contemplativeinquiry

In my tree mandala of the year (1), yew is my Samhain tree, and to a large extent my November tree. It is an obvious choice, as I leave a quarter concerned with autumn and bearing fruit and enter one of winter and the dying of the year. Regeneration too, but that is some way off.

I admire the power and longevity of the yew, and am in some ways drawn to its energy. But I do not find the relationship easy. I can find it spiky and obscurely demanding. I can find myself resistant to the sensed demand. The alignment of tree and season alerts me to my own mortality and creates space for a reflective moment. But this year I’ve been alert to my mortality for much of the time. In reaction, at Samhain 2020, I feel naturally sluggish and drowsy. Something in me is happy to go down into the dark without too much awareness. Let the dying of the year be the dying of the year, it whispers. Just let it happen. Just let me go down into the dark and sleep.

The Green Man Tree Oracle (2) links the yew with perseverance, for ‘perseverance leads to achievement’. Right now I’m not much interested in achievement, but I notice that I can think of perseverance in another way. This has to do with sticking with the experience that presents itself, rather than life-coaching my way out of it.

I have been working with an intensified wheel of the year for the last 45 weeks. I have seen how easy it is to impose impose conventional or surface-willed patterns on my experience. The seasonal structure is real. I see, feel, hear, taste and smell it manifesting itself in the apparent world as the wheel turns. But the idea of the wheel still has the power to displace lived experience through formalised words, images and expectations. Perseverance on the path asks for two things, I think. One is permission to let go of any sense of project or practice when it loses authenticity. The other is to be truly sensitive and discriminating when I’m happy to be awake.

(1) NOTE: This mandala is based on my personal experience of trees in the neighbourhood as well as traditional lore. Moving around the wheel of the year from 1 November, the positions and dates of the trees are:

Yew, north-west, 1-23 November

Elder, north-north-west, 24 November – 16 December

Holly, north, 17 December – 7 January

Alder, north-north-east, 8 – 31 January

Birch, north-east, 1 – 22 February

Ash & Ivy, east-north-east, 23 Feb. – 16 March

Willow, east, 17 March – 7 April

Blackthorn, east-south-east, 8 – 30 April

Hawthorn, south-east, 1 – 23 May

Beech & Bluebell, south-south-east, 24 May – 15 June

Oak, south, 16 June – 8 July

Gorse, south-south-west, 9 – 31 July

Apple, south-west, 1 -23 August

Blackberry & Vine, west-south-west, 24 August – 15 September

Hazel, west, 19 September – 8 October

Rowan, west-north-west, 9 – 31 October.

See also https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2020/autumn-equinox-2020-hazel-salmon-awen/

(2) John Matthews & Will Worthington The Green Man Oracle London: Connections, 2003. Also source of the image at the top.