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Are we ready to allow and embrace the necessity? | Are we ready to allow and embrace the necessity? | ||
- | If you want to join the silent political Party of Trees you have to complete this walk and listen | + | You can join the silent political Party of Trees by completing one of these walks and by listening |
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+ | ===Tree walk in Forêt de Soignes=== | ||
+ | in the framework of [[http:// | ||
+ | [[http:// | ||
- | ===Tree walk in Zoniënwoud/ | ||
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* Oak | * Oak | ||
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- | * Hazelnut | + | |
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+ | Please meet the pharmacist of the forest. | ||
+ | With its small and scruffy bushes with tiny leaves in the early spring, the elder doesn' | ||
+ | But wait until it starts blossoming! It will be swarmed with insects. And in the autumn they get replaced by birds. | ||
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+ | The elder is beneficial not only to the animals. | ||
+ | People have been using it for ages. | ||
+ | Not only enjoying the sweet smell and the taste of the blossom in teas and syrups, but also making jams and jenever from the berries. | ||
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+ | //Healing power// | ||
+ | The entire tree is to be used for healing purposes. | ||
+ | Flowers and berries are used in treating the flu, alleviating allergies, and boosting overall respiratory health. | ||
+ | The elder is also used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, dissolved in wine, for rheumatism and traumatic injury | ||
+ | But be careful. Some powers can become dangerous. | ||
+ | Eating raw berries can cause nausea and stomach aches. | ||
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+ | Washing her face in dew gathered from elderflowers was believed to enhance and preserve a woman' | ||
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+ | // | ||
+ | Branches from the elder are also used to make the flutes. Magic flute? Sounds can heal deepest illnesses... | ||
+ | In common with other trees with white blossom, such as hawthorn and rowan, the elder had strong associations with Faery- and Goddess-centred mythology. | ||
+ | Like rowan, the elder was thought of as being a protective tree, and it was auspicious if it was growing near one's dwelling, especially if it had seeded itself there. If the rowan' | ||
+ | Cheese cloths and other linen involved in dairying were hung out to dry on elder trees, and the smell they absorbed from the leaves may have contributed to hygiene in the dairy. | ||
+ | Elder trees were also traditionally planted by bake houses as protection from the Devil (what with all those hellishly hot ovens within!) and loaves and cakes put out to cool under the elders. Any foods left out overnight under an elder however were considered a gift to the faeries. | ||
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+ | In common with many other native trees and plants with potent pagan associations, | ||
+ | Notwithstanding these negative beliefs, elder continued to be put to such a wide range of medicinal uses that the mediaeval herbalist John Evelyn called it "a kind of Catholicon against all Infirmities whatever" | ||
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+ | * Hazelnut, hazelnoot, corylus | ||
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+ | Please meet the witch of the forest. | ||
+ | Down through the ages the Hazel has always been considered magical, and was used primarily for its powers of divination. | ||
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+ | It was believed that hazelnuts was concentration of wisdom and poetic inspiration. There are several variations on an ancient tale that nine hazel trees grew around a sacred pool, dropping nuts into the water to be eaten by some salmon (a fish revered by Druids) which thereby absorbed the wisdom. The number of bright spots on the salmon were said to indicate how many nuts they had eaten. | ||
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+ | Hazel has long been a favourite wood from which to make staffs, whether for ritual Druidic use, for medieval self defence. Hazel shafts were used for water divining, and this practice evolved into the making of pilgrims’ staffs, shepherds’ crooks and walking sticks. | ||
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+ | Known as the Tree of Knowledge in Norse mythology, the hazel was sacred to the god Thor. In Irish and Welsh folklore, the hazel was believed to be a fairy tree, and it still grows near many holy wells. Tara, the seat of ancient Irish kings, was located close to a hazel wood. and it is said that members of the Fianna, a legendary band of Irish warriors, learned to defend themselves with only a hazel stick and a shield. | ||
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+ | Since mediaeval times trees have been considered sacred. For example Hazel for its wisdom and the Oak for its strength and so on. Any unjustified felling of an Apple, Hazel or Oak tree, was a crime worthy of the death penalty. Hazel-wands have often been found in the coffins of notable personalities, | ||
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+ | In Roman mythology the Hazel is attributed to the god Mercury (Mercurius), | ||
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+ | //Magical Uses// | ||
+ | The use of Hazel divining rods (dowsing rod) to detect water and mineral veins comes down from antiquity, the art of which is called “rhabdomancy”. Typically a divining rod has two forks off its main stem shaped like the letter “Y”.The two forks of the rod are gripped with the fore fingers along the forks, so that the tail end of the rod points down toward the ground to begin searching. Another method was to peel the bark of the rod and simply lay it on the palm of the hand. The same method was used to find treasure, thieves and murderers. | ||
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+ | The practice of dowsing is still common today in Cornwall, and in other European Country’s. According to folklore and superstition, | ||
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+ | No doubt it was from using Hazel rods in divination, that its fruit the Hazelnut became associated with fortune | ||
+ | telling. In Scotland an old custom of love divination is still practiced on Halloween, in which two hazelnuts are given the names of lovers and placed on burning embers. If they burn quietly and remained side by side, the lovers were considered faithful, but if the nuts crack, spit or roll apart, they were considered to be ill-matched and one of them unfaithful. | ||
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+ | In ritual Hazel wands are used in connection with mercurial energy from which poetic and magical inspiration is gained and imparted. Hazel wands can also be used to divine suitable places in which to work magick. An old method of cutting a wand was to find a tree that has yet to bare fruit, and at sunrise on a Wednesday (the day ruled by Mercury), to cut a branch with a single stroke from a sickle. | ||
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+ | The Hazel is considered to be at its most powerful during early spring while its sap is still rising, and in autumn when its sap and energy is fully contained within ready for its harvest of nuts. A good divining rod is said to “squeal like a pig” when held under water. | ||
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+ | The nuts of the Hazel were commonly used to bring luck by stringing them together and hanging them in the house. Such a string of nuts were often given to a new bridesmaid as a gift to wish her wisdom, wealth and good health. When eaten the hazelnuts are said to increase fertility, and of old were eaten before divination to increase inspiration. | ||
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+ | Also the old, supple twigs of Hazel were woven into crowns and called “wishing caps”, which when worn and if you wished very hard, would make all your desires come true. Sailors, believing them to offer protection against bad storms at sea, also wore wishing caps.The ancient druids believed they could induce invisibility by wearing them. Twigs of Hazel placed on window ledges give protection against lightening, and three pins of Hazel hammered into a wall of the house would protect it from fire. | ||
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+ | But my favourite story of Hazelnut is the legend about golden snake. The legend says that if you find a hazel tree with the mistletoe growing on its branches it means there is a golden snake living under it. If you can catch that snake you will gain the power of invisibility. | ||
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* Hornbeam | * Hornbeam | ||
* Alder | * Alder | ||
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- | ===Tree walk in the centre of Brussels=== | + | [[Tree walk in the centre of Brussels]] |
+ | in the framework of [[http:// | ||
*Fig Prutske | *Fig Prutske | ||
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- | ===Round table discussion/ | + | [[Round table discussion/ |
We where invited to present the idea of Silent Political Party of Trees at the round table discussion during the event State of the arts in Brussels http:// | We where invited to present the idea of Silent Political Party of Trees at the round table discussion during the event State of the arts in Brussels http:// |