The Wild Wisdom of Elder

#spell #samhain #celtictreecalendar

Previous Tree Cycle: Reed & Blackthorn

Tree Cycle: Ruis Elder & Koad The Grove (Honorary Ioho Yew)

Elder Tree Cycle Dates: October 3 - October 30.

The Grove (Yew): October 31st

Key Words For Elder, The Grove & Yew: Elder - Death, Rebirth, Souls Journey, Past Life Resurgence, Ancestors, Together, Return, Relationship, Felt Sense, Tentative, Veil. The Grove - The Void, Between, Ancestors, Animal Guides, Healing, Life Force, Teaching, Source, Tree Consciousness, Internal Bodily Awareness, Grounding, Sacred Space. Yew - Eternal, Peace, Contemplation, Healing, Decay, Guardian, Sacred Rites Paradoxical, (Together Yet Not)

Lunation: 13th

Souls Evolution Stage: Death

The Council of Trees - Hidden Tree Cycles: Hawthorn & Oak

The Council of Trees - Hidden Tree Cycles Date: April 3 - April 29

Key Words of The Council of Trees: Hawthorn - Scared Union, Conception, Waiting, Early Stages, Undisclosed Treasure, Wonder, Masculine & Feminine Energy, Protection, Nurture, Be Beside Self, Sacred. Oak - Long Term Goals, Growth, Fixed, Rooted, Strength, Protection, Keeper of Memories, Nostalgia, Optimism, Development, Plans, Beauty.

Spiritual Weather: Dark Night of the Soul, Melancholy, The Past, Overwhelm, Over Protective, Mergence, Detachment.

Celebration: Samhain 31st October Northern Hemisphere.

Tree Cycle Elder

The Elder tree cycle is something of an enigma. In many ways Elder energy moves us irrespective of our desires, as though instinct overcomes all reason or logic. We are swept into our souls need to experience. Elder is the final full tree cycle, aside from The Grove on the 31st of October, before we move into a Celtic New Year with Birch on the 1st of November. So the Elder cycle is a peak spiritual experience for us, the culmination of our souls journey through a yearly cycle of our expression in our life. If there are any lessons we have not yet realised consciously, Elder will support us to open these doors. This is why energy around Elder can be both still and chaotic, as in death and in birth. We may be in a cyclic pattern of soul lesson themes. Elder will be the cycle where we know that something is coming or even is already upon us. Each year we experience a powerful shift during Elder, shifts that crack us open, sometimes in a painful way. There is a rushing in, with intensity, of insights and revelations. And deep core healing takes place. Death cycles can feel like a tearing or ripping open of parts of ourselves, creating deep chasms, but this is how we thrust ourselves into necessary change. It is not Elders way to be harsh or threatening. Elder is a healer. But to be healed there must first be opportunity. Elder offers to keep us company and supports us to keep company to our felt senses, within our body, as we journey towards our own wisdoms. Elder is our final opportunity for meeting our truest self in this present moment. Our preparation for the closest we will come to our own spirit and those of our ancestors before we begin a new yearly cycle, is under way. Elder is our spiritual 'glow-up', although for spiritual seekers this is more like a the stripping away, finding our rawest sense of self in this moment. A sacred time of feeling close to a knowing who we are and where we come from are Elders gifts.

The Grove & Yew

A time of coming together. Of spells, magic and meaning. The Grove offers us sacred space and the Yew supports us in knowing what we may need within that sacred space. What magics will we weave. This is a deeply mystical time of relation and celebration. Relation with our spirit tribe, our ancestors. But also a time of deeply felt celebration with our our spirit and our own physical body and abilities. With heightened awareness and sensitivity to the closeness of spirit, we are aware of a natural attunement within our own body's cycles and wisdoms. Our internal sensing is amplified and we notice parts within us that hold our life's experience and the mysteries of our own spirit within. We listen intently. We are a paradox at this time. We feel the closeness of something, yet we also need space for something else. We feel cosiness within still and dark solitude. Yet we hear a calling, of a togetherness in celebration. We honour both life and death, body and spirit. We embody a primal desire to wield our magic, yet we shield our skin with our animal kin, wearing masks and cloaks. Yew trees are associated with witches and are also honoured as points for spiritual practitioners to hold secret meetings. They are wisdom keepers and hold the mysteries of life and death. Within The Grove space during Samhain we can look to the Yew for spiritual guidance, and ask for guidance of what ability we need to nurture in this present moment. We can also look to honour our inner voice at this time, for our words are potent and lyrical, they sway the will of others. Beneath a Yew tree nothing grows, all parts of the tree are poisonous. Ingesting even a small amount if fatal. Yet the Yew tree holds the magic of healing, a cure for disease. The Yew is the womb, capable of life and death. And reminds us of the finest line of The Veil.

Spiritual Weather & The Council of Trees

Influence: Hawthorn

Inspiration: Oak

Because of the paradoxical nature of these mystical times. If we do not ground ourselves and listen to inner wisdoms we may become entangled in powerful magical weather patterns. Rendering a sense within us of complete chaos and overwhelm. The nature of Elder is to provide us with spiritual experience, yet when we are faced with the Mirror of Fates, we may feel fear or despair. Choosing to run from our experiences as we have done over many lifetimes. Denying our body, the necessary experience we need to overcome past life traumas which would generate a release of those bonds that trap us. Preventing us from evolving. We do not want to merge with, or detach from our experience. Simply, keep our experience company, in all of its fullness, chaos and beauty.

Hawthorn continues to support us in the first two weeks of Elder influencing us in ways that supports us to support ourselves. Hawthorn knows our inner Kingdom, our strategies of protection and our resources at our disposal. We are encouraged by Hawthorn to step into our mystical power during Elder season and utilise specific resources. A time to nurture our inner realms, make known the mysteries of our soul and acknowledge the life force of our living being as a conscious part of us that wants to work for us in the best way it can. We can get so caught up in the entanglements of all that is 'US', that we see ourselves as one overwhelming experience. Hawthorn wants us to acknowledge that we have many ways, all valid, all equal and all individual. During Elder, Hawthorn reminds us that to be a living being, capable of mystical abilities, is to be a walker between worlds. To awaken to that power which is innate in us, is to acknowledge our awakened abilities as individual yet connected parts of our whole. We may be feeling melancholy during the first half of Elder, a knowing of something, slightly out of reach. Unable to make sense of it. Hawthorn offers us opportunity for self nourishment and the preparations for our various needs. Foods, drinks, activities and practices that will strengthen our inner Shaman and our intuition. Feeding our inner mystic, our inner sage, so that we may be ready to interpret the signs and messages of our soul during Elder season. Hawthorn wants us to notice if we are over protecting ourselves, and to also consider this part of us that seeks to keep us safe. A part that simply wants us to know it is there, and offer kindness to this part so that it may rest a while.

Oak joins us in the second half of Elder season. A harmonious partner to Hawthorn, when we experience both these trees in partnership as we do here within The Council we are engaging a powerful coupling of the strongest motivators in the tree calendar. Oak Inspires us to drive our roots deep, we are anchored within a powerful self governance. Hawthorn moves us from within, an umbilical to spirit. We radiate the burning life force of spirit imbued into us over thousands of years. Oak amplifies this life force, we become a force of nature. We land, meeting gravity, solid, determined, confident and grounded in our magical ways and sense of self. A knowing, imbedded in us, instinct rises up within us and we will feel compelled to enact practices that are not learned in this life, but memory from many lives before. We may wonder, how we know such things. Yet we will also feel an acceptance of our practice, welcoming home something that is a part of us, and always has been. Oak will inspire us to sink into practices that are indigenous to us, they come from somewhere primal and wild. As Oak traverses The Grove and Birch, we will be supported in integrating these practices and drawing them into a new Celtic yearly cycle with us. Oak acts as an Akashic vault. Meditating on Oak energy will unlock acorns of illumination, each one holding entire life times of memory for us, experience, knowledge, magics of what was and will be. Oak supports us in embracing Elder in all of her dimensions, and embracing ourselves in all of our dimensions. We will only ever be given, exactly what we need and can handle.

Blessing for Elder The Grove & Yew

A Spell For Samhain.

Mistress of the velvet night,

Steel the shadows from my sight.

Reveal the path of the past,

That I may heal, sure and fast.

Brew a tea, sticky and sweet.

Cast the spell that I might greet.

Treasured loves of a long lost way .

Gathered now together on this all hallowed day.

Blessed Be.

An Offering For The Council

Turn your presence inwards and be guided by your own intuition and inner wisdom as to how you would like to share your offering. Or you may like to try my own suggestion. At this time of year there are many opportunities for gathering leaves. If there are Oak trees near you you may like to go out and collect some leaves. Oak leaves at times fall in clusters still joined at the stem. You could add these leaves to your sacred space or alter as a special honouring of the tree. Oak trees are wisdom keepers, they hold our memories. Visiting an Oak tree and sharing a moment with them, with some words, or a shared story will strengthen your friendship and bond with the tree. They will hold this memory of your presence there with them along with all of your other memories. This invites the Oak to be a part of your life. Simply thinking of Oak will imply presence and enliven the relationship between you and tree. With Beltane being the festival of the Council, sister of Samhain we are in a powerful flow of spiritual fire. Writing a blessing for your Council and burning it in your censor, fire pit or cauldron will be gratefully received by the Trees.

Next Tree Cycle: Birch

Your in the heart of the woodlands.

Mags Black