Hazel Moon

The Hazel - August 5 -Sept 1st

'Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood -
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.'
- Pablo Neruda

The air surrounding hazel trees is said to be magically charged
with the quicksilver energy of exhilaration and inspiration.


'August 5 - September 1: The Hazel Moon was known to the Celts as Coll, which translates to "the life force inside you". This is the time of year when Hazelnuts are appearing on the trees, and are an early part of the harvest. Hazelnuts are also associated with wisdom and protection. Hazel is often associated in Celtic lore with sacred wells and magical springs containing the salmon of knowledge. This is a good month to do workings related to wisdom and knowledge, dowsing and divination, and dream journeys. If you're a creative type, such as an artist, writer, or musician, this is a good month to get your muse back, and find inspiration for your talents. Even if you normally don't do so, write a poem or song this month.'
•Magical History & Associations: The bird associated with this month is the crane, the color is brown, and the gemstone is band-red agate. The Hazel, a masculine herb, is associated with the element of air, the planet of Mercury, the day of Wednesday, and is sacred to Mercury, Thor, Artemis, Fionn, Diana and Lazdona (the Lithuanian Hazelnut Tree Goddess).


Hazel wood is one of the nine traditional firewoods that is part of the Belfire that the Druid’s burned at Beltane – it was added to the fire to gain wisdom. In fact, in ancient times the Hazel was known as The Tree of Wisdom. It is often associated with sacred springs and wells and salmon. Celtic legend tell of a grove of Hazel trees below which was a well, a pool, where salmon swam. These trees contained all knowledge, and their fruit contained that knowledge and wisdom in a nutshell. As the hazelnuts ripened, they would fall into the well where they were eaten by the salmon. With each nut eaten, the salmon would gain another spot. In order to gain the wisdom of the Hazel, the Druids caught and prepared the salmon. But Fionn, the young man stirring the pot in which the salmon were cooking, accidentally burned his thumb with the boiling stew. By reflex, he put his thumb into his mouth and thus ingested the essence of the sacred feast; he instantly gained the wisdom of the universe

.•Magickal usage: The Hazel has applications in magick done for manifestation, spirit contact, protection, prosperity, wisdom, divination-dowsing, dreams, wisdom-knowledge, marriage, reconciliation, fertility., intelligence, inspiration, and wrath. Hazel is a good herb to use to do magick associated with asking for wisdom and poetic inspiration since the Hazel is known as the Tree of Immortal Wisdom. In England, all the knowledge of the arts and sciences was thought to be bound to the eating of Hazel nuts. Hazel also has protective uses as anti-lightning charms. A sprig of Hazel or a talisman of two Hazel twigs tied together with red or gold thread to make a solar cross can be carried as a protective good luck charm. The mistletoe that grows on hazel protects against bewitching. A cap of Hazel leaves and twigs ensures good luck and safety at sea, and protects against shipwrecks. In England, the Hazelnut is a symbol of fertility – a bag of nuts bestowed upon a bride will ensure a fruitful marriage. The Hazel is a tree that is sacred to the fey Folk. A wand of hazel can be used to call the Fey. If you sleep under a Hazel bush you will have vivid dreams. Hazel can be used for all types of divination and dowsing. Until the seventeenth century, a forked Hazel stick was used to divine the guilt of persons in cases of murder and theft. Druids often made wands from Hazel wood, and used the wands for finding ley lines. Hazel twigs or a forked branch can be used to divine for water or to find buried treasure. The wood of the Hazel can help to divine the pure source of poetry and wisdom.

Hazelnuts can be used for love divination. Assign the name of your passion to a nut and throw it in the fire while saying:
”A Hazelnut I throw in the flame,
to this nut I give my sweetheart’s name,
If blazes the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For twas my nut that did so brightly glow.”

If the nut burns brightly you then will know that your love will burn equally as brightly. Hazels are often found at the border between the worlds where magickal things happen, and therefore Hazel wood is excellent to use to make all-purpose wands. Any Hazel twigs, wood or nuts should be gathered after sundown on Samhain since it will be at the peak of its magickal energy. Hazel must not be cut with a knife, but with a flint.

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THE CELTIC TREE ORACLE

As well as poetic skill, this Ogham card represents intuition, the power of divination leading straight to the source. Hazel twigs have traditionally always been used for divining because of their pliancy and affinity with water.

So the Hazel embodies many talents: Poetry, divination and the powers of mediation. Through the guidance of this card, these talents can also be a channel for creative energies, especially that which allows you to inspire or increase these capacities among others, through your work, interests and pursuits. The Hazel, in fact, allows you to be a catalyst of transformer, working though the promptings of intuition to bring ideas to the surface.
by Liz and Colin Murray


LESSON OF Hazel
from The Wisdom of Trees by Jane Gifford

The Hazel encourages us to seek out information and inspiration in all things and emphasizes the value of the enquiring mind and of learning of all kinds. Just as the hazel concentrates all its goodness and its continued existence in the kernel of its fruit, so we attain wisdom by reducing knowledge down to its purest form and passing it on down the ages. Through meditating on the essence of wisdom, we gain creative inspiration. Like the limbs of the hazel, we must remain pliant in our approach to learning. Concentrated thought in an open mind can, like the hazel, become a connection with the divine source of all things. The hazel teaches us the noble arts of learning, teaching, communication, and healing.


'Ihonor the energy of hazel, the tree of wisdom.

I will heed my own inner intuitions, and will be wise and informed in my choices.'

So mote it be.thegoddesstree.com

Landscape and Memory

It has been three months since I last posted on the blog and Lammas season is upon us with its mellow fruitfulness. This is the time to celebrate the harvest of the first fruits and to give thanks for the blessings we have harvested personally since Summer Solstice. Now is a mellower time of year...the evenings are already starting to draw in, but we can still enjoy the summer while it is with us and make the most of the light for gathering with others outdoors or simply appreciating the blessings Mother Earth has given us.

Over the past two weekends I have enjoyed some lovely walks and really been aware of the abundance of purple and golden colour in the Cornish landscape from heather and blackberry to gorse and 'whispering jacks'. The sky when not full of cloud or rain has a brittle blue hue.Last weekend I enjoyed blackberrying on the cliffs between Chapel Porth and Porthtowan,as well as walking along the shoreline at lowtide and revisiting a pool from childhood where I had learnt to swim which nestles in the wake of a yawning cave on Porthtowan beach.
For me a walk is an opportunity to enter slow time:to be transported by landscape and elements into a space rich in inspiration and imaginative potential.I enjoy walking alone as for me the senses are heightened and it is possible to be more in the moment.The stretch of cliff from St Agnes to Porthtowan and beyond is stunning at this time of year; a patchwork quilt of purple. yellow and orange. The bracken is starting to turn copper and one is lulled into contentment by the lazy buzz of bees and song of larks. The landscape on these cliffs is a scarred honeycomb of mine workings, shafts and proud haunting engine houses staring out on an undulating terraine of iron oxide, quartz and copper stone.Heather covers the ugliness of Nineteeth century industrialism with its canopy and the cliffs slope steeply into the ocean beckoning in duck egg blue beyond. These North cliffs are expansive and invite the mind to stretch beyond mundane worries and concerns to a wider perspective. For me this landscape touches me with its vastness..the cliffs paw the shoreline clumsily and adits and caves lurk ominously around every bend. The sand is swept daily by tides and it is easy to get cut off. Nevertheless here is liminal space, my footprints shadow those of gulls on the shoreline and the odd shell and scraggy scalp of brown shiny thong weed mark the places where the tide nudges higher.
Being born and raised in this part of Cornwall means that every walk in this area is a walk into my childhood and teenage years and that I can trace my own shadows lurking here along this tide line. It is as if as I follow the golden thread of silted sand I am also picking my way back into my own past and sniffing out a memory lying beneath the cliffs.
The memory for me on Saturday was jolted into being by the corner of a second world war cement wall and the echoing of laughter and a hollow splash ...I followed the trail of awoken sense and clambered up barnacled rocks to look down into a pool of shady petrol blue half hidden in the cliffs. Here was the swimming pool of my early childhood: my minds eye flashed bathing caps and black full piece swim suits, a child's blue duck rubber ring, my grandpa in his wet shiny trunks holding me up in
strong tanned arms so I could float and learn to swim...barnacles sizzled, salt water stung, my skin tingled with sunshine and heat and was immersed in cool, lapping water
Here was that moment Wordsworth calls a 'flash upon the inward eye'.....slow time....the wonder that comes upon us when we are transported in a moment to another moment and another.......so we can hold infinity in an hour.

Lamma blessings xx