Willow as Ally
Saille exudes an inner stillness. Where there is movement all around her, ripples in the water, songs in the wind, she maintains a calm, always mellow. There are times when her song is one that tempts us into escapism, careless and even thoughtless. Yet she guides us too to be flexible, unflustered and imaginative, allowing the pain and complicatins of life to slip away. (ERO)
Oghams of Morann Mac Main: hue of the lifeless
Oghams of Mac ind Oic: activity of bees
Like Alder, Willow is also a water loving tree, but has very different properties. Identified as having the ‘hue of the lifeless’, the specific willow referred to in the tree Ogham seems to be Salix alba, though there are many other varieties.
When working with willow it is the flexibility of the wood, the grace of her movement and the sound of the wind in her leaves that connects with me. Here is a tree that looks flimsy, yet it is so wonderfully flexible that it can bend before strong winds and survive where other trees cannot. Willow offers me grace, flexibility, an understanding that it is not always strong to remain fixed in a perspective that no longer serves us. Willow offers a liminal vision, one of intuition and of feelings shaped by influences we may not yet be fully aware of. (CC)
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