Llewellyn's 2012 Witches' Companion by Llewellyn (i wanna iguana read aloud .TXT) 📕

Ale: a private party with food and beer where a number of Morris sides get together and perform dances for their own enjoyment rather than for an audience. Occasionally an evening ale will be combined with a day or weekend of dance, where all the invited sides will tour the area and perform in public. In North America, the term is used to describe a full weekend of dancing involving public performances and sometimes workshops. The name refers to church- or village-sponsored events where ale or beer was sold to raise funds and Morris dancers were often employed.

Resources

Morris Ring, www.themorrisring.org

The Morris Federation, www.morrisfed.org

Open Morris, www.open-morris.org

Mainly Morris, www.mainlymorrisdancing.org.uk

Chandra Moira Beal has published hundreds of books and articles. She has been writing for Llewellyn since 1998, and she lives in California with her husband and three house rabbits. Visit www.chandrabeal.com to learn more.

Illustrator: Rik Olson

Healing Tree Damage

JD Hortwort

In practically any TV show or movie dealing with fantasy topics, the trees we see are gnarled and knotted. The tree’s grizzly bark seems to convey great age, possibly wisdom, or maybe sinister motive. We fall into the same pattern in everyday life. Look around any store catering to alternative religions and you will likely find artwork, either photos or drawings, that illustrates trees inhabited by gnomes or fairies who come and go through the bulbous knots and hollowed openings of trees.

This brings to mind Mark Twain’s observations in Life on the Mississippi. As a young man, Twain fantasized about the Mississippi River. The sunset dancing over the lazy, smooth surface of the water and the ripples of the river’s currents drifting over a sandbar, spurring his imagination and fueling his drive to become a riverboat captain. Only after years of training did Twain learn to read those beautiful signs in a different, more practical way. A smooth surface meant deep water and a safe passage. Dainty ripples spelled danger. Twain said after his education he could never look at the river again with the same sense of mystery. He did, however, retain his sense

of awe.

The same can be said of trees. In the mundane world, knots and holes on trees aren’t fairy openings to the Other World, they are damage to the tree, which could potentially shorten the life of that tree. While not much can be done to fix old damage, people can and should take steps to help trees heal when the damage first occurs. That help can be of a very practical sort, but it can also be spiritual.

Start with a basic understanding of the tree in this world. The outer bark of a tree is dead material, the thickness of which varies depending on the species. The inner bark, just under the outer bark, carries nutrients down to the roots. The cambium layer is next, which is responsible for transporting water up the tree and for the tree’s healing process. The cambium layer is also the tree ring. Each year, the tree adds another cambium layer or ring. Again, depending on the tree, between four and twenty layers of cambium are alive. Tallied together, these layers are called the sap wood. The inner most part of the tree is the heart wood. Heart wood is not alive.

With this very basic understanding, it should be easier to see why damage to a tree can be critical. Make a scuff in the dead, outer bark and the result may be unsightly, but it won’t be deadly. Break the inner bark and you’ve disrupted the flow of nutrients to the tree roots. Cut deeper and you’ve interrupted the movement of water to the top of the tree. Either of the last two breaks can allow invaders into the tree’s system.

Damage to trees can come from multiple sources. Construction equipment seems to have an affinity for trees. Some construction sites look almost like a grown-up version of a bumper car attraction at the amusement park! Tree bark can be scuffed or peeled from the trunk as bulldozers careen off them. Homeowners can cause similar damage with mowers or weed trimming equipment.

Then there is the damage that is beyond human control. Winds from strong summer storms, ice from winter storms, extreme temperatures, lightning strikes . . . it’s enough to send a tree cowering for cover!

In all of these instances, time is of the essence. The damage must be fixed quickly. Ideally, repairs should be made in the first twenty-four hours after the injury. All is not lost if forty-eight to seventy-two hours have passed but, as with injuries in humans, the quicker you work to fix the problem, the better.

If the bark is broken but not removed from the tree, you can push the bark back in place. Bark that is peeled back from an encounter with a car bumper or a mower can be pulled back to its original location. When the damage occurs on a tree trunk or branch that is less than 2 feet in circumference, duct tape can be used to firmly secure the damaged tissue in place.

The damage must be fixed quickly. Ideally, repairs should be made in the first twenty-four hours after the injury.

When working with large wounds or damage done on tree parts that are greater than 2 feet in diameter, you may have to use galvanized nails to “stitch” the damage back together. Push the damaged bark back into its original location and use the galvanized nails to pin it in place. Obviously, the size of the nail needed will depend on the size of the wound. Just as when a doctor uses a metal pin to help hold a broken bone in place, the nails serve as lynch pins to hold the material in place while the tree heals.

When these types of repairs are done quickly and the damage covers less than 25 percent of the tree trunk, the injury should heal over in time. If you have used duct tape to secure the