The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘world tree’

Thursday 23rd September, 2010 – Llangernyw village, Conwy, North Wales.

Due to us visiting the Llangernyw Yew in daylight we noticed some things we don’t normally see because our usual visit time is dusk or at night. Most striking of the things we saw were the signs strewn around in various formats explaining the provenance of the yew tree. The official estimate is between 4-5,000 years old. If we consider how far back in human history that is, this tree was beginning to grow when mankind was in the flush of building its neolithic structures.

The oldest swinger in town

The yew tree’s life span in perspective

The Neolithic Period when the Llangernyw yew was born

This tree has seen the rise and fall of human civilisations that are completely unknown to us! The tree is older than any of us can possibly trace our ancestry.Having heard Michael Dunning talking about his profound ‘shamanic healing’ experiences in a yew tree that is a mere slip of a lad compared to this one, we had new-found respect for this very ancient tree and its potential power.

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I see that a combined team of Manchester and York University archaeologists have uncovered Britain’s oldest house to date in the ever-more-fascinating Star Carr site near the seaside town of Scarborough in the North East of England. Julian Cope was referring to Star Carr many years ago, long before many people were even aware of its significance (check out his S.T.A.R.C.A.R. track off the Autogeddon album). Talking of album references – the title of my post is a passing reference to the title of The Fall’s latest album, which I recommend to anyone from Bury. I’m not from Bury.

Back to the thin strand of information that I refer to as “the plot”. The plot thickens. This old house that they have dug up contained some well-preserved items in the trench that they sank into the coastal soil, and what they pulled out of the treasure trove were some interesting items, from a druid’s perspective.

1. An antler headdress

This dates the use of ritual antler horn headwear to around the age of 8,5000 B.C.E. That’s quite some precedence for a ritual that only recently dwindled in popularity! Some would say that it is still continued in the concept of the “stag” weekend that prospective grooms undergo throughout the northern hemisphere cultures.

“The site has yielded far more possessions than would have been acquired by bands of hunter-gatherers on the move. They include a boat paddle, beads, arrowheads and antler headdresses, suggesting rituals developed alongside domestic life” (source: The Guardian)

Milners of Britain display their summer range

To me this backs up what a lot of Celtic shamanism writers have said about the rituals of early tribal shamans. It would appear that the rituals (that may have included dance, drumming, initiations and rituals) are about as old as the post-Ice Age human civilisations that began to re-establish themselves in the northern hemisphere after the retreat of the ice caps. Shamanism from the outset, it would seem. Magic at the heart of social life.

John Matthews has this to say about the deer totem:

“The importance of the deer among the Celts is testified not only by the number of appearances it makes in the mythology, but also by the astonishing number of words used to describe it. It was also seen as a magical creature, which could lead one into the Otherworld, and often appears in the guise of a beautiful woman who can take the shape of a deer at will…There is evidence of a deer cult, in which the animal was worshipped as a goddess. The deer thus represents travel to the Hollow Hills or the faerie realm, shapeshifting (the perception of the world from different viewpoints), and the natural deer-like qualities of grace, swiftness and keen scent.” (source: Chapter 3, ‘The Celtic Shaman: A Practical Guide’)

2. A preserved tree stump

The discovery of a large trunk from an old and sizeable tree shows us that the veneration for trees is also as old as the hills.
Again, this reverence for trees hints at some form of shamanistic lifestyle, and who knows how long that lasted, for the Druids of these same islands carried those same items of devotion through into their history, such as we can understand it.

“The population also appears to have respected venerable trees. One of the team’s other startling finds is the trunk of a large specimen with the bark still intact, which was spared from the flints used to carve the rest of the settlement’s timber.” (source: The Guardian)

Delphi's belly button

We have no information yet as to what type of three it might be, but it would not surprise me that it was a yew tree, possibly one of the trees that symbolised the concept of The World Tree – the omphalos or navel, the central point around which a settlement was constructed. Rather than this being something left alone, it could have been the centre of attention. Just a thought.

Gwas.

Saturday 29th May - Four Knocks, County Meath

On the morning of Saturday 29th May I roped Kal into one of my crazy ideas. We would spend the next two days on a modern pilgrimage, just like we had done at Glastonbury the year before. We would find a starting point and then let the dowsing rods direct us from site to site. For me, I would set my intention for this pilgrimage to be to work on each of the seven chakras and to see what came out of trying to do that. For Kal, he would just do what he does – see what happened at each place and go with it. So, with the help of the iMegalith iPhone application and my SatNav system we trekked off to the starting point, which I had determined would be a henge and mound close to Four Knocks.

We didn’t get very far trying to find the henge and mound. The mound was visible in a farmer’s field, but the supposed henge had been… well, let’s assume it was removed and ploughed out of existence! Not a good start. Was there anywhere else we could pick up the quest? Our dowsing showed that nearby Four Knocks would be suitable. As soon as we got the rods crossing we kind of knew that this had actually been the right place all along, but something had been preventing us from dowsing that from afar. We sort of had to be in the area to zoom in on it. Perhaps we had prevented ourselves from ‘finding’ Four Knocks prior to actually being there because we knew you had to obtain a key in order to get in? Who knows. We obtained the said key (by the way – the directions are not very clear – but we found the house eventually and got the key by leaving a small deposit with a nice lady) and went to discover this famous mound’s secrets and begin a quest.

Entrance to Four Knocks

We opened the iron door up (iron – aaargh!!) and began to settle in. I needed some stuff from the car that I had forgotten, and by the time I got back to the mound it was swarming with a minibus-load of tourists from various parts of the world – America, Japan, Australia….all over. Their guide had clearly gone off to get the key without realising that we already had it. Ten minutes later he was in the mound beginning his guided tour of the place, which I earwigged into, of course. Hey – it was free for me to listen!! And jolly interesting it was too, although I could see Kal twitch every now and again, and I was biting my tongue at some of the speculative leaps the guide was making to fill the gaps in the archaeology with fantasy and pure imagination. He was very careful to preface everything with “My guess would be...”, or “Perhaps they might have…”, and even in the dim light I occasionally caught Kal swinging his dowsing rods behind the guide, shaking his head as though to say, “Nope!” It’s funny how dowsing can sometimes make you feel quite confident about being able to find out hidden knowledge, and yet later in the day that confidence would be completely reversed, but we’ll come to that in a later tale.

I don’t know if this is the traditional position but at Four Knocks we have the female on top and the male underneath. Yes, on top of the rounded mound there was female energy all over it. All around the outside of the mound was a male energy lineThe direction energy takes when moving. It may be straight or curved, in several dimensions and be composed of one or more different types of energies, i.e. negative, positive or neutral. Energy lines can be found at standing stones and ancient sites but are a general feature in all energy fields., waving and running around in a sunwise direction. Kal was spending quite a time outside, pacing around and around, working something out, but I decided to get myself inside to take some pictures of the rock carvings and to try to work out what I might have to do to work on my Root Chakra – the first part of my modern pilgrimage. That was the intention, but instead Four Knocks had its own agenda for working my chakras!! I will explain in a moment.

Inside there was more than the usual amount of decoration. Many of the swirling circular shapes were familiar to us, but there was an abundance of zig-zag lines and lozenge shapes carved into the lintels of the recesses in the mound that seemed to be quite unique to this particular chamber, or at least rarely seen in such quantity elsewhere.

Zig-zag lintel decoration at Four Knocks

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I am reminded of a post that seems so long ago now in which I told you how I found my old beech staff, or rather, how I came across the staff in a magical moment where I asked for one to appear and moments later I came across the perfect branch for the job. In honour of this synchronistic and serendipitous gift I left the staff wholly unaltered and natural. It has served me well on my travels over the past few years, but recently I have not taken it with me for some reason. It felt “light”, or “lightweight”. I felt I had outgrown it in some way. I have left it propped under my apple tree all Winter, and have mysteriously forgotten to take it with me on any walks our outings recently.

This weekend I walked along the Whitegate Way – a well-prepared straight trail following a dis-used railway track in Cheshire. The trail forms part of the Gritstone Trail, I think. The track is lined by many birch trees, and I was delighted to reacquaint myself with this beautiful tree, and it made my heart rise in the depths of Winter, and I longed for the first signs of the new year’s growth, but appreciated the silver glow of the birch’s bark as I walked a circuitous route in and around the Whitegate Way. I had no druidic work in mind, and yet something found me.

Last week I discussed with Kal how I was still at the Yew Stage, and that this year should be about renewing the vigour with which I approached the study that this druidic stage entails: reputedly death, rebirth and transformation. I say “reputedly” because reputedly the Yew tree is symbolic of death and rebirth, and yet we found that it was a pacifying presence, and this alone was the reason for its presence at graveyards, or rather, people came to be buried at places close to yew trees because of the yew’s calming effect upon human death energies. Anyway, the Yew Stage for me is identified by one becoming two – one energy stream has become a twin pair of energy streams.

Ash Trash

As I came to the end of what was frankly a pretty dull walk I was uplifted by veering away from Newchurch Common and getting back in amongst some pine trees. Feeling their enclosed warmth and comforting carpet of needles with their delightful scent invigorated me. I woke up a little and began to appreciate the languishing willow trees sucking on the juices of small ponds; the stubbornly green undergrowth; the row of upcoming birch trees that indicated we were back onto the Whitegate Way and nearly back at the car park.

As the path passed a barrier I noticed there was a smaller path undulating alongside the main straight and flat prepared path. I walked towards it then suddenly stopped dead: at my feet was a perfect length of tree branch, already topped and tailed with neat cuts and a curious y-shaped end. Wow! Although something had run it over scratching its upper bark clean and leaving a scarred bare side I could see the beauty of the wood beneath and I picked it up. It felt good – balanced, weighty, solid,strong. I walked with it on the undulating path – it was a perfect height for me, and walked well. I determined to take it home. The forked end seemed to resonate with me as a perfect symbol of this coming year’s work.

I identified the branch as ash, and when writing this account up I scoured the ‘Net to look up the significance of the Ash tree. This quote from the OBOD site made my eyebrows raise, especially after I had just written the previous statement about this year’s work being related to getting back on track with death, rebirth and transformation:

“The Ash tree has always been given mystical import and character, frequently being associated with healing and enchantment. In Celtic literature, there are many references to the Ash tree, but in particular as associated with the Welsh Magician-God Gwyddion, who bears an Ash staff/wand, a symbol of healing and especially transformation and empowerment in matters of destiny.” [link: OBOD article by Tanequil]

On this path I have chosen to walk, whenever I am walking in the right direction and sticking to The Way, I am given gifts from divine providence to help me. It sounds so corny that I wouldn’t expect anyone to believe it. I can barely believe it myself. Yet always these gifts appear at the right time, just when I need them, and with traditional associations that are perfectly in line with my intentions. Again, another perfect example. The Ash Staff for transformation and empowerment in matters of destiny. The walk continues, now with a new ally.

There is another coincidental element to contend with. A month ago I was reading Oonagh’s Worlds blog (the lovely Oonagh is so talented – see the front page of HD for a link to her blog). She had posted an article about how she had carved a delightful ash staff for a friend, called The Norseman’s Staff. I was so envious! I contented myself with my natural “beech” staff that I have been carrying for over a year, but I couldn’t help admire her work and I commented as much on her blog. You will see what I mean about her amazing carving if you take a look at her post and pictures – it’s truly beautiful. Now my secret wish has been granted! How wonderful. I smiled the whole way home knowing what I was going to do with the staff once I could work on it. The very next morning I went to buy what I needed from the DIY shop.

I spent a couple of hours taking the staff through a process of stripping the bark, smoothing the scratches and sanding the staff completely, and then waxing it with beeswax (natural colour). I am now completely satisfied with its look and feel.

New ash staff

In conversation with Kal it turns out that the two of us were both discovering new wooden tools to take with us on our travels this year – one the same day and at the same time but in two different locations. He was busy finding and learning about how he could employ a beech wand this year. Well, there’s a phrase I also thought I would never write! I told him how I might carve some symbols into the damaged and scratched areas on one side of the staff. He then told me how he was planning to do the same with the wand. We seem to have begun the year in complete synchrony. These things tend to happen when you follow The Way.

Gwas