Aster's Pictures

The tree of life~ Because trees have their roots in the unseen world of spirit, they are doorways into that world. That most magical of Celtic trees, the oak, derives its Gaelic name, (Old Irish daur, Welsh derw) from the Sanskrit word duir, that gives us "door." Many scholars believe that the Druids, who worshipped within sacred groves, derived their name from this word, combined with the Indo-European root wid, to know, becoming the "Wise Ones of the Oakwood." Old ballads sing of those who have entered the Otherworld by the door of a sacred tree. Thomas the Rhymer, a bard who lived in 13th century Scotland, sat under the famous Eildon tree, and was taken away by the Queen of Elfland. The Eildon tree was a hawthorn, sacred to the faeries as most bards know, including modern poet Kathleen Raine who wrote: A hundred years I slept beneath a thorn, Until the tree was root and branches of my thought, Until white petals blossomed in my crown.