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Some experiences to share about pine and spruce. I have build my own praxis over years, my own kind of witchcraft. I have mentioned every now and then that I have as a witch a magic territory, this is one of those methods how I worked it. I hope that it inspires others to experiment or to share their experiences. It is so selfish to keep things for myself without sharing. A few years ago I made myself the promise to share such things. (I am still thinking of a personal blog or website, but still in doubt too. A forum like this provides more a meeting place. You are all here on WF a kind of my online village square where I can meet, greet and share)
From a young age I had the opportunity to be in the forests and at 5 minutes walking we had a forest with pine trees, Red European Pine. Most of these forests were planted here because the wood harvesting. There where some places with Spruce also. I tended to go on cold days when the wind was playing with the needles and branches. You could here a kind of voice coming from the trees, the wind gave the trees a voice. That was a quite etheric sound. One thing I always wondered was if the trees from the one forest sounded different from the other forest. So I walked over the years quite often through the different forests many times just because I wanted to hear the differences. In one or another way my parents didn't miss me when I took my bike to another piece of forest. I did that yearly. And yes, there were differences between forests and every year was different. From screaming voices to whispering voices, it where building blocks of stories that arose in my mind if I was able to keep my mind quiet enough to listen. And when I was emotional of things that happened in my life, the voices were a comforting sound. I have been drawn most to the locations where high trees were in the middle of a few younger trees. One of the biggest problems nowadays is that the forests here are crowded with people and their dogs. The forests have changed, the last 20 years they have planted trees like holly and currant bush to. So I want to develop a new way to grow these trees into my praxis of now.
When l grew up and became older another custom added to this: in spring/ early summer I started to collect pine and spruce tree tips to make a syrup of it. That syrup was not only a good cough syrup, it had became my elixir to hear the trees singing even when I was not among them. I used most of the time some tea from local found berries that I dried the season before. There are some places where we have berries under the trees, which makes it even better. If you want re-create that syrup, only use the fresh green and soft feeling young tips. Make sure they are clean and wash them. Bruise them a little bit before putting 200 grams in a clean pot. Pour over 300 ml of (raw, but that is up to what you want) good quality honey. Put the lid over it, it has to rest for a few weeks. Before straining, you have to make an strong infusion of the berries, strain that and cool down. You only will need 50 ml. Add to the honey and stir. Add a little bit of vitamin C powder to be able to keep the elixir longer. I used to use tea from honeysuckle too. It makes the memories a kind of more lovely and sweet. I think Scottish pine would work too, I don't know about pines on the other side of the ocean. If you make the elixir, please be sure that you are not using needles of taxus, which are highly poisonous! Women who are pregnant can't drink this elixir safely.
Another souvenir from those forests are the pinecones. Not only to burn them on times when you need protection, but you can use them to glue on the tip of a wand too. A pinecone has a phallic shape, so you can think of masculine power. The Greeks and Romans used pinecones to tip thyrsi wands or of the women followers of Dionysus, the god of prosperity and fertility. Later on some scientists concluded that it were not pine cones on the thyrsi, but in my imagination it already sparked and I used it my own way. If you want to know more about them and to keep history in check:
Did someone ever made such thyrsi? I did not wind them with ivy, but I made one every year for several years. I made them from pinewood, secured a pinecone on it and made the bottom of the wand pointy to be able to push that in the ground in my garden on the place where I wanted fertility and connection with the sun. And where I wanted to connect with being strong in communication. I was very introvert and shy at that time, this yearly ritual was one way to feel strong enough to talk about the things in life that were important for me. I danced around it, sang because singing is extravert. I started with singing as soft as possible and after an hour or so at the loudest I could imagine. The thing was, I discovered every year that it was possible to sang more loud than the year before. After a few years it was more a kind of personal festival, I didn't need the original idea of becoming stronger anymore. It changed over time to fertilize ideas or as way to build up power for other purposes. The last years I didn't do it anymore but kept walking in the forests and make my elixer .........In the Netherlands there are places where the pine tree was used as a maypole/may tree so here in my country is a link with fertility too. For people in Limburg, in the hills there are a few villages where this was (is?) a custom. Think of Noorbeek.
About burning pinecones for protection I later on found that in several regions of Europe it was done to prevent bad dangerous spirits from entering the home through the chimney. When one lives in an enchanted world, spirits entering in such a way, must be a real danger which I can imagine. I have heard local people here saying that there could be another link too. Dried pinecones burn very quickly and providing for a short time a very hot temperature in the chimney. That burns a lot of garbage out of the chimney according to them.
For birds in those forests: the most birds I encountered were crows, buzzards and blackbirds. The blackbirds tended to follow me, but I still don't know if that is natural behavior of a blackbird. Here in the Netherlands a lot of people feed the birds in their garden, so behavior of birds is changing. The crows were in pairs, the buzzards flew very quietly away between the trunks of the trees. For me they were more part of the forest than separate powers.
From a young age I had the opportunity to be in the forests and at 5 minutes walking we had a forest with pine trees, Red European Pine. Most of these forests were planted here because the wood harvesting. There where some places with Spruce also. I tended to go on cold days when the wind was playing with the needles and branches. You could here a kind of voice coming from the trees, the wind gave the trees a voice. That was a quite etheric sound. One thing I always wondered was if the trees from the one forest sounded different from the other forest. So I walked over the years quite often through the different forests many times just because I wanted to hear the differences. In one or another way my parents didn't miss me when I took my bike to another piece of forest. I did that yearly. And yes, there were differences between forests and every year was different. From screaming voices to whispering voices, it where building blocks of stories that arose in my mind if I was able to keep my mind quiet enough to listen. And when I was emotional of things that happened in my life, the voices were a comforting sound. I have been drawn most to the locations where high trees were in the middle of a few younger trees. One of the biggest problems nowadays is that the forests here are crowded with people and their dogs. The forests have changed, the last 20 years they have planted trees like holly and currant bush to. So I want to develop a new way to grow these trees into my praxis of now.
When l grew up and became older another custom added to this: in spring/ early summer I started to collect pine and spruce tree tips to make a syrup of it. That syrup was not only a good cough syrup, it had became my elixir to hear the trees singing even when I was not among them. I used most of the time some tea from local found berries that I dried the season before. There are some places where we have berries under the trees, which makes it even better. If you want re-create that syrup, only use the fresh green and soft feeling young tips. Make sure they are clean and wash them. Bruise them a little bit before putting 200 grams in a clean pot. Pour over 300 ml of (raw, but that is up to what you want) good quality honey. Put the lid over it, it has to rest for a few weeks. Before straining, you have to make an strong infusion of the berries, strain that and cool down. You only will need 50 ml. Add to the honey and stir. Add a little bit of vitamin C powder to be able to keep the elixir longer. I used to use tea from honeysuckle too. It makes the memories a kind of more lovely and sweet. I think Scottish pine would work too, I don't know about pines on the other side of the ocean. If you make the elixir, please be sure that you are not using needles of taxus, which are highly poisonous! Women who are pregnant can't drink this elixir safely.
Another souvenir from those forests are the pinecones. Not only to burn them on times when you need protection, but you can use them to glue on the tip of a wand too. A pinecone has a phallic shape, so you can think of masculine power. The Greeks and Romans used pinecones to tip thyrsi wands or of the women followers of Dionysus, the god of prosperity and fertility. Later on some scientists concluded that it were not pine cones on the thyrsi, but in my imagination it already sparked and I used it my own way. If you want to know more about them and to keep history in check:
Did someone ever made such thyrsi? I did not wind them with ivy, but I made one every year for several years. I made them from pinewood, secured a pinecone on it and made the bottom of the wand pointy to be able to push that in the ground in my garden on the place where I wanted fertility and connection with the sun. And where I wanted to connect with being strong in communication. I was very introvert and shy at that time, this yearly ritual was one way to feel strong enough to talk about the things in life that were important for me. I danced around it, sang because singing is extravert. I started with singing as soft as possible and after an hour or so at the loudest I could imagine. The thing was, I discovered every year that it was possible to sang more loud than the year before. After a few years it was more a kind of personal festival, I didn't need the original idea of becoming stronger anymore. It changed over time to fertilize ideas or as way to build up power for other purposes. The last years I didn't do it anymore but kept walking in the forests and make my elixer .........In the Netherlands there are places where the pine tree was used as a maypole/may tree so here in my country is a link with fertility too. For people in Limburg, in the hills there are a few villages where this was (is?) a custom. Think of Noorbeek.
About burning pinecones for protection I later on found that in several regions of Europe it was done to prevent bad dangerous spirits from entering the home through the chimney. When one lives in an enchanted world, spirits entering in such a way, must be a real danger which I can imagine. I have heard local people here saying that there could be another link too. Dried pinecones burn very quickly and providing for a short time a very hot temperature in the chimney. That burns a lot of garbage out of the chimney according to them.
For birds in those forests: the most birds I encountered were crows, buzzards and blackbirds. The blackbirds tended to follow me, but I still don't know if that is natural behavior of a blackbird. Here in the Netherlands a lot of people feed the birds in their garden, so behavior of birds is changing. The crows were in pairs, the buzzards flew very quietly away between the trunks of the trees. For me they were more part of the forest than separate powers.