For the Love of a Tree

I remember when I first read the Holy Thorn tree had been cut down in an act of vandalism. I cried out and burst into tears. I was at my parents home and was crying too inconsolably to tell them what was wrong. I was acting like someone had died. In many ways, someone had.

We can wax poetic about how we’re all interconnected, but the true sense of kinship and belonging to this Earth happens in relationships. A relationship to one beach, one particular herb, one particular tree. Relationships that go beyond imagining the tree has a spirit, to the simple feeling of “this tree is my friend.”
I get so overwhelmed with existential grief around what’s happening to our planet, but there’s no healing when it’s that far out of our scope of relating. When the grief is for one place, one being, one spirit or group of spirits lost, then there is movement, catharsis, and possibly resonant change. When we feel feel the grief of lost relationships, we begin to understand just how tied we are to the more-than-human world. Sometimes we learn of our belonging through our loss.

I have made pilgrimages to Wearyall hill and the Glastonbury Thorn since I was 17. I knew this tree well. I have given it many offering, tied many wishes to its protective ring. The Holy Thorn was a wishing tree, a blessing tree. Across Celtic nations, there is an old tradition of tying cloth to sacred trees, both standing alone, or near sacred wells. The cloths are often wishes or prayers for healing, health, or good fortune. This tree, in particular, was connected to a local legend that claims Joseph of Arimathea visited this sacred hill, while carrying the Holy Grail into hiding. For some, this is the Grail of King Arthur’s legends, and they say the Once and Future king himself is buried in the local Abbey grounds. They also say this is where the mists parted and the priestess isle of Avalon was revealed in Arthur’s final journey beyond the veil.

The Grail Joseph of Arimathea was said to carry, is also though to have been Mary Magdelene herself, as well as the children she bore with Jesus, as the grail is considered symbolic of the Magdelene line and essence. There is even a telling that Joseph of Arimathea brought a 12 year old Jesus to Glastonbury during one of his trade missions. The tree represents Joseph’s staff, which he planted upon arrival to Wearyall hill.

This land is full of myth and legend. What I share only scratches the surface of the confluence of myths living in the landscape.

This tree too on a deeply symbolic meaning to me, but it was also a tree I came to know as friend over the years.

It was both a symbol of the greater mysteries of the sacred, as well as a point of reference. A place where I could tangibly feel the meeting of the worlds: nature and human, magical and mundane, this world and the otherworld. It was a place both solid and liminal at the same time. Many prayers of mine were given to that tree. Many have been answered.

I think in our quest to reunite with ourselves as relational members of the more-than-human world, we have to remember that it starts with individual relationships. It starts with love affairs. These can be near and far. A moment with a sea turtle in an underwater queendom. A conversation with a rock in a desert. A friendly swell of the heart when seeing a favorite creek spot. A deep sigh when gazing on a familiar mountain. Who have you befriended in this wide, wonderful earth? Which cave, tree, cactus, or meadow calls you kin? Calls you home to your own belonging?

The 3 first photos are of the intact tree in 2013. The last is 2015, after it was killed.