Lessons from a Tree – the Rowan Tree

Our next tree in focus from our Natures teachings series

Rowan trees are at their best growing wild in the mountains and glens.

They are an absolute delight in all seasons producing beautifully scented white flowers in spring and bright berries in the autumn. These mountain trees are pioneer trees and are able to survive at high altitudes, as well as being able to live for around 200 years.

Their spring flowers provide pollen to bees and other pollinating insects and their autumn berries feed chaffinches, siskin and blackbirds. You can often see deer feeding on the bark and stem and they are also home to many other insects and fungi.

Folklore is rich when it comes to the Rowan and is a testament to how this tree has been respected. Rowans are associated with the celtic earth goddess, quickening of psychic abilities and intuition and communication between other worlds. Rowans planetary ruler is mercury – also known for bringing association with communication between worlds.

What they Teach

Known as the “The Lady of the Mountains” these trees are both pioneers and leaders, creating conditions for other trees to follow. They are capable of transforming any environment.

Rowans have a strong presence and a contained energy and are often found growing alone. Even though they are loners; they are very community minded and love to be around other trees.

The Rowan tree, like the Birch, is known as a nurse tree as they nurture and protect young trees around them,

Rowans are very adaptable, fast growing and have great vitality – these are the qualities that define their signature.

Healing Idea

Rowans were universally believed to ward of evil and promote good fortune.

Rowan wood is the preferred wood for making runes and Ogham staves. The leaves and berries are added to divination incenses.

A fork made from Rowan can be used to divine the presence of underground metals.

Binding two twigs with red thread was perceived as a good fortune talisman.

Warning: Do not eat raw berries from the Rowan tree.

The Rowan tree is the second tree in the tree Ogham and will often aid the potential set up with the Birch Tree.

There are 13 trees within the tree ogham, a celtic system used by the ancient druids to encode their wisdom. Glennie Kindred has written a number of books that include these and says that the origins of “The Tree Ogham” lie with the celtic tribes who migrated to Britain from the continent around 700-500 BC. There is no evidence of any ogham script found on the continent, but there are 320 inscribed standing stones surviving in the British Isles today, mostly in Southern Ireland and Wales. She continues to tell us that although the knowledge of the Ogham system was passed down orally initially it was later recorded in some medieval manuscripts including “The book of Leinster “ circa twelfth century, “The Book of Ballymote” in 1391 and “The book of Lena” in 1416. The book of Ballymote reveals how it was used a s a secret sign language using the shinbone as the central streamline and the fingers crossing it making letters.

We are encouraged to sit with each of these trees, to invest time with them and learn how to communicate and involve ourselves once again.

Nature has so much to teach us, if we invest the time and open ourselves to the wisdom.