The King Of The Greenwoods

The Great Oak in all its majesty stands strong in the woodlands of the Celtic Isles and within its boughs and the sinews of its mighty trunk holds a history and a testimony to the fall of our race from a wisdom and a sacred way of life, lived in veneration and love of nature.

The Oak is one of the longest living trees and throughout the history of the Celtic lands has played an important part in the lives of the people. Its extremely dense and hard wood was prized for its durability and used in the construction of houses and ships, as firewood. Before iron tools were invented the oak had proved impossible to fell and subsequently the wood was used to make the charcoal needed to fire the furnaces that separated iron from its ore. The Oak was planted to mark boundaries due to its longevity and ability to endure for 100’s of years. The Oak begins to produce acorns when it is 70 to 80 years old and land used to be valued by the amount of acorns it produced as this was the food on which the swine were fed. Lightning was known to be an expression of the fire of God and the Oak’s boughs which reach as high to heaven as its roots reach into the earth attract the magnetic force of lightning as they often grow where two water veins cross. The Druids would carve a circle divided by a cross in four parts in order to protect the tree from being struck. The name of the Druids is derived from “DRU-WID” which means “Knower of the Oak trees” and they worked closely with the oak that formed the basis of their culture and spiritual practice. Oak trees were held in high esteem and reverence by the Ancient Celts. They would not plant the Oak tree close to their homes as the tree was considered too sacred and their rightful place to be in the wilds of nature where they would be used as the temples of the woodlands where ceremonies and sacred rituals would be held. Our Celtic Ancestors would invoke the pure forces of nature and beneath the green of the oak tree glade would perform their sacred rituals, dances and spiritual rites inspired and guided by the great Oak spirit, Deva Nahosha. They would also hold meetings beneath its boughs to come to decisions on morality, law and order within the community which was said to receive the force of the Oak and therefore would endure and stand firm like the tree itself. An era of spiritual freedom reigned and the wisdom of nature was with the Celts as they were with her. However this culture of wisdom and knowledge was damaged and eventually destroyed by the fanatical efforts of the church to turn people to Christianity and with violence they began they began their war against the culture that held nature in awe and respect. A clergyman named Bonifatius declared outright war on the so called heretical practice of tree worship, turning his fury against the sacred temples of the Oaks. To stand up to Bonifatius and his great army meant death and many stood by and watched in horrified silence as he uprooted their beloved Oaks and burnt them to ashes. It was only when he reached the Friesians (Northern Germany/Holland) where the people had warrior force, that Bonifatius was struck dead. Despite this and many other campaigns to destroy the sacred shamanic culture of tree worship the spirit of the people was strong and the elementals of the trees were with them and the church, in its first attempts, failed to put an end to it. The pride and arrogance of the church, however, was strong and the began to claim the trees for themselves, declaring them holy to their saints. They began to imitate the practices of the true Celts but now all was cloaked in their rigid doctrine which seeks to dominate and convert. Just as they pillaged, attacked and destroyed the sacred cultures of the indigenous of South America, blinded by their pride and oblivious in their ignorance of the spiritual treasure that those peoples held, they also enslaved the deep wisdom of the men and women of the nature worshipping Celts and so the fall of that race was initiated. The felling and enslavement of the Oak spirit was symbolic of the fall of its sacred culture. All of the wisdom of nature was reserved and more than half a million Oaks were felled to build the ships of the naval fleet that would go out to pillage and conquer. Thus the destruction of the Oak’s wisdom gave rise to the building of the British Empire. Today the wild nature of the woodland has been slain and what is left of our sacred trees and forests is imprisoned by the energy of materialism which despises all that is of God and nature and seeks to control and exploit the very spirit of the plants. The Oak still stands defiant, he still holds his wisdom despite all that is against him but he has withdrawn now from his people who have forsaken him for the worship of the Golden Calf. Now the great Oak spirit only waits and watches in silence as the karma befalls these lands, for all the wrong that has been done to our fellow man and to Mother Nature. The door is only open to those with a sincere heart, those that remember the ancient promise that has been made to honour and protect our sacred land and to keep its wisdom pure. If we return to the Father Oak and speak to him, remembering his love with gratitude, it relieves something of the pain that the treason of his people has caused him, freeing a part of his spirit that will help us on our spiritual path, giving us strength, endurance, perseverance and the will to fight to defend all those that suffer as the hands of the injustice that this culture inflicts upon humanity. SISA PACHALINA.