LADY DAY: BIRCH IN FULL LEAF

A number of birches have been planted on our estate. Today, for the first time this year, I noticed one in full leaf. I’m writing at 2 pm, four days before the introduction of summer time. The day so far has been mostly bright, though cool and windy. Threats of rain have not so far materialised. The bright birch leaves are a gift from a moment in this year that points to a greener, leafier season to come.

This is an important annual marker for me, and this year it coincides with Lady Day. In the Christian Year, Lady Day commemorates the Annunciation, when Archangel Gabriel told Mary she would conceive Jesus Christ. In England an Wales, from 1155-1752, it also marked the start of the legal and fiscal new year, and is now referred to as Old New Year’s Day. As such, it was one of the four quarter days – together with Midsummer, Michaelmas and Christmas, when rents were due, debts were paid and employment contracts signed at the hiring fairs that took place at or near to these dates. More organically, the coming into leaf of the birch marked the beginning of the agricultural year – farmers watched for the leafing of the birch as a gauge for when to sow their wheat.

In the tree lore developed around the Irish ogham alphabet (1) birch – beith – is connected with the driving out of evil or toxic influences, and with favourable new beginnings. In the Scandinavian runic tradition, birch – beorc, berkana) also indicates new beginnings and laying aside old, toxic or redundant patterns. It also has a specific reference to the young Goddess, sexuality and birth, and a willingness to welcome new, more energising and nourishing ways of being.

But more than any of these traditional links and associations, I felt blessed and heartened by today’s encounter with a birch tree close to home. My immediate response was spontaneous, yet I feel a kind of confirmation in the bringing together of the day with the tree.

(1) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2021/02/01/