Tree Folklore for The Spirit Season
“Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.
Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.
Their language has been lost.
But not the gestures.”
~ Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
~ William Blake
It’s that time of year. You know what I mean.
One of my friend’s had hers up for about a week! Yep, I’m talking about Christmas trees and decorations. And she’s not alone, indeed many people are now looking towards the festive period.
I don’t blame them.
The last few years have been hard for everyone, to varying degrees of course and for some, times have always been tough, the pandemic not viral but instead financial and social.
So why not a little festive cheer? Fucksake, what with the shitshow of the world and the cop-out that is COP26, why not a little diversion and cheer, if only for a while.
Besides, I used to work in retail. Christmas starts in the summer, no lie, the holiday’s nothing more than carefully planned out and prepared money making machines to the behemoth that is Capitalism. We’d be selling Christmas cards in August alongside water guns and windmills.
For me, though its breath might already kiss the air and make it chill, winter is still a little time away. Autumn lingers, is still the time of the thinning veil. Spirits still restlessly roam, indeed as I write this, the astronomical Samhain has not long passed, a week at most.
For me, the wheel of the year is very much rooted in the cycles of the seasons and its effect upon the land where I live, the sabbats not single occasions to be marked and then forgotten but instead waymarkers of transient seasons that are ever-changing, are never still.
Trees are symbols of this cycle, of this ever turning wheel. They signify the seasons, and show the incremental changes that occur as the wheel creaks ever onwards; the blossom of spring, the lush green of early summer, the fruits of late summer and early autumn. The dramatic colour show and loss that mark late autumn and the bare branches and evergreens of winter. You get the idea.
And so, you may be wondering where I am going with this talk of spirits and trees. Well the truth is these things have been playing on my mind of late, and as always, the intersections of daily life, magic and rebellion all play a part.
Regular readers will know I have a thing about woods and trees, about nature in general, and some of you may already have heard me talk about the trees in my local town that are under risk of being destroyed to create parking spaces. Well, things took a dramatic turn when the council had barriers erected to keep out the protestors earlier this week, and the police warned everyone they would be trespassing if they stayed.
I am so proud of my local community, of people, many of them strangers, from many walks of life, coming together to protect trees, to protect nature, from the greed of those in power. And, as I write this, it seems there may well be a reprieve in sight. Of course, this relies on the council accepting the offer proposed, so who knows. I suppose it’s a waiting game, but hope is there. Hope that people can and will come together against corruption and greed for something greater than themselves.
Lofty aims, I know, but still…
And so all of this got me thinking, the dark half of the year and the spirit connection with Samhain, trees, nature and animism. And of course, the thread running through it all, bringing people together and connecting them, is folklore.
I saw an interesting comment online the other day, Twitter I think, about folklore being treated as though it is not a living and breathing thing connecting the past to the present through stories of place. Perhaps one day the story of the people coming together to save four trees will pass into local lore. Whether it does or not, the truth is that folk stories and lore are living traditions that evolve (why do you think there are nearly always several versions of the same story) and embedded in the land, the people and the spirits that reside there.
World Trees; Axis Mundi
It’s easy to see why the axis mundi, the world soul, is so often referred to and conceptualised as a tree. With branches reaching up skyward towards the heavens and roots delving deep into the dark earth, trees span and connect the different realms of existence, the underworld, the mundane world, the celestial realm and the spiritual.
Perhaps the most well known of the world trees is Yggdrasil from Norse mythology, and chances are you’ve already heard it, particularly if you are into Norse mythology or spirituality or you happen to be into vikings.
In the poem ‘Völuspá’ taken from the Poetic Edda, Yggdrasil was an evergreen ash within which is held the nine realms or worlds that make up the Norse cosmos.
When Yggdrasil shivers and moans, it is a sign of the end times, Ragnorak. When that happens, the tree will die and the roots will break, snapping the chains that hold the monstrous beast Fenrir.
There are many other world trees that can be found across the world and from many cultures. One of the lesser known ones hails from Hungary and is called:
égig érő fa or ‘the Sky High Tree’.
In some versions of the folk stories surrounding this world tree, it grows from a mountain, yet in others from the antlers of a magnificent stag and still in others from the back of a horse. What is clear is that it connects the under, middle and upper worlds and holds the sun and moon in its branches.
These are just two examples of world trees, but what nearly all of them have in common is they represent the axis mundi, the soul or spine of the world, acting as both connection to and barrier from each of the realms of existence. Witches and occultists know that to traverse the axis mundi is to traverse realms.
How many will be doing just that, right now, at the time of the thinning veil?
Spirit work isn’t just about working with the spirits of the dead, beloved or otherwise.
As an animist, I see the world and thus nature as being alive with spirit, and when I see people coming together to protect nature, I think others feel this way too, even if they don’t have the words to express or name it. Spirit is about living spirit and the actions we take here in the mundane world speaks volumes in the spiritual.
EMMA KATHRYN
Emma Kathryn, practises traditional British witchcraft, Vodou and Obeah, a mixture representing her heritage. She lives in the sticks with her family where she reads tarot, practises witchcraft and drink copious amounts of coffee.
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