GREENLEAF MAGAZINE
A THOUSAND YEARS OF FESTIVALS
By the fence on the high part of the steep flowery organic meadow where we held our Beltane celebrations and Maypole dancing in the mid 1990s, there's a rugged, squat old oak tree with a cave-like hollow at the bottom of its trunk. We informed people this was the altar and encouraged them to put their sacred objects into the hollow, candles and incense were burned, a mat was placed in front of it and people paid personal visits there. Before our camp ended, my ritual co- facilitator and I went to "thank" the tree. The motive for this was genuine, we felt, as well as being guests of the human owner, we were guests of the spirits and permanent dwellers of the meadow, and we felt the oak was the elder representative of those dwellers. I received a surprising revelation "the tree does not need to thank the earth, the tree does not need to thank the sky, the tree is at one with the earth, the tree is at one with the sky." This depth of wisdom made our city-dwellers' gratitude to nature seem inadequate. The oak's life cycle provides a philosophical challenge to our ideas of individuality, competition and community. And using the language of certain religions, the oak appeared as an "enlightened being." If parasites genetically engineered parts of our bodies producing alien lumps and growths we'd fear, perhaps rightly, for our safety and survival. But the oak apples (which are homes of the gall wasp) and red swellings, mottlings and warpings of the leaves, caused by insects or fungi, are no threat to the tree, which survives the presence of such infiltrators, nibblers and rotting agents, for a thousand years or more. Indeed it can be said to shelter and support them. It is claimed that the oak is host to well over 300 species. A recent Radio 4 program brought to my attention how watery hollows high up in the clefts of the trunk were rich life environments, resembling seashore rock pools. You'd have to be very studied in these matters to tell how much "give and take" there is in these apparent host/parasite relationships. Only quite recently foresters have begun to accept that, rather than being a "disease", the fungi that rot away the heartwood of trees like the oak, actually do them a favour, improving their structural resilience and survival. Trees are hungry for water and many trees are open at their roots to invasion by fungi which take nutrients from the tree. They might appear to be parasitic on the tree, except that the tree extracts water from the wide territory covered by the fungus, where its roots do not run and which it otherwise could not reach. So the relationship is a symbiosis, a kind of voluntary trade agreement. Our bodies too, of course, have a flora and fauna, some of which are essential to our survival. The oak is not an individual struggling for survival against other individuals. The oak is a product of a process that has transcended that struggle. The oak is a sustainable environment, supporting year after year, other forms of life with which it has evolved into a state of harmony. This noble ancient tree, is the playing field for yearly seasonal gatherings of living beings. Every oak offers its community a potential of a thousand years of seasonal gatherings. Hurricanes, lightning strikes, may threaten it, and eventually it will wither and die, but even then its timber remains a source of nourishment and shelter to creatures that help return its elements to the soil from which it grew. Men with chain saws are a dangerous interruption of this long term plan. However we have discovered oak trees have a way with humans too. We need them. We respect them. Because we need them and respect them we will protect them. If we do, we too, can learn how our seasonal gatherings can evolve to follow that same benign, unhurried path of long term co-operation with all others that is the oak's wisdom, and then we can expect our gatherings to survive, unlike the exciting but confrontational festivals of the 1970s and 80s which many of us took part in. [PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED, PROPOSED FRONT PAGE FEATURE]
Click here to go to PADRAS/Stonehenge site Click for information about Robin's Greenwood Gang Click here to return to RGG home page

GREENLEAF MAGAZINE

A THOUSAND YEARS OF FESTIVALS

By the fence on the high part of the steep flowery organic meadow where we held our Beltane celebrations and Maypole dancing in the mid 1990s, there's a rugged, squat old oak tree with a cave-like hollow at the bottom of its trunk. We informed people this was the altar and encouraged them to put their sacred objects into the hollow, candles and incense were burned, a mat was placed in front of it and people paid personal visits there. Before our camp ended, my ritual co- facilitator and I went to "thank" the tree. The motive for this was genuine, we felt, as well as being guests of the human owner, we were guests of the spirits and permanent dwellers of the meadow, and we felt the oak was the elder representative of those dwellers.

I received a surprising revelation "the tree does not need to thank the earth, the tree does not need to thank the sky, the tree is at one with the earth, the tree is at one with the sky." This depth of wisdom made our city-dwellers' gratitude to nature seem inadequate. The oak's life cycle provides a philosophical challenge to our ideas of individuality, competition and community. And using the language of certain religions, the oak appeared as an "enlightened being."

If parasites genetically engineered parts of our bodies producing alien lumps and growths we'd fear, perhaps rightly, for our safety and survival. But the oak apples (which are homes of the gall wasp) and red swellings, mottlings and warpings of the leaves, caused by insects or fungi, are no threat to the tree, which survives the presence of such infiltrators, nibblers and rotting agents, for a thousand years or more. Indeed it can be said to shelter and support them. It is claimed that the oak is host to well over 300 species. A recent Radio 4 program brought to my attention how watery hollows high up in the clefts of the trunk were rich life environments, resembling seashore rock pools.

You'd have to be very studied in these matters to tell how much "give and take" there is in these apparent host/parasite relationships. Only quite recently foresters have begun to accept that, rather than being a "disease", the fungi that rot away the heartwood of trees like the oak, actually do them a favour, improving their structural resilience and survival. Trees are hungry for water and many trees are open at their roots to invasion by fungi which take nutrients from the tree. They might appear to be parasitic on the tree, except that the tree extracts water from the wide territory covered by the fungus, where its roots do not run and which it otherwise could not reach. So the relationship is a symbiosis, a kind of voluntary trade agreement. Our bodies too, of course, have a flora and fauna, some of which are essential to our survival.

The oak is not an individual struggling for survival against other individuals. The oak is a product of a process that has transcended that struggle. The oak is a sustainable environment, supporting year after year, other forms of life with which it has evolved into a state of harmony. This noble ancient tree, is the playing field for yearly seasonal gatherings of living beings. Every oak offers its community a potential of a thousand years of seasonal gatherings. Hurricanes, lightning strikes, may threaten it, and eventually it will wither and die, but even then its timber remains a source of nourishment and shelter to creatures that help return its elements to the soil from which it grew.

Men with chain saws are a dangerous interruption of this long term plan. However we have discovered oak trees have a way with humans too. We need them. We respect them. Because we need them and respect them we will protect them. If we do, we too, can learn how our seasonal gatherings can evolve to follow that same benign, unhurried path of long term co-operation with all others that is the oak's wisdom, and then we can expect our gatherings to survive, unlike the exciting but confrontational festivals of the 1970s and 80s which many of us took part in.

[PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED, PROPOSED FRONT PAGE FEATURE]

Click here to go to PADRAS/Stonehenge site

Click for information about Robin's Greenwood Gang

Click here to return to RGG home page