Willow Talismans and Symbolism || medicinal plants || plant magic

nature pictures

willow talismans and symbolism || medicinal plants || plant magic

Willow Talismans and Symbolism

Nature Calendars

Nature Magazines

Nature NoteCards

Nature Posters & Nature Pictures

Culpeper says in his Complete Herbal "The moon owns the willow" and it was known as the witches' tree and the tree of enchantment.

Robert Graves suggests that witch, wicker and wicked are all derived from willow. Willow rods are certainly used for binding magical and sacred objects and the popular witches' broom is traditionally made with an ash handle and birch twigs bound with willow.

Willow wands are used for any ritual associated with the moon and as a protection on deep journeys into the underworld and the unconscious. The willow will always enhance inspired leaps of the imagination and is recommended to be used when seeking to assimilate the teachings of a wise woman or master, because understanding another person's enlightened place is made easier. Also when seeking to understand ancient ways, so that you can assimilate these past levels of information, and quickly move through the underlying emotions, to appreciate humankind's patterns and utilise this information for change. ...Read More

Willow Bridge
Fronckowiak, Art
36 in. x 24 in.
Buy this Canvas Transfer at AllPosters.com

By working with the moon and the cycles of the moon, we reconnect to the duality of the light (waxing) and the dark (waning) and the tides, the seas, water and the qualities of water which include flowing, surrender, harmonising and accepting. Moon magic puts us in touch with our emotions and unconscious, which balances out our solar rational conscious views. The moon represents the Goddess and everything which reflects and suggests the power of women.

Willow is used for charms of fascination and binding, and during the spring moon we have the power of the Spring Maiden who fascinates and binds the power of the young King. Aphrodite is associated with the spring and the bright half of the moon, courtship and the union which blesses the land with fertility. British and Irish mythology is also rich with legends of the beguiling, Willowy Spring Maiden who is called Olwen, Niwalen, Gwenhyver, Cordelia, Blodeuwedd and many others, who initiate the young King into a deeply sexual experience.

Tree magic generally falls into the class of sympathetic magic which operates through the doctrine of signatures. This states that a plant will act on that part of the body which it most resembles. This can be sub-divided into homeopathic magic (the Law of Similarity) and contagious magic (the Law of Contact, using a magically charged object).

Homeopathic magic words on the principle that "like begets like", and by using willow wood for a wand or talisman it will be charged with the properties of the willow. The flexibility of the willow's twigs inspires us to move with life, rather than resist what we are feeling, and can also help you to let go of conditioned responses to life's experiences and to move towards a greater acceptance of self and others.

Willow's weeping stance reflects its association with grief. By wearing a piece of willow (as in the popular song "All around my hat I will wear the green willow") a person will be able to access all the levels of grief connected with a loss, and be able to move through all these different levels, expressing the whole deep emotional experience, to gain healing and inner strength.

When one of the willow's branches or twigs becomes disconnected, it will easily grow into a new tree if it finds some soil and water, teaching us that contained within a loss, or a new direction, is the capacity for growth and healing. Willow is one of the best water-divining woods, along with hazel and birch.

Homeopathic magic and contagious magic can be combined in the making of wands, talismans and any other objects made for personal or ritual use. Making a wand from willow means that all the willow's qualities are naturally contained within the wood, although you may want to charge or empower certain aspects for specific use. Willow wands are used whenever there is a need to connect with intuition, dreams, seership, visions, poetic and inspired writing or images, and whenever there is either an emotional numbness or emotional excess, or where there are negative emotional feelings which need to be worked through. Use a piece of fresh willow, cut from the tree with appropriate reverence and ritual, or a newly fallen piece which the tree has recently shed. You may like to take the bark, or some of the bark, off and carve it with magical symbols or anything else you may wish to use to energise your wand. It is easier to carve fresh wood and then let it dry out. Small twigs will dry out quickly without cracking in a house, but it is better to let larger pieces of wood dry slowly in an outhouse or shed, or under a hedge. When it is dry, it may be polished with several layers of beeswax to protect the wood, or left natural.

Talismans may be made in the same way, perhaps using the natural shape of the wood to suggest and inspire a carving. Talismans may be worn round the neck or as a brooch, or carried within a pouch and kept close. They may be magically carved with symbols relevant to their use.

Symbolism is not fixed, there are no correct versions of anything, and the willow particularly stimulates our ability to follow our intuitions and find out own meanings behind the symbols. It is true there are traditional meanings associated with things, but traditions must evolve and include new insights and ways of working. We may evolve a new set of symbols, particularly relevant to ourselves, which others may adopt and integrate into a new system. What was meaningful to people in one part of our evolution or history may no longer apply. Interpretations may no longer speak to the conscious or the unconscious. The patterns which a seer can unfold need to be potent and meaningful to our present spiritual evolution. We have been taught to regard our intuition as unreliable but we know that this isn't true and we must use it more in order to develop our ability to use it to the full. The power of the willow can enhance this resolve.

The Power of the Willow Tree || Herbal Uses of Willow || Willow Species
Willow Talismans and Symbolism

4 classic art || pets and wildlife || InfoWizzard Directory

Site Designed by:
Mazaska Enterprises, LTD
Contact us for a free quote.
We also manage web sites.

�2004 Naturist-Pictures.us

file: Willow Talismans and Symbolism || medicinal plants || plant magic