I have just started a new practice to help me connect more closely with nature and the resources available to us. Trees have been an important part of Druid and other Pagan practices, but there is not a lot of documentation on how they were used. Generally different types of trees were used to make wands and other magical tools. Groves of trees, especially oak, were often the site of rituals and other services.
I believe we can share energy with certain trees to help us with challenges we are facing in our lives. James Redfield’s Celestine Prophecy is a good book to reference on sharing energy with plants and trees. Certain trees are associated with unique properties that can be incorporated into our practice. Respectfully touching, sitting and leaning against or standing by certain trees can support us in ways unique to the individual species of tree.
Here are some characteristics that can be accessed in communion and meditation with individual tress:
Apple: To increase abundance and prosperity
Birch: Helps heal our deepest wounds
Catalpa: Used to enhance creativity and embrace uniqueness
Cedar: Helps break spells, provide clarity and focus
Cherry: For increasing love and sweetness
Elm: Believed to enhance psychic abilities and to help to achieve justice
Maple: For enhancing balance and learning to go with the flow
Oak: For strength, courage and deep roots or enhancing groundedness
Olive: For divine healing
Pine: Releasing guilt, healing
Sycamore: Sharing energy may enhance love, fertility and protection
Walnut: For health and healing
Willow: Helps us learn to bend and not break, to be flexible
Sit with a tree, hug a tree, breathe with a tree and think of their individual qualities. I find they enhance my sense of well being and I gain a greater appreciation for nature.
