We have a very open and large backyard that I've been wanting to plant trees in for future shade. I was researching and found that the
Arbor Day Foundation sells tree saplings for quite cheap. I really wanted some sort of oak but also something that would grow fast. I settled on
Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra).
The trees arrived a week or so ago and I immediately unpackaged them for planting. They come tied together in a bundle with gel and plastic around the roots to keep them moist. They are bare roots so must be kept from drying out. I had ordered 6 trees and also received 2
Forsythias for free with my order. Needless to say, I had a lot of digging to do.
I wanted to plant the oak trees in some sort of formation rather than just randomly strewed across the yard. I decided to go with planting them at the points and center of a pentagram (hence the reason I purchased 6 trees). The trees needed to be planted at a minimum of around 20 feet apart so I got out the old tape measure and, once I decided on a center point, began to measure out where the trees should go. I also wanted the top point to face due north so I picked up a cheap compass to aid me in getting that correct.
You may be wondering why I chose a pentagram and not some other shape. You may also wonder why I chose oak trees and not maples, willows, etc. I actually can answer both questions with a excerpt from
The Druid Magic Handbook written by one of my favorite authors, John Michael Greer. It also explains why I chose to have the top point face north:
The oak, because it attracts lightning and is sacred to sky gods in many cultures, has long been a symbol of the power of the heavens. The heather, because of its magical powers and its place as an ingredient in heather ale, a magnificently intoxicating beverage, has long been a symbol of the power of the Earth. The meanings of the two Ogham letters link them to two forms of an ancient magical symbol - the pentagram.
A pentagram is a star made of five equal lines meeting at five equal angles. Since the time of Pythagoras, who brought sacred geometry to the Western world in the sixth century BCE, it has been one of the core symbols of Western magic and spirituality. It has had many meanings down through the years. Modern Pagans who think of it as a purely Pagan symbol, for instance, may be startled to find it in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as an emblem of Christian virtues!
In modern magical practice, it stands for the power of the element of spirit in relation to the four material elements. A moral dimension goes along with this interpretation in most magical writings: a pentagram with a single point upward is considered "upright" and stands for spirit ruling over the four elements, while a pentagram with a single point downward is called "reversed" and stands for spirit submerged beneath the four elements. The upright pentagram thus serves as a symbol of good, and the reversed pentagram an emblem of evil.
All this, however, depends on the assumption that spirit is always and only above - in the terms introduced in chapter 2, that the solar current is good and the telluric current is evil. That assumption is very common in modern occultism, but it's no less wrong for being popular. Recognize the telluric current as a power just as holy and necessary as the solar current, and the relationship between the pentagrams takes on a new and more balanced meaning.
Being the somewhat odd person with OCD that I am, I wanted the points to be perfectly placed. However, after researching a bit about
pentagram geometry and trying for a bit to get it perfect (yes, I actually sat down and did some calculations), I decided close approximations to the measurements were good enough.
Once I got the trees planted, I wanted to bless them in some way. After all, my plan is for this to turn into a sort of sacred grove. Yes it's quite small but the idea is for this area to be a place I can go to meditate and "recharge my batteries" sometime in the future. I read a lot of forest folklore, druid books, etc. and have found a few different ways to bless newly planted trees. I wanted the blessing or charm to be based upon the Kalevala. Of course, I don't speak Finnish so these would need to be in English and who knows how good the translations are. I thought I would share some of what I found in case anyone out there is interested.
Searching around online, I first came across the Prayer of the Sower:
Blessing to the seed I scatter,
Where it falls upon the meadow,
By the grace of Ukko mighty,
Through the open finger spaces
Of the hand that all things fashioned.
Queen of meadow-land and pasture!
Bid the earth unlock her treasures.
Bid the soil the young seed nourish,
Never shall their teeming forces
Never shall their strength prolific
Fail to nourish and sustain us
If the Daughters of Creation,
They, the free and bounteous givers
Still extend their gracious favor
Offer still their strong protection.
Rise, O Earth! from out thy slumbers
Bid the soil unlock her treasures!
I haven't found this particular passage in the Kalevala but I haven't read the entire book yet. However, what I did find was A Sower's Charm within Poem 2 in the lines 296 to 330 and I believe the former may be an adaptation of it:
With back bent I am sowing
between the Creator's fingers,
through the hand of the Almighty
onto this flourishing land,
this growing clearing.
Woman living under the earth,
old ruler of the soil,
mistress of the earth!
Now make the turf grow,
the rich soil force up grass.
The land will not lack vital strength
never, never at all
so long as there may be favor from those who gave it,
permission from the daughters of Nature.
Rise, land, from slumbering,
Creator's grass, from sleeping!
Let stems grow stems,
and stalks grow stalks.
Send up shoots by the thousand,
spread sprouts by the hundred
as a result of my plowing, my sowing,
especially of my toil.
O, Ukko, god on high
or heavenly father,
holder of power in the clouds,
ruler of the cloud patches!
Hold folk assemblies in the clouds,
open meetings in the upper stories of the sky,
Make a cloud spring up in the east,
raise up a cloudbank in the northwest,
send others from the west,
drive others from the south.
Shed rain gently from the heavens,
sprinkle honey from the clouds
on the sprouting shoots,
on the murmuring crops.
I only wish that I could read Finnish because I'm certain this passage is even more beautiful in its native tongue.
These of course are not the only blessings or charms out there for trees or gardens. Like belief systems, they are numerous. They are just examples of a couple of them that speak to me.
Feel free to comment and/or share your own tree charms and blessings.
One way to transfer and plant moss is to take pieces, plant them like sod and then fill in the space between with a moss slurry. A moss slurry is made by taking pieces of the moss, putting them in a blender, and adding a substrate such as beer, yogurt or buttermilk. I don't believe in wasting beer and buttermilk is cheap so that's what I went with. I would not suggest using a blender that you plan to use for anything else but that's up to you. I found a shitty old blender for 3 dollars at a thrift store and so far it's working great. To create the slurry, put some of the moss in the blender, add the buttermilk...and blend it! The first picture here is just some of the moss in the blender. The second picture is after I added the buttermilk and blended. It's like dirty buttermilk and smells like it. Tasty.
