The Hazel Tree and Liminality

Teaching us about living and leading in times of uncertainty

This whole article started off with a sneeze.

It was not me who was sneezing but my bonus-daughter and she felt it was allergies. I wondered out loud what she could be allergic too when it was so cold here in Sweden and there was snow on the ground. My husband answered it was probably the hazel in our neighbours garden.

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I laughed.

How was that possible? Surely it was not releasing it’s pollen now? Oh I was wrong, I was very, very wrong to think that - as I found out as I fell down the rabbit hole of the hazel tree.

Come with me!

Hazel is one of the earliest flowering trees in Europe and it is liminal in so many ways:

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It is liminal in that it flowers before the true end of winter and the true start of spring.
It is liminal in that it is one plant with two flowers, both male and female.
It is liminal in that it grows along boundaries, or edges of forests and fields.
It is liminal in that it shows us snow and pollen can co-exist.

I went outside to photograph the tree and suddenly became aware of the female bud. It is not as obvious as those long male catkins, you could easily miss it - yet it is small and fierce and incredible - look

Can you see the tiny red threads (or stigmas) pushing out in the hope of some pollen coming to them …? I love that the threads are red as here in Sweden the usage of the metaphor, ‘the red thread,’ is very common and it means the thing/theme that runs through and connects stuff. I even offer ‘Red Thread’ courses that focus on finding our central story - the authentic thread of us that everything else has been knotted to and woven through. This tiny bud was a revelation.

In scientific terms the hazel is monoecious - meaning it has both male and female reproductive organs and also it is ecotone tree (another lovely word) which means it thrives on the margins of woodlands or fields as an ecotone is a transitional area between two plant communities. A liminal space in fact. And let us not forget that the hazel also provides nuts in the autumn - it is truly a fantastic tree and a great companion to us humans as it can be coppiced and the wood woven into wonderful structures in our gardens.

I thought about this tree and what it could teach me and how I could learn from it regarding my work.

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I thought about how it did not wait for the common consensus of what was the right time to cast its pollen.
I thought about how it could not be described in binary terms.
I thought about how it inhabited an uncertain, in-between place

I started to trace the stories about it within folk lore and folk tales and found it was a ‘sacred’ tree in many cultures. In Ireland hazel trees are imbued with wisdom and nine of them stand around the sacred well of knowledge where the salmon of knowledge swims and eats the nuts that drop. This is how the great Irish hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill gained his wisdom. He was coooking the fish that had been caught by his mentor and he had been warned not to eat any of the flesh - however the fat had spat out of the pan onto his thumb and he sucked his thumb to ease the burn and the rest is history! Here in Sweden hazel was used to protect barns and ward off trolls. It is also the wood used by water dowsers. It is a tree strongly rooted in mythology.

Yet when I was becoming more knowledgable about it my thoughts turned to how we as humans are often scared to jump into uncertainty. We try to prepare and control so many uncertain moments - but can we ever really be prepared for the birth of a child or the death of a parent or for leaving a marriage or being left…?

I thought to myself that often this is not to do with us feeling we are not ready - rather feeling we are not worthy of the new life, new job, new child, new joy that might be waiting for us. Sometimes we feel broken and unworthy of the dream we want to leap into.

And that made me think of this story:

I heard this in Ramallah when I was working there and it has stayed with me ever since.

I wonder what you will take from it in terms of being in the liminal spaces, in terms of being in this time of uncertainty.

I hope you can honour your voice and your story and share with me what you think.

In tender joy

Katrice

I hope to see some of you at the Mythcelium Gathering tonight - email me if you want the zoom link.