Willow 
by Blayze

Sink your awareness down into the earth. Become aware of your breathing. Enter a trance state (using usual breathing techniques…)

You find yourself standing at the foot of a large hill - all around you is darkness pierced only by the brilliant light of the stars… twinkling like jewels embroidered into the velvet cloak of the night sky above you.

By the light of the stars you can see that a path winds in a spiral about the hill. You move to the left and begin to walk along the path - ever twisting and spiralling to the left. You begin to feel the ground slope beneath your feet as you slowly walk the spiral path. Your awareness shifts with each turn as you sink deeper and deeper into trance.

You are aware moonlight growing brighter as you near the summit of the hill and you realise that the moon is rising to hang just above the hill itself. 

Bathed in the moonlight is a tall, ancient stone that stands in the centre of a flat plateau. The spiral path winds ever towards the stone in the centre, one half of which is in shadow, the other illuminated by the silver light of the moon.

Gradually you find yourself walking in a ever tightening spiral as you move closer and closer to the stone… always and ever moving to the left. At last you come face to face to with the towering and ancient weathered rock. By the light of the moon you see that there is an image carved upon its surface… A straight line runs from an inverted V at the base to the top of the stone. Halfway up the line you see a four horizontal lines extending to the right. This is the Ogham Saille - the Wilow carved into the single upthrust spur of living rock.

You feel the power awakening in the stone and sigil as the moon continues to rise. The Ogham stave glows and you run your hand along its length. You feel the energy tingle through you from the tips of your fingers to your feet upon the earth. Suddenly everything shifts and you find that you have passed through the stone into another realm. Mist envelopes you and you experience a moment of disorientation, but you can now feel the stone standing at your back. 
You can hear the bubbling of water not far from you. You begin to walk forwards towards the sound of the water and as you do the mist begins to shred, separate and billow away revealing a path of water smoother pebbles beneath your feet. You are walking along between two embankments covnered with grasses hued to gold in the light of the setting sun.
You continue along the pathway and gradually  the embankments lower on either side as they slope down to become even with the path. You find yourself at the end of the path where water laps gently at the pebbled path. A clear wide crystal stream flows in front of you and to either side the landscape rolls gently down to mee the water.
Tall Willow trees send their delicate fronds to float upon the surface of the water. Here and there a small sandy bank is revealed where thick roots seek out the nourishing and life giving liquid of the stream. These are places where land and water become one. Although the stream is narrow you cannot make out what lies on the opposite bank.
Take off your clothes and shoes, divest yourself of all of your possessions and slowly enter the water. You feel the kiss of the cool water upon your skin and the fronds of the willow branches and leaves caress your naked body from above and on the surface of the water.
As you wade out into the stream you feel the pebbled bottom sloping downwards. Dive beneath the surface and look up. See the willow withes floating above you - dappled by the light of the setting sun. It is as if a green haired maiden has bowed her head to wash her locks in water and sunlight. You know what it is to move between elements.
Gradually you swim back to the surface. You feel cleansed and refreshed.
Climb back out of the water to the bank. Begin to walk along the bank until you come to a place where the stream widens into a pool. Surrounding the pool is a circle of willows, their long fronds have woven together to form a floating mat. You can see that there is an object sitting at the centre of the mat.
Carefully you make your way from the shore to the floating tangle of willow withes. The mat is suprisingly strong and will support you weight. You reach the centre and see that the object is a small covered pot or basket woven of willow. Do not open the basket yet, but instead sit down upon the floating mat and hold the basket in your hands.
Feel the gentle movement of the water beneath you. Feel the weaving supporting you as you in turn support the weaving of the basket.The sun sinks below the horizon and night has come. 
 Let your awareness encompass all that is woven together by common goals or the meeting of opposites - the warp and weft. The land,,, the earth and the water. One fluid, one solid yet both can change... can merge... think on the mystery. . the moon has now risen.  Look at the trees themselves... each one represents some aspect of your life that you are ready to give up... The Willows are the beginning of loss, the giving up of past patterns of behaviour that need to be given away and set free.
When you are ready open the basket and by the light of the moon you see a silver sickle with a willow wood hilt.
Take up the sickle and cut the floating mat free from the trees that bind it. Thanking them for their weaving and their mystery as you do so. You feel the loss as separate yourself from the trees, but you understand it now. You find that the mat begins to float down the stream. It drifts to where the path met the stream, but a sudden eddy sends the mat to land upon the opposite bank. The bank is revealed in the moonlight as soft grasses and a sandy shore. You can see the top of a very tall willow just peaking over the bank.
Climb off the mat and onto the shore taking the basket and the sickle with you. You climb up the bank and see before you a single ancient willow surrounded by flat trod grasses in a circle around the base.
You approach the willow. Open the pot once more and you will find a gift that may be offered to the tree. Ask the Willow to accept your gift and if you may cut one withe to wear.
Cut a withe with the silver sickle and weave it into a circle for your brow. Place the sickle back in the basket and leave it at the base of the tree. Place the circle upon yourt head. The night begins to take shape as spirits of the trees assemble at the base of the ancient willow. Neither male nor female they are the balance between the sexes - male and female within each.
They each take a willow frond and form a circle ready to dance around the tree. One frond is spare and they gesture to you to dance with them. You take up your frond nd the circle dancers begin to move. They weave in and out... naked in the moonlight as they dance the tree. You feel your feet move in complicated rhythms.. ecstasy and harmony are within you as you disover how magic weaving can be. Unearthly music surrounds you until the dance becomes a blur. The dancers are tight against the trunk of the tree now - you can feel the rough bark against your skin.
You become one with the tree.... you merge with it and feel yourself journeying through root and branch, bud and leaf. You are the sap, the blood of the ree. You feel the pulse of life around you.
You feel yourself moving into the catkins, the long flowers of the willow nestled amongst the leaves. You become aware of a distant buzzing all around you... it gradually becomes louder and you recognise the sound as the song of the bees. You feel yourself taken up into the air, born as pollen on the legs a bee. Below you is the stream and the willow trees that line the banks. You can see the pebbled path below you as slowly the bee makes its descent to land upon another willow by the path. You feel yourself beginning to grow... to stretch out a bud... then a leaf then you feel a trunk and branches and roots going deep into the earth... seeking out the waters of the stream before you. Drink deeply of the stream through your roots... refresh yourself....
Slowly your awareness shifts again and you feel yourself resuming your human form once more. You find yourself once again standing by the stream at the end of the path. You see your pile of clothes and possession before you. Get dressed and take up your possessions... or leave behind what you will. 
When you are ready begin to walk back up the pebbled path... you sense the embankments on either side of you growing taller as you walk along. Finally you return to standing stone.  but this time a spiral is carved into its surface. Move to the stone and begin to trace the spiral as it twists to the right. You become aware of mist forming around you once more and again a feeling of disorientation. 

As the mist begins to clear you find that you are once again standing upon the hillside under the fading light of the setting moon. By the light of the stars you begin to walk the spiral path out from the centre, ever moving to the right. You begin to feel the path sloping downwards as you tread the spiral path around the hill. As you walk you feel yourself becoming heavier and heavier, you begin to be aware of other sounds…. Slowly you reach the bottom of the hill and sit at its base. You become aware of the feel of your body, the shape of your skin and your breath. You feel the blood flowing through your veins . You become aware of the sounds around you… 

When you are back… open your eyes.