Wisdom of Hazel Meditation

Left to Right- Hazel the tree of Wisdom - Moonlit sky - Rowan tree of Meditation

Woodland Bard Meditation. 
 
Our meditation starts with honouring the land. The land is the mother, the provider of everything we need and it is she who is honoured first in Celtic lore. The land is often personified as a Goddess and was seen in the landscape as the undulating hills or the life-giving waters. The three names below represent the three Queens of Ireland, the sovereignty of its land. However, these ancient Gaelic names can connect us to which ever land we live upon at this time, for they call to the deities of all Celtic lands which once stretched all across Europe and beyond. The main verses are adapted from the beautiful words of Eleanor Merry, an English poet with a deep connection with the Celtic twilight. 
 
Chorus:     
Eriu, Banba, Fodhla, I seek the land of Erin,  
Fruitful be her seas, perpetually green her forest,  
I feel her in my bones, I feel her in my blood.  
 
Danu, soul of the ancient mysteries,  
Wanders forever under the canopy of heaven,  
Wrapped in her mantle of bluest aether,  
And the vision of her calls every human heart.  
 
Her shadow is the forgotten mysteries  
And lives in the sadness of Celtic Twilight tales,  
When hearts wake again to the longing for forbidden lands,   
Or for the shining hosts of the Sidhe,  
Or for the caves of the hoary sleepers.  
 
The Celtic folk soul is the soul of a spiritual awakening,  
The touch of a Woman of Beauty who will  
Come into the hearts of men and women  
Like a flame upon dry grass,  
Like a flame of wind in a great wood.  
 
 After this blessing we make an offering of hazelnuts to the Sidhe, the ancestors of this land saying the words: 

​How beautiful they are, the lordly ones who dwell in the hills, in the hollow hills. 
They have faces like flowers and their breath is a wind that blows amid grasses filled with white clover. 
Their limbs are more white than shafts of moonshine, They are more fleet than the March wind, they laugh and are glad and are terrible when their lances shake and glitter every green reed quivers.  
How beautiful they are, how beautiful, the lordly ones in the hollow hills. 
 
Fiona Macleod 
 
Wisdom of Hazel Meditation 
 
Now it is time to enter the Celtic Twilight in meditation with all of Nature. The following prose is designed to take you into meditation. 

Where the water whispers mid  
the shadowy rowan trees  
I have heard the Hidden People like  
the hum of swarming bees:  
And when the moon has risen and the brown  
burn glisters grey  
I have seen the Green Host marching  
in laughing disarray.  
 
Connla’s well lies at the foot of a mountain ash, those who gaze within may if they can find a guide be lead to the fountain of perpetual youth. The ash berries fall into the waters and turn then to fire. Connla the druid is the guardian of the well. 
Among the nuts in the hazel tree, I sing to the salmon in the faerie pool, 
What is the dream the salmon dreams in the well of Connla beneath the hazel? 

Fiona MacLeod 
 
Visualise a pool of water and notice the patterns of light upon its rippling surface, allowing the vision to take you within or if you cannot visualise just know it is happening. 

Enter the stone circle, experience the moon rising and slowly a soul awakening that is connected to all of the web of life. 
Before you is a doorway or just know it is there. Enter the doorway and descend into your soul landscape. 
As you descend get a sense of the hazel tree (pictured above) and what it has to tell you. Take whatever images, thoughts and feelings that come to you. Slowly in stillness approach the hazel tree whether you can see it or have a feeling of its presence, sit with it in stillness and peace. 

-Meditate - 

In your own time be aware once more of the hazel and the exchange you have had with it. Notice an offering it may be a nut, leaf, stone or twig. Treasure it and allow it to be absorbed into your heart and as it melts into your being ask-  

What can I do to help the web of life? - PAUSE 

Accept whatever answer comes to you whether it be a thought, feeling or vision and slowly in stillness make your way back to the doorway and arrive back in your outer surroundings with a feeling of incredible support and purpose. 

​This written meditation cannot replace the experience of the live meditation and community support of our Woodland Bard Evenings. If you wish join us on Wednesday 30th September at 8.15pm please click on the link below.   
May you feel the support of nature in your life as you take part in its Wellbeing. 

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