Connecting With Rowan
The Rowan Tree.
As I stand in the kitchen washing dishes, a crowd of starlings land in the branches of our Rowan, how beautiful, the way they all descend together. I watch until they rise once again together, and fly away, yesterday it was a song thrush and a few days before a young squirrel, all attracted to her abundance of ripe red berries. I return to making my coffee and take it outside, it’s Sunday morning and the stillness of this early Autumn morning is broken only by the whispering of the wind and the snuffling of the puppy as he explores the garden as though visiting for the first time. I walk over to Rowan and place my hand on her bark, smiling to myself with gratitude for her abundance and resilience.
A cluster of bright red berries growing on the Rowan Tree.
It was her resilience that first struck me; Back in early May when we first arrived here, this oddly out of place tree, with stumps where many of it’s no doubt once beautiful branches had been hacked away. Despite the clear butchering she had received she seemed determined to thrive, new branches growing and an abundance of leaves and white blossom covering her. She sits, somewhat inconveniently in a raised bedding area. An area I had decided would become my herb garden.
The Faery Door in the Rowan tree. Two stone moon gazer hares sit at her base.
Rowan is not a tree I am very familiar with, the tree surgeon had advised removing her as in time her roots would undoubtedly damage the wall, although I do not like cutting down trees I could understand the necessity and decided it would be less painful if I ignored her and so I paid her little attention. I did though decide to hang a wind chime and bird feeder that I had been gifted from her branches, or what remained of them, might as well make her useful while she’s here! The feeder attracted finches and the blue tits who were nesting in our shed, along with a collared dove and lone magpie who visit daily. I began to notice her, I noticed that she has some bark missing near the bottom of her trunk, leaving what looked like a faery door, or portal to another dimension. I noticed a small cluster of bluebells around her base, giving her even more of a faery feel. Finding myself increasingly drawn to her, I decided to do a little research into Rowan. I discovered that she is also known as Mountain Ash or Witch Wood. That she is often known as the faery or goddess tree. Steeped in folklore including Norse and Greek mythology, she was believed by the Druids to protect the deceased and is often found in church yards or near to sacred sites. ‘She’ is an hermaphrodite, though I continue to call mine she as she has a definite feminine energy about her. In Scotland it was believed that if Rowan was planted next to a dwelling the residents would be protected, considered to ward off evil, each of her berries has its own little five-pointed star or pentagram, symbolic of protection. I discovered that her delicate white blossoms are loved by pollinators in the spring and her rich red berries by the birds in Autumn. Could I really condemn this bountiful warrior to death? I smile as I sip my coffee my hand against her trunk, feeling her energy and reassuring her, that I am honoured to be her custodian for now and that for as long as I remain here, she will always be safe, and the wall? Well we’ll figure that out at a later date.
