Wattled with Willow

 

The land along the shoreline of the bay was saturated with the snow that was melting.  Anna walked on the raised trail that ran alongside this wetland searching for one of her favourite trees.  She was in the midst of her spring ritual of renewing her relationship with Willow.  When Anna was a young girl, a man at a tree nursery had taught her how to cut Pussywillow branches and put them in water until they rooted.  He had told her that if she planted those three rooted stems, a Pussywillow bush would grow from it.  He had taught her this after Anna’s father had refused her request to buy this tree that she had fallen in love with at first sight.  She had followed the man’s instructions and the branches did magically send out long white roots into the jar of water she had placed them in.  Her father had let her plant them in the garden and they had indeed grown into a Pussywillow bush that was twenty feet high by the time she herself had grown up.  This was Anna’s first experience of co-creating with nature and it set the tone for her whole life.

As a young mother, Anna’s family had moved frequently to accommodate the growing number of children.  She returned to her parents’ home frequently and visited the Pussywillow which had the usual ups and downs of trees; leaves eaten by insects, older branches rotting and falling off and occasionally catastrophic damage from winter storms. The Pussywillow had always bounced back, growing new stems, branches and leaves.  It loved it in the yard which flooded every spring.  Willows love water.  The Ancient Celts named Willow the Queen of the Water because of that and this tree was associated with the Moon and Feminine qualities as well.

Each spring, Anna, as an adult would cut three stems from the tree and take them home to root just like she had as a child.  She planted those Pussywillows in every place that she lived.  As a mother, she cared for her children and she cared for her willows.  The Pussywillow that she had planted as a girl was a male tree.  It only produced male catkins, those soft, silvery “pussies” that gave the tree it’s name.  Not only did the stems root in the water, but the male catkins went on to produce golden pollen that soon covered the grey fuzzy kittens.  It wasn’t until Anna was an older woman that she saw her first female pussywillow tree.  The female catkins had raised green stalks that contained the ovaries.  Once pollinated by wind or the bees that used the pollen as early spring food, the seeds would form and seed pods would cover the catkin.  Anna had learned that these seeds would fly in the wind along with the fluff from the catkin and so they needed to be light.  They contained no endosperm, so they had to land in wet soil and take root immediately.  Willows also had a fibrous root structure that would send up shoots easily and this was the more successful form of procreation.

In fact, Willows were so good at sending up new shoots, even from cut trunks and branches that Anna’s ancestors had practiced coppicing or cutting the branches off regularly on certain trees so that there was a constant supply of building materials.  They had used flexible willow branches in wattling or weaving the stems to build baskets, furniture, walls for buildings, boats and fences.

The Weeping Willow variety was brought from China to the United Kingdom roughly three hundred years ago and subsequently to North America were Anna lived.  Anna had grown up with a Weeping Willow as well in her backyard.  She loved the graceful dance of the long stems in the wind and as a child she liked to sit inside the ring of branches and leaves that swept the grass and formed a moving wall as well as a “secret hiding spot.”  As the tree grew, so did Anna and there came a time when she wanted to climb it.  But, she didn’t like heights.  She felt the force pulling her up and the fear anchoring her to the ground.  Somehow, she felt the Weeping Willow urge her to climb up into its branches and sit awhile.  The idea came to her that if she did that, she might get over the fear of being there.  As an adult, Anna learned that desensitizing is one way to heal phobias but she didn’t know that as a child.  Anna felt that the Willow had whispered that to her child self.  And so, Anna did spend time sitting in the willow.  She did get used to being there with the fear and she never fell out of the tree.  The Willow held her like a mother.  And Anna learned that fear can be present but it didn’t have to stop her following the urgings of life, not with the Willow Mother to hold her, not with Mother Earth to hold her.

Anna didn’t know that her ancestors, the Celts had understood that Willow can help with letting feelings flow and that it’s gift was tears.  She didn’t know that this tree was believed to strengthen intuition, inspiration and imagination.  She didn’t know that her ancestors made harps out of willow so that the tree could sing.  But she did know how to listen to this tree and follow its urgings.

Lost in her thoughts and memories Anna had stopped walking. Suddenly, she snapped back to the present moment and looked around her.  There, in the wet land beside the trail was a large Pussywillow bush covered in soft silvery catkins.  She took a sharp inbreath in surprise and then burst out laughing.  Her body had found the tree while her mind was miles and years away.  Anna took out a little penknife from her pocket and after receiving permission from the tree to take three branches, she cut them and placed the cut ends in a plastic bag to keep the ends moist.  She rubbed the soft catkins on the side of her face like a cat and smiled at the feeling of her old friends.  Her child self and crone self were present together in that moment.

Since the weather was warm and spring was pulsing under her feet, Anna kept on walking.  There were pussywillows everywhere and the catkins were shining in the spring sun.  She came across some female catkins and stopped to examine their interesting structure.  The ovaries looked like antennae to her and she couldn’t believe that she had spent so much of her life only seeing male catkins.  Now that she knew what female catkins looked like and she paid closer attention, she could see them here and there.  “She was not too old to learn a few new things she thought,” as she chuckled to herself.

After a few minutes, Anna came to where a huge old Weeping Willow grew.  Some of its giant branches had grown sideways and some rested on the earth.  Some had rotted and snapped off.  They lay strewn about the base of the tree like old bones.  Hundreds of new yellow shoots grew out of the scars left by the fallen branches, like hackles on a cat.  The crone tree’s life story was told in the branches and stems and bones.  And yet she radiated strength and resilience.  Anna could see how Willow represented the three aspects of women.  Willow had the flexibility of the maiden, the nurturing and strong procreative ability of the mother and the strength of the crone.

Anna climbed down the embankment and made her way to the old Willow.  She placed her hands on the warm bark and felt the energy of moving water.  She knew that Willow was cleansing the water she took in from her roots from pollution and that she would expire clean water out through her leaves.  As she rested there, Anna became aware of the sadness that she was keeping under the surface.  Sadness from so much change, loss and uncertainty.  She breathed into that sadness and it flooded up within her all the way to her tear ducts. She let the feelings flow as she kept her hands on Willow, the comforting Grandmother who had seen it all before.  After a time, the feelings floated away and Anna took a deep cleansing breath.  She felt ready to make her way home.  But, before she left, she once again took out her knife and after getting permission from the tree, she cut one long waving stem. 

After walking for a few more minutes, Anna once again climbed down to the wetland and she planted the stem into the wet earth.  She knew that she was taking part in the procreative cycle of Willow and at the same time, creating a symbol for her ability to reimagine her life and to create something new.  Anna’s life story was woven through with Willow.  They were wattled together just as her ancestors’ from across the ocean had been.  She imagined a woven willow basket with coloured wool and thread added to it.  She imagined the basket filled with co-creations. And she knew that this was her life story.