Ring in the New Year With a Tree

So…I’ve been doing a fair amount of internet browsy-browsy out of sheer laziness on my part.  Part of it is because I’m still recovering a bit from the ick, but mostly its because the weather has also been a bit ick…and I find the combination of the two to be a bit draining.  The Hubby sometimes makes the joke that I’m solar-powered–I have to have sunlight just to function.  I don’t fully wake up til the sun streams in the window and I need the shades open and fake lights off to really do justice to the day.  Working nights when I wa in the military was difficult, mainly because it was so darn hard for me to sleep in the day.

But my solar powered-ness isn’t really the point of this so much as some of my browsy-browsy ponderings, and what they suggest for our family for the new year.  I have a couple I’ll probably be turning into posts, but right now, this is the one I’ve been thinking upon for most of the day:

If Druids indeed live all over the planet then we need to know the magical trees and their lives and uses more than we need to know the trees of Britain I would think. Indeed I think it’s kind of lazy not to know what is around you and waiting for your attention. So who is outside your window waiting for you to notice?

From Adventures and Musings of a Hedgewitch

Holly-effing-loo-lah!

Seriously, I’ve been wondering this forever.  Its not just Druidry and trees–thumb through just about any herbal correspondence.  Same thing there too.

Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) & photo for Day 2 of the First 31 Photo Challenge, taken on my cell phone since my real camera is in the car, which is at work with The Hubby!

I’ve said it enough times that I think I’m a broken record on the subject, but part of being a witch is being part of one’s environment.  That means knowing my local plants and animals, knowing where my water comes from, what my geography means for my weather patterns, what the natural AND human history of my land base is, and where my soil comes from. That means darn well knowing what my local trees are!

We have birch, and willow and ash too…but there ain’t no bald cypress in England (or, for that matter, any outside of a fairly narrow range in the southeastern US).  And any witch worth her salt within spittin’ distance of a bald cypress should be able to tell you that its one of the most woo woo plants out there.  Not to mention sassafras, the paw paw, live oak…

Every one of us lives in a unique ecosystem with a unique history.  Our ecosystem can strengthen us, can teach us, can shape us…if we let it.  If we know how to talk to it–and more importantly, if we know how to listen to it.

Which brings me to this year’s bloggy goal (I prefer goals over resolutions): Be more bioregional in purpose and practice.

And that gets us back to trees…

Which tree species are in your yard?  On your block?  In your neighborhood?  In your bioregion?  How many of them are native vs. naturalized?   Are any of them invasive?  What animals make their homes in them? What do they provide to the ecosystem?  What do they look like in the different seasons of the year?  How do they disperse their seeds?

What do they say to you when you sit under one of them or climb into its branches?

Get to Know Your Tree Resources:
Leafsnap, an Ipad app (as I twiddle my thumbs waiting for the android version…)
The Arbor Day Foundation (has tons of stuff, from an online tree guide to growing info)
Making an herbarium
Our family’s Year of a Leaf Meditation
A Must Read Book

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