Fir: Ailm
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 one horizontal line biscecting the vertical line. This is the Ogham Ailm - the Pine 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 stand with the stone at your back. Mist envelopes you. You take a step forwards and you feel and hear the slight crunch of pine needles beneath your feet. A clean and medicinal scent fills the air as the mist begins to writhe and shred away.

It is early morning and you find that you are standing at the top of a steep path that runs down the side of  a large hill. All around you tower tall pine trees.  The air is crisp, clean and cold.  The path is a break in the forest. From this gap you can look out across the tree tops and blue skies at the mountains and valleys all covered in Pine. 

You take a deep breath of the air, filling your lungs with the scent that sweeps all that is old and rank away.

You begin to walk carefully down the path to the valley below. Pine cones dot the ground, large and small, some still attached to broken boughs, felled by the winds. Small patches of white snow cling to the hillside amongst the green of the trees.

You pause and look at the path. There before you is a stout, long pine branch capped with dual pine cones at one end. The bark has been all but weathered away. You pick up the branch and find the wood smooth beneath your hand. You continue to walk down the path once more, using the stick to aid you along the steep downward slope.

As you walk you feel exhilarated by the scents and sounds of the forest, all is pure and clean, fresh and new in the bright day. The decaying pine needles beneath your feet are reminders of what once was, but they add to the feeling of endless cycles of nature.

You continue walking down the hillside. The magnificent view is laid out before you. As you go lower on the path your vision becomes level with the surrounding hills and the view becomes obscured as you near the valley floor.

Mist begins to appear on the valley floor at ankle height. Wisping between the trees. You reach the valley floor and find that it is a large, round clearing, nestled between the pine covered hills. The very centre of the clearing is thick with mist and so you stand at the edge of the clearing. The floor of the clearing is covered in drifts of pine needles, old pine cones that have rolled down from the hills, the occasional branch and some small twigs.

You lay your pine walking stick upon the ground in front of you. Now you remove your clothing. You stand naked at the edge of the clearing. The steep slopes of the surrounding hills cupping the valley around you.

Take up some of the pine needles at your feet and crush them in your hands. The clean, sharp scent intensifies. Begin to rub the crushed needles into your skin. They are rough and sticky, the needles prick your skin but leave you feeling invigorated.

You begin to move around the edge of the clearing, picking up handfuls of the needles as you go, rubbing them into your skin. There is pain and pleasure in this journey.

You walk all the way around the clearing until you come back to your staff. You take up the staff with its two pine cones  and walk forwards to the centre of the clearing. The mist at the centre begins to shred away as you walk towards area that you can see is clear of pine needles and debris.

Hold the staff vertically before your body. You feel the power of the land fill you. Begin a low hum from the bottom of your feet that rises through your body. As your hum grows in strength shape the sound of it into an 'aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh'. Put into the sound all of your pain, the loudest of groanings is the pine.... as the sound builds, change it 'aaaaaaahhhhhhhhllllllllllmmmmmmmmm” the name of the pine. Feel the pain within you being set free... absorbed by the forest and cleansed by the scent of the pine.

You see that one of the pine cones on your staff begins to glow as you release your pain. Suddenly it begins to smoke and turn to ash, drifting away on the scented air.

Continue groaning the 'aaiillllmmm' sound as it begins to draw through you a feeling of ecstasy, of epiphany. The pine is teaching you something about yourself, your will to triumph from adversity.

The 'aaahhllllm' sound turns to one of joy and your voice fills the clearing.

The second, and only remaining, pine cone now begins to glow... as your voice reaches its peak, the pine cone starts to smoke and then it too turns to ash, floating on the scented breeze.

You have experienced pain and ecstasy, a sense of new beginnings fills you with wonder.

You look at the tip of the pine branch you hold. Slowly you see a tiny bud appear right at the tip... you see in this bud the pain of birth and the ecstasy of new growth. Slowly the bud becomes a pine cone, a spear shaped tip to the staff. It grows bigger and bigger, filling itself with the seed of potential.

Finally the cone has reached its full size, perfectly balanced upon the tip of the staff.

You feel magic begin to hum in the forest around you, eddying and swirling into the valley clearing.

Raise up the staff and with an act of magical will, plunge the staff deep into the earth. Break new ground. You let go of the staff as the ground shakes gently around you.

Move back a couple of steps as the staff takes root in the ground. It becomes a new tree, growing so very tall before your eyes. The lower trunk has thick, reddish brown, deeply fissured bark, the upper trunk is smoother and a brighter red. Thin needles twist in pairs from branches covered in pine cones, large towards the trunk, smaller along the ends of the branches.

You go to the tree and begin to climb it, finding finger and toes holds in the bark, rough against your skin. You find branches to cling to and climb up, climbing ever higher. Finally you can climb no further. You see the valley far below, you tower above the mountains. But the trees below you have changed.

The forest is filled with another species of tree, one of the oghamic trees you have visited before. You know what tree this is, you recognise the new forest below you.

Pine can bring both pain and ecstasy, hurt and epiphany. What does the pine tell you about the trees that now surround you?

As you cling to the pine tree, think on this, what is the other species of tree trying to tell you?

When you have worked out the answer, you feel your body beginning to change. The shapeshifting properties of Ailm have come to claim you as you have gained a new perspective.
You feel your arms turn to wings, your feet to talons gripping the branch... you have feathers, a beak and a tail, you are now a bird.

Carefully you take flight from the highest point of the pine. You fly around the tree, gently spiralling around the valley until you comes to land upon the ground.

As your feet touch the earth you find yourself becoming human once more, but changed now with the memory of flight, of clear views from heights un-thought of until now.

You move to wear you left your clothes at the edge of the clearing. You take up your clothes and put them on. Amongst your clothes you find a charm on a thong of leather. A small pine cone surrounded by tiny feathers.

Put the charm around your neck. Remember this whenever you require a new perspective.

Now make your way back up the hill, along the path to the crest of the hill, surrounded by pine trees once more. When you reach the top, make your way to the Standing Stone.

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.