Tree Planting - The journey, a ritual, and a little bit of magic

This post is for me. Its personal, and sad, and maybe you'd rather not read it. But if you do, I really don't mind as long as you understand that this is something I need to air to myself and this is my forum to do so.

Tree planting

Today was tree planting day at the nature reserve. I've been looking forward to this day and planting our Hazel tree. I'd found this ritual on the web and wanted to use it to bless the tree, the site and my baby girls.

Tree Planting Ritual

Begin with the tree, the hole already dug, a pile of earth beside the
hole, and a bowl or watering can of water.

Stand facing East, and say:

"In recognition of the Earth my mother and of the sky my father, and of
my true source beyond all things, I ask that I may plant this tree, to
bring clear air to the blue sky, and rich soil to the dark earth.
May it grow tall and strong - its roots reaching deep into its home,
its leaves reaching ever higher towards the sun."

Hold your hands over the pile of earth and say:

"I ask that this earth might be blessed, and that it might feed and
nourish this young sapling well."

Pick up the tree and as you plant it, talk to the tree, either out loud or
silently, saying:

"May you grow fine and tall."

When it is planted, hold your hands over the water and say:

"May this water be blessed, may it refresh and sustain this young
sapling well."

Pour the water around the base of the tree, and then holding both arms
out towards the tree, say:

"In earth and water will you grow. In the air will your leaves speak as
you reach towards the fire of the sun. We respect and honour and
admire you, O tree, and all trees, for you represent both Peace and
Power though you are mighty you hurt no creature. Though you sustain
us with your breath, you will give up your life to house and warm and
teach us.

We give thanks for your blessing upon our lives and upon our lands.
May you fare well in this chosen place."

In reality it didn't happen this way. I woke up flustered and grew more anxious as we neared the site. I'm surprised I have any tears left to shed, I feel like I've irrigated the entire county and all of its neighbours these past few months.

We had told my 3 year old daughter that today we would be planting a tree. As we all know, the world revolves around every toddler so my daughter obviously understood that to mean that she would be doing the planting. She picked up our precious sapling and flung it around like a majorette twirls her mace before plonking it unceremoniously into the hole, upside down. I heard my intake of breath as my heart rested in my mouth and I gasped 'be gentle'. It all turned out all right in the end, the tree was planted. My daughter helped pack the earth around the roots with her hands, as she did on the days her sisters were buried. You've got to love that girl, I''m sure she was born a healer.

The 'rabbit guard' was placed on the tree. In my minds eye, I had thought of these guards as protection against deer. Do you know how happy I was to hear that it is there to protect against rabbits, although it is hares that are a real problem for the trees? An abundance of hares, how magical :)

The picture below was taken today. A wonderful view of the Cotswolds.


The Journey


In March my baby girl was stillborn. Blindly groping around in the dark, asking for direction and place to rest our loved child, we stumbled across a green burial ground. We connected with a sensitive, healing soul who thoughtfully lined our baby's grave with twigs and flowers. If only she knew how much she touched our hearts and helped us heal.



In June, we returned for a visit. I had a kindred spirit visiting from Seattle. She has become part of family over the years so we brought here on route to the Rollright Stones. The sun was shining, the birds sang, butterflies and ladybirds blessed us with their presence and as we picnicked we felt peace in our hearts, beauty in our minds and daisy chains in our hair. It was a happy day.


We saw the plaque for the first time. I had struggled so much over choosing the right words. Many of you know that I believed I couldn't draw. During my initial period of grief this remained true in my heart. Again, this sensitive, healing lady offered her help and drew the template for Nina's plaque. I hope she knows how much she is appreciated.


On July 30th I went to hospital for tests. I was advised that the baby I was carrying was dead. It was so heartbreaking as i had a scan a few days earlier and the baby was so full of life, kicking around, moving so much. I think I'd managed to stay so strong up until this point. There had been tears, of course. But who is strong enough for this?

In September, we were ale to bury our second lost daughter. Once more, this wonderful healer and sensitive soul lined the grave with sunflower petals from her garden. This time, I made the felt myself from wool that I had dyed in blackberries. My daughter rescued a caterpillar that had fallen into the grave. Next, we placed earth gently around my baby's shroud and filled the grave up until it was full. This is something I hadn't felt able to do for Nina. It felt cleansing, a part of the ritual of healing. I've been such a mess these past months.


And a little bit of magic....


Earlier in the summer, Susan of Artspark Theatre sent me one of her travelling Alice's. We photographed Alice at the nature reserve back in June. It was the happy uplifting visit that we had to the burial ground. I'm thankful to Susan for lending us magic and bringing it to Nina.

I am blessed with a living daughter. Right now her favourite film is Princess Mononoke. A while ago, she asked me to felt her something from the film. I needle felted some tree sprites. Children of the ancient trees. To see these sprites is an indicator that the forest is healthy. Today we popped a tree baby on each of my babies graves.

In October it had been bulb planting day. We didn't make it ourselves, and once again, this magical lady to whom I have so much gratitude, planted wood anemone around my babies graves. I chose wood anemone after reading an Irish BTCV site page about how seeing wood anemone was a sign that there had once been a magnificent forest in that place. Wood anemone are now known as the ghosts of the forest.

The optimist in me hopes that if we retrace our steps and wind back time then the great forests will thrive again. With this in mind, we chose the wood anemone, and placed felt tree sprites around the graves knowing that the spirit of the forest will live again and this site will thrive.

Peppercorn Mala Beads

My mam is Buddhist and lives in a Dharma. This year, she has asked for a string of 108 mala beads for her birthday to help her pray. Its not her birthday until November, but I wanted to make her beads right away as a thank you present.

My mam has given me the biggest gift anyone could ever give. She has helped me both practically and emotionally through some terrible times. Thank you mam, I love you xxxx

P.S. These beads were made and strung on 09/09/09. Numerology teaches us that 9 is the number of compassion.

Felt Feet Mobile

Last month we made the feet felt as a family project. We got so much fun and comfort out of making the feet felt that it seemed a shame to let the feet end their lives in a box getting crumpled losing all shape and beauty so we made them into a mobile.

This has also been a family project. Paul collected the gorse supports while we were in Wales. He stripped down the wood removing all thorns and prickles revealing the magical pattern of the wood below before dressing the wood in linseed oil.

I made the supporting ropes using the technique for making friendship bracelets. I used a whole length of stein for each rope so the making of the bands was slow progress with many breaks. Paul did try to help making one of the friendship band ropes but found it more difficult than he anticipated so I finished it off.

Naomi helped choose the beads (all from a collection of my broken jewelry/ jewelry does not last long near a toddler!). All of the materials are natural and recycled. The beads are a collection of glass, metal, wood and mostly semi precious stones. We have added sea shells where possible to tie in the connection that the feet were felted on beach walks.

The centre string is mostly made up of crystals, turquoise and lapis lazuli beads to represent the sea. The outer strings are beaded from a mixture of jade and red jasper. Red jasper is often used to attract love and jade symbolises a concentrated essence of love and calming. All green touch stones are symbolic of unconditional love and all gem stones have healing properties.

It is difficult to get a picture that does justice to how pleasing the mobile is to the eye. I am however prepared to accept that most people may find it strange to hang feet from a mobile and that it may not appeal to their sensibilities. My daughter is disgusted that the feet now hang from the ceiling. We have appeased her by promising to make some more feet felt with her.

Creative daze

We have had what feels like the first summer in 2-3 years here in England. The past 2 years have been so overcast and rainy it was a gamble to step outdoors.

I've had lots of day trips out with my family and a visiting friend from overseas. Creating lots of happy memories. Taking in shows, long walks, art projects in he garden.

My visiting friend is an artist and she carried one of her mermaid canvases all the way from Seattle to give to me. The shells glued onto the mermaid canvas are ones that she has collected herself from Hawaii and Costa Rica. Looking at them whisks me off to distant shores of colourful sun kissed lands. Last time she visited she brought me a painting of her 'super donkey' overlooking Seattle's space needle. I love them, my walls are blessed ;o)

During the quieter moments we have been painting new pictures over old canvases. I like recycling. Megan has been creating another mermaid for her collection. I have been painting a tree in a wildflower meadow.

Painting is not really a strength of mine. I tend to stick with textiles but I'm enjoying the experimentation of it all. The girl who used the canvas before me coloured the canvas in with felt tip pens so I have had to apply quite a dark base colour to cover it all up. I'm now building up paler meadow colours. Both paintings are works in progress and far from complete.

While taking a break from painting, Megan has been decorating tins with layers of paper and glue montage style. The tin looks great. I have been making beads out of old copies of 'The Big Issue' and letting my daughter string them into necklaces for friends and family members. I got the idea from a visit to the shared earth shop in town. The shop was selling these necklaces for £5 each which I thought was disgraceful for a bunch of newsprint beads. But having made them myself now I accept that although the materials have virtually no cost and there is not much skill to the technique, the process is very time consuming. I love the end result, very DIY punk, and i'm all for creating things out of recycled materials.

Earlier this week I received a cut out 'Alice' from Susan at Artspark Theatre. I have had great fun taking Alice along with me on day trips and trying to find interesting ways to photograph her. It's a really fun project that Susan is working on right now (thank you Susan for letting me take part). More visual testaments to Alice's adventures can be seen on the blog Artspark Theatre.

You are an ocean wave my love

On 27/3/09 my daughter, Nina, was stillborn 27 weeks into the pregnancy. She had been diagnosed with Edwards Syndrome 6 weeks earlier and we had been advised she was unlikely to survive beyond the womb. She should have been born alive and healthy on 27/6/09.

As you can imagine, the last few weeks have been unbearable and I find myself a different person seeing the world through new eyes. My priorities have changed and where I once sought out excitement I now seek solace.

I buried my daughter in felt in a nature reserve. The artist who made the felt burial shroud has also initiated an art project making feet felt. I bought one of these kits with the intention of making molds of our feet to place as temporary markers above Nina's grave. I liked the imagery of the feet naturally degrading into earth around Nina's grave symbolising our unity, her place in our hearts, family and minds that will hold us together indefinitely.

In the early throws of our grief we did not have time to make the feet. Later, our grief caught our tongues and our flow of communication became blocked. We did not know how to express ourselves or make ourselves understood. I began to internalise my pain and my partner externalised his.

I began to write, seek out out distractions and creative prompts, my world fleetingly took me away from my family offering me a way of numbing this pain. I began Mother Henna's 'heART of the Hero' workshop (although I am disgracefully behind schedule).

I accepted the invitation to the Blog Festival: Solstice Hero Dance, Light on Shadow. I needed a way to reach out to my family and include them in my distractions and creative therapy and bring us back together and thought that making the feet felt kit together would be a symbolic way of doing this.

We went to Wales with my father to visit my grand parents. Over the course of 5 days we dyed wool, made wet felt patches, dressed feet, walked, collected drift wool, played on the beach, enjoyed the company of family and absorbed the beauty of the nature around us. There were many stages and processes to this feet felt project all of which were soothing to the soul.

During the Heart of the Hero workshop, I have been asked who my spirit guides are and what I would ask them. I have discovered that my guides are Sheep and Puffin. Right now I have no questions, instead I will listen and observe.

This morning I looked up the totem medicine of sheep:

Sheep can show how to maintain balance and have confidence in situations and abilities, teaches how to move in the physical with agility, camouflage and blending with surrounding, teaches a sense of togetherness and community along with showing how to make life easy and promote serenity. Sheep instills a sense of protection and alertness with peace of mind and heart. Are you protecting yourself enough and/or remaining centred in peace? Sheep wisdom can help in understanding your place and perceptions within the scheme of things.

Having read the medicine of Sheep it is no surprising that I have encountered so many people along my journey who find comfort and peace in felt making.

I the looked up the totem medicine of Puffin:

Those with this medicine would benefit by living near large bodies of water, particularly the ocean. Without water in their immediate environment they could have difficulty finding their equilibrium in life. Because water is associated with the intuition and all things hidden those with this medicine make excellent psychics and therapists.

Puffins rely on body language to convey messages to other puffins. Puffins are masters of disguise and teach those with this totem how to disguise their true feelings and use body language to their advantage. After all actions can speak louder than words!

Through out this project I have had the 'All About Eve' song 'Martha's Harbour' repeatedly playing in my mind. I'm not sure where it came from a I have not listened to 'All About Eve ' in more than 15 years, but it feels right. One of the meanings attributed to the name 'Nina' is 'goddess of the ocean'. So for now, Nina is my ocean wave lapping over our feet on the Welsh Island shores and can be seen with our feet in the beach photographs above.