Journeying with the Holy Thorn ~ Day 1

The Plant Spirit Challenge. Day 1: Choose an Ally

Hawthorn in the 1,000 year churchyard

Beginning on Old May Day, 14th May, I embarked on a new Plant Spirit Challenge journey. The Plant Spirit Challenge was devised by “polytheist, writer, maker, and witch” Michelle Simkins, formerly of Hagstone Publishing, in 2019 with the intention of connecting more deeply with the plants we share our lives with. This is the fourth time that I have used Michelle’s prompts to weave a deeper relationship with a plant and I can say that each time it has been life changing in the most unexpected of ways; some more subtle than others, but all bringing lasting medicine.

In 2019, I found myself working with lilac, which certainly wasn’t what I had planned but was just what I needed. Later that year I undertook a two week mini-challenge with blackberry, which was no less deep for its brevity, and in 2021, I journeyed with ground-ivy. Even though I wasn’t able to complete that challenge the lessons learned have woven themselves into much that I think and write about now. But more of that on another day.

For this year’s challenge, I have decided to hold the daily prompts more lightly with a determination to continue to day 30. Michelle is very clear that we should make the Plant Spirit Challenge our own and so I am not forcing myself to complete a prompt every day and, where an activity doesn’t resonate with me, I am substituting my own. So far, I hope to find space for social history, etymology, and my plant in art and literature. I have completed seven prompts so far and it has already been extraordinary. I thought that you might like to come along with me for this exploration, and perhaps you will be inspired to try the Plant Spirit Challenge yourself. There is such a need for us to notice the green beings around us in this world of forgetting and deep disconnection.

As ever, I was in more than several minds about which plant to study. Hawthorn was the first being who came to mind; I think because I loved having a jug of hawthorn twigs next to my Mary of the Ordinary Magic statue on our kitchen windowsill to honour the holy tide of Mary in May.

Mary of the Ordinary Magic on the hedgehermitage kitchen windowsill

I was also drawn to working with nettle, and to completing my half-finished 2021 Plant Spirit Challenge with eidral/ground ivy. We have both of these plants in the hedgehermitage garden and that is certainly a consideration when one is as wobbly legged as I am.

Like a nectar gathering bee my mind rarely settles on one thing and so, for a time, I considered connecting with both hawthorn and nettle. I also knew that my experience would be deepened by working with just one being at a time. On Old May Day morning, in the space between sleeping and waking, I asked to be shown which plant I was being invited to work with. I was wrapped up in my duvet and almost immediately felt cocooned in May blossom. It was such a lovely experience. As it was a Sunday, I also spent some time with the hawthorn tree, whose blossom was still tight in the bud, in the graveyard of the 1,000 year old church I go to and felt a sweet connection. Hawthorn it was then!

Although, I did look wistfully at the nettles as I passed them in the garden later that day…

I loved my first Plant Spirit Challenge experience with lilac and am excited about connecting with another tree. Lilac is deeply woven in with humanity, and almost always grows in places of human habitation, or reveals where they once were. Hawthorn is different and feels more ancient in this land; wilder. I have had a connection with her in the past through Blodeuwedd, but have also come to associate her with Mary and with the protectress of hares, St Melangell. I wonder whether I will learn more about them through this holy tree.

I also know that hawthorn is a heart healer, and have previously taken hawthorn tincture (along with nettle) to help with adrenal fatigue. I feel that I am very much in need of that same medicine now, along with hawthorn’s teachings on boundaries.

So strongly a being of hedgerows and field edges, and used in hedge-laying more often than any other tree, it feels that hawthorn’s boundary medicine is strong and complex, both in terms of the heart and the history of our land. A tree of the people of the Commons, once eaten as ‘bread and cheese’, both by children and those suffering hardship, our faery tree turned against us as the land was enclosed, only to offer precious vestiges of the wild as hedgerows have become important sites of refuge and biodiversity. There is so much to unravel here, and I look forward to it.

My first May blossom of the year, 7th May 2023

In the meantime, I have been drinking hawthorn tea with honey each night before I sleep and have visited our nearby hawthorn trees as often as possible. I have already had such magical experiences, including singing with goldfinches! More of that tomorrow. For now, I do hope that you will enjoy coming along with me as I see where hawthorn leads me.

Hawthorn May 13th – June 9th (Hilary Llewellyn-Williams)

May’s out: white, plump and plush
way-marker, sweet female unlucky spray;
tucked starry flowers, a million eyes
road-watching, field-guarding, a hilltop
presence, yearly more curved
with each twist of the earth, deep musk,
queen of long dusk, sharp secrets, she’ll
turn to blood in the hedge, rich burning
drops. Jets leap and scream
through a damaged sky; my skin
darkens in so much light. The tightening
drum. The hum of silage cutters
from a far field, muffled by bushy May.
Smother those savage thorns
in green and white: she will be beautiful.
In a changed world, still she draws you,
enters you, as woman to woman;
and you are not hurt, but healed
and washed clean, even now, wise-eyed, reborn.