Imbolc and Charms For Heart Healing
A few days before Yule, I made a wonderfully exciting discovery, tucked away in a hedge, on one of my usual walking routes there was a Crataegus monogyna 'Biflora”, in flower and leaf.
This is a sub-species of our common hawthorn tree that leafs and flowers twice a year - once around Yule, and once around Beltane depending on weather. In Glastonbury and associated myths, it is known as the Holy Thorn - the most famous of which grows on Wearyall Hill (and which has been the subject of tragic attacks.
Winter Blooming Hawthorn
I spent the time leading up to Yule visiting with the tree, getting to know it, and listening too it, and on Yule - the winter solstice, made some offerings and collected from it a number of berries (which would have been left from it’s Beltane flowering) and some leaves. The message from the tree was very clear in my head, no! these would not be used for protection charms, these would be made into charms for heart healing. I’ve been drying the leaves and berries up in the studio since Yule (and continuing to visit the tree).
Today, Imbolc felt like the right time to make these into heart healing charms - the image was very clear in my head - I blessed little glass vials in water collected from the red and white springs in Glastonbury, and engraved them with a simple sigil combining the ogham feda for hawthorn and rowan.
Each charm has a hawthorn leaf - dried and curled into the vial and three berries… of course, some of the leaves broke (just as hearts break), and then a green wax seal.
Luis - associated with Rowan in the Ogham alphabet brings with it life force - which feels like an obvious choice for a healing charm. Huath - associated with Hawthorn, brings with it terror - and engraving the sigil onto the bottles this morning I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d got the message right. Hawthorn berries do have heart healing properties, and are used as such in herbal medicine - but Huath gave me some pause.
After finishing the charms, the hound and I took a very wet walk, and paused by the tree to chat…. Huath? Tell me more? Yes…. heart healing IS terrifying. Of course…. makes perfect sense.
You can find the charms here or for those of you heading to Sacred Space later this month, you will find some with Mythospheria in the vending hall there.