There is a tree that
grows wild in Seattle.
Her name is Hawthorne.
She is an initiate
of the sexual mysteries
and offers her teachings to those
that dare enter this realm.
I was a budding herbalist, back about 13 years ago. I had tasted Hawthorne flower infusion and decided to go in search of the blossoms in my neighborhood park. It was a cloudy, late April day. I walked to the tree I had discovered a few months back. I gently pulled flower and leaf from the tree, feeling so vulnerable and so peaceful in this task.
I returned home and laid these flowers on a dish cloth to dry.
That night I dreamed of having sex with the Hawthorne tree.
This dream had an other worldly flavor and awaken me to a undiscovered and deeper part of myself. I wrote the following poem in response:
I dreamed last night
I lay on the ground
Next to you
My heart beat rapidly
My body smelled of sex
I writhed on the ground
In ecstatic connection
To you
It must have been dawn
The dawn of an age, perhaps
And I was your captive
As well as set free
To embody my dreams
Of (w)holiness.
May it be in beauty.
Beautiful poem!
ReplyDeleteHawthorne, Julie? How absolutely amazing. Loved your post!
ReplyDeleteLovely account and poem, Julie - very powerful.
ReplyDeleteHawthorne is one of my favourite trees and medicines. I use all her parts. Every year I hold a wood working workshop and last October I asked participants to choose a tree within the glade and spend time with it. One of the group had never done this before. She came back and told me she had been attracted to a particular tree and felt she had to put her arms around it and hug it. The experience had brought her to tears, but they were healing tears. She then went and looked up the energetic properties of Hawthorne and found them to be "opening the heart to enable spiritual growth" which was exactly what she needed and had felt.
Every plant will always show us the next stage of our journey if we but spend time with them and listen to what they have to tell us.