorway.

Neither parent, friend nor lover had ever been able to get through the invisible barriers of fear that I had so carefully constructed between myself and other. It was the pine that pierced the barricades on that memorable day in the woods.

It was so natural—no longing, no forcing, no thoughts about anything, just pure being, the pine and myself. Enveloped, I felt so supported, gently and lovingly held in this physical reality. For the first time I felt nurtured on all levels—subtle, emotional and physical.

What is so great about tree allays is that once the connection has been made, the communication has been established, it is constant and always there. Unlike us fickle mortals, the ego does not interfere. The search for that feeling of being loved and supported was over, I had found it.

Calling on the pine…

It is what the pine knows, does and exudes. It is always here, I just have to call on the pine.

This subtle but very real relationship helped me understand the soul of the pine and how I can work together with it in my work as a herbalist. I have always admired the pine’s capacity to re-trigger tired adrenals, boosting them with energy to help them get back into action.

In feeling the way the pine can hold and give of its tender, supportive force energetically helped me understand this physical action in a deeper way.

The pine is nurturing, initiating the two fountains of energy from the adrenal glands that give us the physical motivation we need to function fully here on earth.

The pine also bears the weight of the physical structure that holds us up, having both an anti-inflammatory action on rheumatic and arthritic conditions and a re-mineralizing action on the bones.

Dr. Bach used the pine for those people who are constantly putting themselves down, feeling guilty and never good enough. The pine’s sustaining energy can get through the self-hate and help the person feel loved, and thus learn to love him/herself.

Wilhelm Pelikan‘s reflection about the pine being full of etheric oils (essences) and balsamic resins, which are an intervention of a luminous and calorific process in the cold areas of the earth, where the pine originates from sums it up well.

When one is feeling cold and in need of support, call on the pine.

I tend to use pine oil as an essential oil as it grows abundantly in the area where I live.

For depleted adrenals, I advise a drop of the oil rubbed quite vigorously into the kidney area every morning for between 3-7 days. Three days is often enough to re-stimulate, as we are not looking for the pine to bear the job of the adrenals, rather just to get them fully going again.

Befriending the silver birch…

The next tree allay that comes to mind is the silver birch (Betula pendula). I befriended this tree many, many years ago when as a young girl I was interested in runes and their meanings.

The rune Berkanan is the rune of the birch tree, re-birth, renewal, regeneration, sanctuary, and motherhood, but it wasn’t until I started collecting birch sap from a wood in the hills many years later that I began to truly understand the symbolism behind the rune.

Alone amongst the white-skinned birch trees, the signs of spring are still only a pulsation from inside the earth, a pulsation to which the birch responds by calling the sweet mineralized waters up through her slender, luminous trunk with a force that triggers the awakening of spring and enables us to feel this seasonal re-birthing of life’s vital force.

The first sips, straight from the tree, of the sweet sap are symbolic of the seasons when they have turned. Physically, the groggy body fluids of a static winter can be renewed with the flowing waters of spring. The birch, like the pine, prefers the colder regions of this planet.

Its protective role covers not only the daily needs of the northern people (housing, clothing, food, medicine), but is also a link between the visible and invisible.

The birch brings the liquids of the earth up through its trunk and the celestial forces down to the earth. The doorway that the birch opens is one that facilitates our communication with our natural surroundings and nature’s spirits.

The link between the sky and the earth is very feminine and watery in the birch, even the celestial energies that it helps bring to earth are fluid, a form of water that is not wet.

The parallel between the subtle, energetic messages of birch and its traditional medicinal uses are very close. The movement of fluids is echoed in its draining action. Birch gets things moving and leaves way for renewal, cleansing and transformation of matter and energy.

Robert Frost seems to have felt the way birch links what is above with what is below and its feeling of constant rejuvenation in his poem;

“I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree


And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
 
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more
 
But dipped its top and set me down again.
 
That would be good both going and coming back.
 
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

Tapping into the mystical, wise hawthorn.

Lastly, I am going to talk about the hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) with its deep, inner, sacred strength—a mystical, wise, underground type of knowing.

Hawthorns often grow in communities, in hedges or glades, and the spirit of hawthorn reflects this sense of ancient, healing and magical community—one that you don’t just walk into willy-nilly, a community that demands a form of initiation to enter.

Hawthorns are the guardians of other realms, some may refer to them as fairy realms. I see them as sacred, knowing realms.

The secrecy that the hawthorn emanates is reflected in the fact that in Europe, up to the 19th century, it went more or less unnoticed, mentioned occasionally for the odd banal property linked to its astringency. Its physicality also echoes the ability to close things off.

The entrance is difficult, the wood is hard and gnarled with spiky thorns, the density of its branches and leaves make a great protection against the wind and the intrusion of animals and humans.

At the same time, the hawthorn has the ability to encourage life. It provides a secure home for many birds and insects, and in the month of May it lights up the hedges with its abundance of white flowers.

Here in France, these pure white flowers that seem to appear from nowhere, and just as quickly disappear, have always been a symbol of innocence and virginity linked to wedding ceremonies and the Virgin Mary.

I see them as a symbol of the magic and underworld that the hawthorn is linked to. These flowers that seem like foreigners to this forbidding tree covered with thorns represent the purity of the real knowing that is hidden deep down in its roots.

They manifest once a year—at springtime—to remind us that things are not always as they seem, and that in the depths of our souls lies the light of our being; in the darkness of the forest live the spirits of nature.

The hawthorn seems to be a doorkeeper for the two worlds, and lives in both simultaneously.

The hawthorn’s main use today is in relation to our rhythmic system — the opening of the heart — physically, energetically and spiritually.

Physically, it is restorative to the heart, often referred to here in France as the valerian of the heart, a powerful cardio-tonic, it regularizes circulation of the blood by acting simultaneously on the cardiac muscle and vessels by the intermediary of the nervous system.

It also has the capacity to dilate the coronary arteries helping with the dissolution of arterial deposits without raising blood pressure or increasing the beat.

As a tree essence, I find it useful when working on closed and damaged hearts, as it seems to help rid the heart of negativity and recover from past wounds.

Its capacity to protect is seen here in the form of self-protection from harm thus creating space and safety for love, trust and forgiveness to develop, forgiveness of the self being a major aspect.

Connecting with trees, feeling and listening to their messages, has helped me to create a more stable structure around my work with plants—they were the missing element. Their size, woodiness, age and vibration give scale to the plant world.

Trees live alongside us, they are a common feature of our lives, but so many of us forget to enter into communication with them and therefore miss the lessons of some of the best teachers we have on this earth.

Once the connection has been made, my soul recognizes the tree that has always been part of me and welcomes it home.

Thank you, trees, for knocking on the door of my heart.

Bonus.

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