Feral Apples

Apples have started to fall from the wild trees that grow in the woods where I hike. In the last couple of weeks, maybe encouraged by the return of the rain, the abundant fruit has seemed to power through the last stages of ripening, growing more plump and taking on a beautiful red blush. Yesterday the dog and I shared our first feral apple of the season. It’s going to be a great harvest this year.

The same woods produce abundant black raspberries. It’s common to see people picking them, whether it’s just a handful for a quick snack or a container full to take home for later. Not so with the apples. Much more often, these lovely fruits simply fall to the ground, only to be run over by mountain bikers or kicked aside by hikers and joggers. Only the wasps seem to truly appreciate wild apples.

I think a lot of people are afraid of feral apples because they only barely resemble the fruit you buy at the grocery store. Cultivated apples have been engineered to be regular in size, larger, and to resist the scabs that naturally form as an apple grows. They stay white for longer. They are visually pleasing, assessed by the eye rather than the palate or the nose.

And yet, feral apples are very good. The apple I ate yesterday was small – about a third of the size of the average cultivated apple. It was dense with flavour, both sweet and tart. The flesh was also harder and crunchier than most store-bought apples. It was irregular in size, and bore some scabs from the trauma of growing. As I ate it, the pristine white flesh turned brown extremely quickly.

It could be that people are concerned that somehow feral apples will prove to be hard to digest, or that because they are wild crafted, they must contain numerous worms and insects. Yes, it’s best to avoid apples that have fallen to the ground. “Never eat a windfall apple,” advised the grandmother character in The Company of Wolves, and she was right (although you should stray from the path as often as possible). Once the tree is ready to release her fruit, all it takes is a little shake to make apples fall. Grab them when they hit the ground, and you’ll be just fine.

While I’m sure feral apples are more nutritionally dense than their domesticated counterparts, the most profound thing about them is their energetic effect on the body. After eating that one small apple yesterday, I was filled with a strong, uplifting energy that lasted for hours. It isn’t too surprising: an apple tree I spoke to last year told me that fruit trees have chosen to pour their energies into fruit as an expression of love for people and animals. Because wild fruit trees aren’t under the kind of duress that cultivated trees must endure, that voluntary energy of love remains with their fruit.

After enjoying that first apple, I put out an intention to gather more the next time I go to the woods. As I walked along the remainder of my route, numerous apple trees I hadn’t noticed before practically jumped out at me. I even found a densely laden pear tree, with enough fruit hanging on it to feed a family for the entire winter.

The next time you’re in the woods, keep an eye out for a feral apple or pear tree. Give the tree a shake and enjoy a gift from the natural world.

Midsummer at Iroquoia Heights

Even if I'm stuck inside, I find it's good to look at photos of green and growing things. I took these on the 5th of August at my favourite hiking spot. It never ceases to amaze me how, despite the consistency of the heat and the humidity, the natural world is always pushing toward some kind of transformation. If you go out today in my neck of the woods, you'll find wild plantain going to seed, sumac fruit ready to pick and squeeze into a glass of water, feral apple trees beginning to throw off their first fruits, and a host of late summer flowers coming into their own. The skies are putting on their own constant show, with an amazing array of varied and ever-shifting clouds passing through. Have you looked at the sky lately?

Click on any photo to embiggen.

A Simple Tree Meditation for the Middle of Summer

Oooops....was what I said to myself when I took a look at the date of my last post. It's been a while! Suffice it to say that I've been out in the woods. I hope you all have, too.

We've just passed Lammas, the "feast of first fruits" in the pagan calendar. The gorgeous black raspberries that were so abundant and delicious this year are on their way out here in Southern Ontario. We're just starting to benefit from the beautiful peaches and gorgeous yellow plums grown in the Niagara region. Now that solstice and the intense heat of July have passed, we're beginning the long, slow slide into cooler weather.

Source

The trees are reaching the height of their activity for the summer. They are fully present in their physical forms, and busy with the activity of drawing energies from the earth and the sun in order to foster growth. If you have never talked with a tree, or communed with the woods, now is an excellent and relatively easy time to begin.

Today when I was out in the woods, I spoke with Brother Oak, my favourite tree and the one I go to when I want an immediate answer to a question. I asked him what he thought would be the best information for me to pass on to people today. He showed me a simple meditation you can do with a tree in order to connect with the energies of the season.

If you already have a go-to tree that you like to connect with, then ask that tree to help you with the meditation. If you don't have a go-to tree, then wander through a wooded area until you find a tree that grabs your attention or that you feel attracted to. (If you find yourself tripping over a root or getting your shirt or hair snagged on a low-hanging branch, it could be that you've met your tree.) This meditation is best done with an older tree.

Needless to say, this is not the only way to commune with a tree right now. They have lots to say and want to help you with whatever questions or energies you bring to them. However, if you're at a loss in terms of what to do with a tree that wants to talk to you, this is an excellent way to begin and can help you feel really great.

This meditation is best done standing with your body facing the tree. Stand with your spine straight and your feet flat on the ground (or as flat as possible if the tree has lots of big roots). Acknowledge the tree in your mind and allow any imagery or words that might come to you.

Shift your awareness down to your feet. Allow your feet to spread out and relax. (Energy does not flow through tension.) Imagine the tree's roots spreading down into the earth. Ask the tree to show you how deeply he or she draws energy. Ask him or her to drop you down into the earth's core, where these energies originate. Note that, depending on your talents and proclivities, you are more likely to feel your way into this energy than to see it unfolding in your mind's eye. Feel yourself connect with the earth's core, and feel any warmth, tingling, or sensations that bounce back up at you and into you. Don't force the energy. Just allow the tree to help you feel what she or he feels.

Once you're comfortable with this, ask the tree to show you what it feels like to draw the energies of the sun down through his or her leaves. Relax your head and face completely, and make sure that your spine is straight so you can receive these energies. Feel the activity of the leaves as they receive the energies of the heavens. Allow those energies to pour down on you and through you.

Once you're comfortable with the two energies, focus on relaxing and opening your insides, especially throughout your chest and belly. Allow the energies to mingle and move freely. Note any sensations that follow.

We are open to the twin energies of the earth and sun all the time, but this meditation will help you to work with them more abundantly. If you have any questions while you're working with the tree, ask them, and see if any words or imagery or sensations come through for you.

When you're finished, thank the tree for his or her help.

Further Reading: How to Talk to a Tree

Early Winter, Part 2

Sometime after the first serious snow fell and stuck, a couple of weeks ago, I went out into the woods for another walk with the dog and photo taking session. I hit the hiking trail parking lot at about 8:45am, about an hour after sunrise.

The light was exquisite as I began to move into the trees. I couldn't resist diving straight into the side trails, which would take me into the heart of the woods.

*Click on any of these photos to view larger versions.*

Often, as I begin to walk among trees, I try to tune in to my inner voice, and to see what resonates with me that day. More often than not, I'll end up running up the hill to check in with Brother Oak. Occasionally, I'll decide to simply wander, which often results in a merry chase in which I find some tree I haven't met before saying "Hey, you!" I've had trees pull me in through the dog - he'll go off chasing some scent or other, and I'll find him sitting quite contentedly at the base of some pine. This day, I knew right away that I wanted to talk to Grandmother Oak, also known as Don't Kill Me Oak.

Before I could get to her, I had quite a bit of snow to slog through, and an incredible sunrise to admire.

A brief interlude that may in fact turn out to be the point of this post: when I got back home and transferred these photos onto my computer, I was very surprised to see how they turned out. Many of them featured truly weird lens flare effects / orbs / fairy lights / alien discs descending??? I am sure that there are plenty of people out there who know much, much more about photography than I do who could explain away many of these effects. Some of them seem particularly freaky to me. None of these photos have been altered in any way, except for the one above this paragraph and one other (I'll point it out when I get to it) - here I used the clone feature in a photo editing program to remove the black spot that sometimes forms when you take a photo of the sun with a cheap digital camera like mine.

Anyway, I thought these might be of interest. Note that I did not experience any missing time or negative feelings during this hike. It was all good!

These were two photos I didn't think I would share. I was basically trying to take pictures of my dog (isn't he cute in his little red coat?). I didn't perceive these discs in the preview screen thinger when I took these pictures, but it was awfully bright out there.

A slightly different angle. He's chewing on that stick. It's his hobby.

This is black cherry bark. Like a lot of fruit trees, black cherries emanate a warm, friendly, generous energy. I haven't spent much time talking with them, but I did really enjoy their fruit last summer. Looking forward to it again already.

A purple-to-green prism. I took this photo just after checking in with Brother Oak. During our conversation he showed me an image of fairies dancing in a ring. When I asked him what they were doing, he told me it was a celebration in preparation for bringing in the spring. There is always some kind of magic at work in the woods. We think that we're deep in winter, but the reality is that on an energetic level, spring is already on its way.

I have mixed feelings about the signs I'm seeing that winter will soon be broken. There are few sights more beautiful than bare branches against the winter sky.

This can be a high traffic area during certain times of the year. Only a couple of animals had passed through that morning.

Don't Kill Me Oak. I call her this because she's got a huge number of stripped bare, long and heavy looking branches still attached to her trunk. When you walk the path that runs past this tree, you have to walk under at least three of these branches. It's impossible to cuddle up to her trunk and converse with her without standing directly under at least one. Talking to her is like interacting with a really sweet pit bull. There's a whole lot of power there, and you're aware that you're on its good side, and for that, you're grateful.

I had a good exchange with her that day. This is the same tree who told me, back in the beginning, that humanity has to go to the woods, hang out with the trees, and acknowledge them.

Her theme was similar the day I took these pictures. But she emphasized that the trees don't want our sombre, reverent energies. She talked a lot about how what they really need is for people to go into the woods to celebrate. Spend time with the trees, she advised. Open a bottle of wine at their feet, pour a little into the ground, talk, laugh, and share some food. Better yet, bring music. They want our celebratory emotions to help them make the transition from season to season. This is part of loving and acknowledging nature: partying with nature!

Candlemas, or Imbolc in pagan traditions, is coming up on February 2nd. In tree terms, this is the turning of the tide in winter. We are no longer going deeper into the cold. The sun's return is beginning to have its effects, and the earth is stirring. Everywhere in the Northern hemisphere, the signs of life will begin to appear in abundance from this date forward, for those who care to look. Apparently this time of year is the beginning of the mating season for chipmunks, squirrels, wild turkeys, geese and Google knows what else.

If you can manage some time outside on Candlemas eve, or better yet, during the day itself, this would be a wonderful moment to party with the trees, animals, plants and elementals that are working so hard to make spring happen. All they ask, according to Don't Kill Me Oak, is that we share some ebullient energy with them.

An orb shaped lens flare. I used clone to remove a black spot from the image of the sun. Otherwise, this photo is untouched.

As I moved into the open field that marks the halfway point of the walk, I was very grateful for the bright, warm sunshine. Despite the fact that it was pretty cold that day - about minus 12 centigrade - I was able to take off my mittens and catch a bit of sun on my hands. It felt wonderful. I took a photo, not expecting it to look like much, of the field, snow, and sunshine.

Upon closer examination, I noticed the weird rainbow sheen on the other side of the field, toward the treeline. This image is cropped and enlarged. Click to view larger:

I was a bit intrigued / freaked out by the shapes I saw in this rainbow mist. The one that is about dead centre of this image I saw right away. When I began to look a little closer, I saw the one to the right.

In case you don't see anything, I've added some arrows to point out the shapes I'm seeing. The arrow on the left points to a weird almost star-shaped thing. The squiggly arrow points to what I see as the head of a larger animal-type shape. The diagonal arrow on the far right points to the back of that same shape.

View larger by clicking the photo.

Personally, I don't know what to make of this. I've felt many things in that field as well as in the woods, and seen many sparkly lights and shimmering heat wave effects that I associate with energy beings and elementals that are always there in the natural world. Everything I've felt there has been extremely positive, and I was feeling especially happy to be there that day. In any case, I think it's interesting.

I hope you're able to get outside and into nature - despite the cold - in the coming days. It's so worthwhile.

Early Winter

As I write this, we're far enough past solstice now that you can tell that the days are getting longer. We're also getting more and more into proper winter weather. In the past two weeks we've gone from this slightly tentative version of winter:



To this not-at-all-shy version:



Since then, there's been a cold snap, a warm snap, and overnight, it's supposed to snow again. In other words, it's a fairly typical Southern Ontario winter.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been heading out with my camera and trying to capture some of the beautiful shifts that have been occurring in the world of trees and plants since the solstice. At this time of year, as I've mentioned before, trees are in a deep phase of dreaming, a time when the connection between their spirits and physical selves are a little bit looser than usual. They go deep into their collective consciousness at this time. A good question to ask a tree right now is, "What are you dreaming?" They will often share amazing imagery, sensations and even some snippets of narrative that can include information about the role we play in the grand cycles of the sun, earth and cosmos.

At the same time, even though we might think of the solstice as the beginning of a time of stasis, you'll find that many trees and plants begin to form buds in early January. I've tracked this phenomenon for the last several years. It always happens, and always, people remark on it. "The trees have started to bud. I hope they don't get injured in the winter."

"We've had a warm snap. The trees are blooming way too early."

We love to worry about how things are going horribly wrong, don't we? But believe me, the trees know exactly what they are doing.

My understanding of these January buds is that they are part of the interaction of the trees with earth energy at this time of year. Leading up to the winter solstice, the trees have been driving their energies down into the earth. Because our Mother is nothing if not generous, this sending of energy results in a pretty immediate reverberation of energies back up through the trees. Although she will rest throughout the winter, and only send the real power surge of energy up into the trees when they are ready to begin the push toward spring, shortly after early February, there is a slight uprising of energy now. The buds of early winter are like a thank you, a sign of remembrance from Mother Earth, reminding us that the apparent death of winter is only an illusion and a dreaming.

In the meantime, despite the small signs that winter's back will someday be broken, the early winter woods everywhere bear the evidence of the end of the previous time of growth.

The trees dream lucidly. If you tried to talk to them in the week or two after solstice, you might have found them sluggish and unresponsive, but all in all, they are willing and able to share their dreaming with those who take the time to ask. This hawthorne bore an awesome tangle of sharp thorns all over her straight, unbranching trunk. I asked her to talk to me.

She showed me the image of a castle, much like the one in the Sleeping Beauty stories, covered in thorns. This impassable tangle looked like it was hiding secrets that no one could ever know, because no one could ever get through the plants that protected them.

The hawthorne seemed to have plucked this image from my mind to use as a touchstone for the lesson she was about to offer. When we enter the dream state of trees, we mingle with their collective consciousness, adding our awareness to theirs so that we can have a free and open exchange of imagery and ideas.

In the image the hawthorne shared with me, a lone rider approached the thorn-covered castle. "I know this story," I said. "Doesn't he hack through all those thorns with a magic sword?"

"We are the growers of the thorns," said the hawthorne. "And this is why we show you what we show you. We block those who are not ready to enter into the heart of mystery. For those who are ready, we move aside and cause no harm."

The many tangled branches around the castle formed a tunnel, allowing the rider to move through and collect whatever prize it was he'd come for.

I understood from what the hawthorne showed me that there was no fight involved, no valiant battle to push through to the goal. If you aren't ready for initiation, for opening to the mysteries or entering into the Chapel Perilous, the thorny blockade will not yield, no matter what you do. But if you are prepared and in the right frame of mind, the way is open.

And you can always try again later.

"This is the truth of the heart of the world. This is what we protect," the hawthorne told me.

The heart of the world is nothing less than the energetic and emotional core of our Mother. The hawthorne is among the trees that enfold this heart in deep energetic taproots that they form at the earth's core. They've shown me this heart many times. Sometimes it appears as a pulsing green energy. Sometimes she is a sleeping goddess, and sometimes a matrix of tangled roots, beating all together to provide love and sustenance for all of us.

"Not everyone can have access," the hawthorne told me. "You must be sincere."

I carried on through the woods down a deer path to a place that is off the main trail, an open area that always feels calm and peaceful. At its heart is a tree with pale bark of a pearly grey. Its roots look like the tentacles of an octopus:

In the springtime, this area is often flooded with water. The ground squishes when you walk on it. This tree seems almost to float in the earth. He told me some fascinating things this day, about people who were here before modern humans, but that will have to wait until another time.

His branches did look beautiful against that sky, as did the rose of sharon pods in my backyard, a few days later:

About a week after I took these photos, it snowed. The weather cleared and we had some gorgeous bright days where the sky was blue and the light was just incredible. I took some really interesting photos in the woods when I went to talk to Grandmother Oak, but you'll have to wait until my next post.