Last year I took a solo walk in my favourite potent woodlands here in Northumberland.
After walking for a while, I sat down on a tree stump, took out my journal and invited in anyone who wished to talk with me.
Very quickly my hand started moving and words began to flow from the pen; words that told me:
The trees are the wisdom keepers of these lands, holding all they have and all they can in their very roots. It is time for that wisdom to come to the surface, time for it and the wisdom of the ancient people to be remembered.
“What a lovely message!” I thought, thanking the little clearing in which I sat and whoever had shared those words with me before heading off on my way, thinking no more of it as I meandered through the rainy woods, relishing their gentle rain and peaceful calm as a I made the way back to my little log cabin.
Three weeks later, the Northumbrian weather created a very different scene.
That night I sat indoors at home, hearing fences blow down, roof tiles crash to the floor and trees be torn from the Earth as I tended my very poorly dog and hunkered down. In retrospect, it was a potent way to spend the stormiest evening in my living memory; my four-legged best friend and familiar Kali had, out of nowhere, developed a bad tummy bug that had me terrified she wouldn’t make it through the weekend and so my dad – himself as connected to Kali as he is to this part of the world – and I hunkered down to look after her while we watched a documentary on local music and discussed the powerful stories that are forever being told about these lands. The storm raged through the night, and by the time he went home the damage in my street alone was breathtaking, with trees and fences down on every corner.
But it wasn’t until a few days later with Kali now safe and well and the winds having long since died, that the month-old message came back to me as I drove down a road lined with uprooted trees.
“The trees are the wisdom keepers of these lands, holding all they have and all they can in their very roots. It is time for that wisdom to come to the surface.”
That I remembered this as I was listening to a playlist of local music was not a coincidence, and I found myself wanting to stop and ask those tree roots what they have to share.
So while I couldn’t stop in that moment, I did make a promise to do exactly that as soon as I could. And now I find myself time and time again walking amongst the uprooted trees that still haven’t been cleared and asking them to share their stories and their wisdom with me.
The truth is that I’ve always known these lands I call home – lands just North of Hadrian’s wall but South of what is now the Scottish border – are magical, even though they’re often overlooked in talk of sacred places throughout the UK and beyond. But as a witch whose heart and soul are Northumbrian, that’s a magic I’m determined to reconnect with and to share just as bountifully as it deserves.
But for now, allow me to leave you with this image of the most recent uprooted tree I’ve seen – one that refused to give up its secrets until I make an effort to return and honour it properly.