As I work again on the Ovate grade of the Druid learning, I am much with the spirit of trees.
Beech is my totem tree, my graceful Queen of the Woods. Here in the South, they stand tall and silvery, their arching branches like waterfalls of green. The shimmering delicacy of their leaves - eye-achingly verdant in the Spring - burn like fire in the Autumn. They are a potent symbol of the land I live on.
Over to the West, the character of beech changes. They become Faw - glossy leaved and lichen covered, mosses growing freely in the unpolluted air. They become shrunken, fey-like, yet more robust. They become grandmothers, their bleached white bone branches seem brittle and delicate.
I took this photo on Berry Down in North Devon near some old sunken barrows. I loved the contrast of a few spires of foxglove in the foreground. Fairies and dryads seem less shy in the West - if you sit quietly for long enough the animals and the birds forget that you are there, and if you listen carefully, you may hear the spirit of the tree breathing…
