Over the well
hang the branches of nine slender hazel trees, their branches swaying like hair in an
invisible currents of air. Every now and then, purple-husked nuts are shaken loose into
the water below. A flash of light - and a fish with glittering scales leaps up and catches
one in its jaws. Now and then the discarded husks can be seen floating away down one of
the streams. You are not alone. A procession of pilgrims approach the Well
in silence. Their sandalled feet make no noise. One by one, they stoop and drink the water
in cupped hands. When each arises, they appear to glow with an inner radiance, as if
refreshed by the Water of Life itself....... In the days of the Celts, Northern
Europe was covered with forests so thick it was said a squirrel could hop from branch to
branch from one end to the other without touching the ground. Italy was covered from coast
to coast with dense woods of oak, elm and chestnut; the great Hercynian forest rendered
Germany impenetrable in Caesar's time; Scotland was clothed with the magnificent
Caledonian, Ireland with oak-woods, the whole of Southern England with the ancient trees
of Anderida. In this environment, it is no wonder the forest was perceived
as the matrix of a tribe's sustenance, culture and spirituality. A food-store of nuts,
berries and game, a pharmacopeia of medicines, wood supply for shelter and the kindling of
sacred fires – the forest was all of these to the early Celtic peoples. When a tribe cleared the land for a settlement, they always
left a great tree in the middle, known in Ireland as the "crann bethadh,"
or Tree of Life, that embodied the security and integrity of the people. Chieftains were
inaugurated at the sacred tree, for, with its roots stretching down to the lower world,
its branches reaching to the upper world, it connected him with the power both of the
heavens and the worlds below. One of the greatest triumphs a tribe could achieve over its
enemies was to cut down their mother tree, an outrage punishable by the highest penalties. For trees not only provided earthly sustenance: they were
regarded as living, magical beings who bestowed blessings from the Otherworld. Wood from
the nine sacred trees kindled the need-fire that brought back the sun to earth on May Eve;
tree names formed the letters of the Ogham alphabet which made potent spells when carved
on staves of yew; rowan protected the byre; ash lent power to the spear’s flight. An early tale of the founding of Ireland tells how a giant
came from the Otherworld bearing a branch on which grew apples, nuts and acorns at the
same time. His name was Treochair (Three Sprouts)and he shook the fruits onto the ground
where they were taken up and planted in the four corners of Ireland, with one in the
center, where they grew into the five sacred trees, great Guardians of the land. Because trees have their roots in the unseen world of spirit,
they are doorways into that world. That most magical of Celtic trees, the oak, derives its
Gaelic name, (Old Irish daur, Welsh derw) from the Sanskrit word duir,
that gives us "door." Many scholars believe that the Druids, who worshipped
within sacred groves, derived their name from this word, combined with the Indo-European
root wid, to know, becoming the "Wise Ones of the Oakwood." Old ballads sing of those who have entered the Otherworld by
the door of a sacred tree. Thomas the Rhymer, a bard who lived in 13th century
Scotland, sat under the famous Eildon tree, and was taken away by the Queen of Elfland.
The Eildon tree was a hawthorn, sacred to the faeries as most bards know, including modern
poet Kathleen Raine who wrote: A hundred years I slept beneath a thorn, In a number of early Irish tales of initiation into the
mysteries of the Otherworld, the hero must carry a branch of a sacred tree. For, in
keeping with other Indo-European traditions, at the heart of the Otherworld stands the
World Tree, the axis mundi, from which the branch comes. In The Voyage of Bran,
Son of Febal, the chieftain Bran is walking a little way from his palace when he hears
the sweetest, most unearthly music he had ever heard. He is lulled to sleep by the sound
of it, and wakens to find in his hand a silver branch of an apple-tree covered with white
blossoms. That night a beautiful woman appears in the palace, dressed in shining clothes.
She holds the company entranced with songs of her island country, in the heart of which
grows an ancient apple-tree whose blossoms forever fall like snow on the plain below while
birds sing sweet melodies in its branches. She invites Bran to sail over the western seas
and join her there, for the silver branch has unlocked for him "magic
casements/opening onto perilous seas of faery lands forlorn." In Cormac's Adventures in the Land of Promise, Cormac
is a High King of Ireland, who holds court at Tara.. One day when he is looking out over
his domain, he sees a strange warrior approaching, bearing a silver branch on which hang
three golden apples. When the branch is shaken, music rings out of such sweetness that it
soothes all hearts, and lulls the sick to sleep. The warrior tells Cormac that he comes
from "a land wherein there is nought save truth and there is neither age nor decay
nor gloom nor sadness nor envy nor jealousy nor hatred..." The branch leads Cormac into the heart of the Otherworld,
although in this story, the World Tree is not represented by an apple-tree, but by nine
magical hazels that border a well. Cormac’s vision of this sacred center is perhaps
the most powerful to be found in Celtic mythology because it embodies the central
teachings of this wisdom tradition: "Then he saw in the enclosure a shining fountain, with
five streams flowing out of it, and the hosts in turn drinking its water. Nine hazels of
Buan grew over the well. The purple hazels dropped their nuts into the fountain, and the
five salmon which were in the fountain severed them and sent their husks floating down the
streams. Now the sound of the falling of those streams was more melodious than any music
that men sing." At the heart of the Celtic Otherworld, the spiritual source
of all life is discovered in the ecology of trees and water. No static image here, the
deepest Mystery dances with life and motion, and many interchanges take place: water
flows, nuts fall, the salmon leap. Where the waters emanate from hidden depths below the
earth, the tree of life rises towards the power of the sky. The gushing well and its
cluster of hazel trees show that this a place where the mysteries of earth converge with
the heavens to form a dynamic interplay of the opposites. Where water suggests the
potential for life on earth, the tree makes life manifest. Throughout the ages seekers of truth—poets,
philosophers, rulers and other pilgrims of the spiritual quest—have made the perilous
journey to this sanctum. For the sacred nuts dropping from above to meet with the gushing
waters below unite heaven and earth. The salmon in the well act as
intermediaries—fishy priests!—by cracking the nuts. In the threefold shamanic
universe, they make the knowledge of the upper and lower worlds available to our middle
world, which is why seekers desired above all things to eat the Salmon or Hazelnuts of
Wisdom. A walk in any forest reveals the archetypal pattern of trees
and water made palpable in the natural world, where they are partners linked in the dance
of life. Streams and rivers are primary carriers of seeds while flood and rain soften the
earth for their bed. Water moistens the seed-case, then unlocks the dormant powers of
growth within so that they unfurl into sprouts. Swirling rivers carry minerals down from
mountains to nourish their roots. One tree in full foliage may consume a ton of water a
day. Likewise, trees are guardians of water and soil. Their roots
ensure that water from rain or snow is allowed to seep gradually into the earth. On
deforested land, storms create terrible damage to the land as they remove topsoil, choke
watersheds and cause floods. Paradoxically, this usually creates water shortages later in
the drier season, because there is no reserve to keep springs, streams and rivers
supplied. Wildlife, of course, suffers, too: The clear-cutting of forests in the Pacific
North-West is destroying salmon-rearing habitats, and where the trees no longer form a
shady canopy, water temperatures are rising and killing fish and insects in the rivers. The sacred ecology of trees and water is enshrined all over
the Celtic landscape, where hundreds of holy wells bordered by guardian trees still dot
the countryside today – living temples where people have come for centuries to drink
or bathe in the waters and leave a votive offering torn from their clothing on overhanging
branches. Even today, the number of ragged pieces of material hanging from trees are
testimony that pilgrims still follow the old tracks that lead to that mysterious beckoning
water with its magical promise—of healing, of foretelling the future, of granting a
wish. They still come because even the muddiest pool, choked with weeds or trampled by
cattle, evokes the half-submerged memory of the Well of Wisdom, while the branches of the
most spindly tree still seem to sway to winds that blow in another world. This archetype is universal, found in the earliest of
religious texts: the Rg Veda and the Upanisads of Ancient India. In Judeo-Christian
traditions also, the same pairing is found in the description of the garden of Eden: And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree
that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of
the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from
thence it Tree and water converge at the center of the world’s
beginning, and also at its end, for the same image appears in St. John’s vision of
the Heavenly City in Revelations: And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as
crystal, In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the
river, It is clear, then, that the archetypal ecology of tree
and water is rooted in the most ancient religious traditions of the world, and one whose
branches reach into our dreams today, both waking and sleeping. On the physical level, it
serves to remind us to pay attention to the interconnectedness of the living world, if
life on earth is to thrive. Within the psyche, water and tree represent the horizontal and
vertical dimensions of the Self: the wellspring of the soul that nourishes the creative
force within each of us that "drives the green fuse through the flower," to
bloom and set seed in our own lives, so that we too become a door leading into many
realms. And now it is your turn to drink from the Well. As you
step towards it, you are no longer aware of those who have gone before you, or those who
wait behind. It is as if you are alone with a deep Presence, immensely quiet, pregnant
with life. For a moment you look up into the gently swaying branches of the trees. It is
as if they are being stirred by a wind from another world, and a part of you longs to be
borne aloft into those regions of light and air. But now your feel yourself being drawn
towards the pool below, and you stoop down and peer into the water. For what might be a
moment or an eternity, you behold an abyss, a swirling vortex that spirals into untold
depths of darkness. As you gaze transfixed, you become disoriented in time and space, and
the force of its energy almost pulls you into the deep. There is a roaring like the sea.
The next moment all is quiet again, and the water is a serene pool glowing with a gentle
blue-green light, reflecting the overhanging trees. A fish glides like a shadow just
beneath the surface. You cup your hands and drink.......it is like drinking light itself,
and a feeling of deep, quiet well-being spreads through you as the water washes away the
wounds of the past and purifies your whole heart and mind. In forgotten dry ditches, seeds
begin to grow, and luxuriant growth greens the bare earth. The roots of the Tree penetrate
the soil of your soul. Strong stems and branches twine around crumbling old walls, and
burst through the confines of the mind with green leaf and blossom. |
