We started in November, with Birch, the tree for new beginnings. Very appropriate in my case, as I've just quit my job, left my relationship, moved out of the flat I was sharing and come back to my home in Berkshire, having been in London for the past year.
So I spent a day in Exmoor with Ros Simons, her husband Jon and some fellow explorers where we learned about birch trees, did meditations and journeying, had a go at starting to carve some ogham staves and visited some trees :-)
I have never seen birch trees that were big enough to climb before - my impression of silver birch is that they are very slender trees, with trunks I could easily reach my arms around. A big surprise then, to be amongst many silver birches that were more reminiscent of oak trees in size. I clambered up into one (no mean feat in my wellies!) and was supported enough that I fell asleep laid out along one of the branches.
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| Individual branches thicker than I expect the trunks to be :-) |
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| The branch where I went to sleep! |
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| These trees look entwined but actually aren't! |
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| Sunset |
Since coming back from that weekend, I have found silver birch to talk to in London near the office where I was working (actually in an open space near More London at Tower Bridge!) and also just down the road from my house.
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| Protected enough from the wind to still have leaves in December! |
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| How many silver birch at More London?? |
There were also silver birch forming a protective half-circle around the healing glade that I helped to plant on the Friday morning before heading down to Exmoor later that day :-)
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| Digging the holes |
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| The mayor of Henley-on-Thames came to help |
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| Making sure the tree is straight! |
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| Lots of compost, then topsoil |
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| Watering the roots with mead |
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| Tree standing tall - supports will be added tomorrow :-) |
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| Hawthorn, Rowan and Alder within Birch trees |
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| Blessings for all the trees |
