Rowan Moon (L~uis)

‘I am the mist over a wide river valley’ (from ‘Song of Amergin’*, Roselle Angwin’s translation)

Amergin (image from the web)

Here’s hoping that you have all traversed the winter solstice portal well, maybe had some encounters with birch trees, and that you saw and enjoyed the magnificent full wolf moon on Monday evening. In the Celtic tree calendar we are currently following, we are about to move from Birch Moon to Rowan Moon on the 21st January. Before I talk about the qualities of the Rowan Tree, I want to tell you one more birch tree anecdote: a Buddhist friend told me the other day that one of the oldest buddhist texts called ‘the rhinoceros horn / unicorn sutra’ was found intact written on birch bark in the Gobi desert many years ago. I liked that as an instance of serendipity, as I’m going to travel to the Gobi desert in the summer. More about that in a future post nearer the time of departure.

So during this coming period of the rowan moon, which runs from the 21st January until the 17th February, the new moon will occur on the 29th January, and mature into the next full moon - known as the snow or cold moon as we are still very much in the winter season - on the 12th February. The Rowan Tree is a small and slight upland tree which is humble and generous, sharing light and soil nutrients with other trees. It has feathery white blossoms in the Spring which ripen into an abundance of nutritious bright red berries full of vitamin C in the autumn. These really help the birds sustain themselves over winter. As humans, although the raw berries are indigestible to us, we can boil the berries into a healing jelly. The rowan is related to the Service Berry which Robin Wall-Kimmerer has just written what is promising to be a beautiful book about: https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/the-serviceberry/.

Its life span is only around 50 years or so, yet in celtic lore the rowan tree has magical properties. It is said to have its roots in the other world, its branches in this world, thus enabling a portal between different dimensions and having the effect of expanding minds. Walking sticks carved from Rowan trees are said to help us not get lost, and it’s also common for spinning wheels and spindles to be carved from rowan wood, showing its connection with the goddess - particularly in the form of Brigid, who is connected with the forthcoming pagan festival of Imbolc which is celebrated on the 1st or 2nd February, around the start of the lambing season. Imbolc means ‘in the belly’, and the red rowan berry can remind us of the warm fire germinating within the cave of the heart and inside the depths of the earth, accompanied by the gradually returning warmth of the sun which will soon crack the earth open and allow new life to burst forth.

Rowan trees can be found cultivated in many parks and gardens, so even if you don’t have access to a wild landscape near you, you may be able to find a rowan tree to make friends with and learn from over this coming month. You may want to carry a rowan berry with you to remind you that the light and warmth will return soon. Please do share your thoughts and / or images and experiences either in the comments below or in the chat thread which I will start for us as usual. Enjoy the gradual return of more light and warmth to the world, accompanied by the joyful bursting forth of the first spring flowers and tentative singing of the early birds.

*Amergin is thought to have been an Irish bard from the 12th Century, and one of his incantations is said to express the essence and spirit of each of the 13 sacred trees in the Celtic tree calendar.

The translation of the verse in the strap line is by Roselle Angwin as quoted in her book ‘A spell in the forest’: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57665726-a-spell-in-the-forest-tongues-in-trees