Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗

to us, people. Let us listen to her tender music and then we will understand the eternal language of the forest—of the trees. We’ll hear the delicate sound of trembling leaves and the songs of happy birds. We’ll see with new eyes the rich colors of fading leaves in autumn, crystal trees in the winter snow, talkative pine groves, and flowers in the spring in this mysterious silence under the oak’s shadow. The tree’s branches were slightly moving under a light breeze. The powerful oak was standing as a soldier, ready to thwart any attack from a newcomer with bad intentions. The clean fragrance of warm leaves hung in the air. The leaves had been rustling in the light wind. It seemed to me that they tried eagerly to tell everyone how wonderful the forest was in all four seasons of the year; and about Suvorov’s oak, Hercules, and about his remarkable friends, loving passionately this amazing treasure of the earth and carefully guarding her fabulous green attire.

When I was leaving, at the end of the village on the shore of the Dniester river, three tall poplars peacefully murmured a good-bye and stood quietly in their miraculous splendor. It seemed that they stepped out of an ancient myth about Phaeton, the son of Phoebus, god of the sun, and Clymene, a nymph. He asked his father to do an impossible thing: to appear in the sky instead of Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 253

the god of the sun. He was allowed to drive his chariot across the sky, but it was too much for the young man. He lost direction in the sky and couldn’t control the powerful winged horses that pulled the chariot. Everything was on fire in the sky and on the earth and could be destroyed.

Then the god Zeus threw the sparkling lightning with his thunderbolt and extinguished the fire—but not before the fire had killed the young man. Phaeton fled into the air with the curls on his head still burning, and like a falling star he tumbled in flames from the sun’s chariot into the waves of the river Eridanos (Eridanus, now the river Po), far away from his motherland. There water nymphs buried him on the banks of the river.

Deeply mourning, Phaeton’s father, the god of the sun, covered his face with a black shawl and did not appear in the blue sky all day. His mother, Clymene, and his three sisters, the Heliades, sat near his grave and wept on the riverbank. They remained weeping and murmuring until their feet took root in the earth. Great gods turned the crying Heliades into poplar trees. These three poplar trees remain kneeling above the river, with their tears falling into clear water. They never stop throwing their tears into the river, where they solidify. In the sunlight their tears of sap have a golden color and turn into transparent, yellow amber.

When Pliny wrote his Natural History, he doubted the story of the poplar, which was told also by Ovid in his poetic metamorphoses. Maybe he was right because the most popular version is that amber was made 50 mil ions years ago from the resinous matters of only one variety of pine tree, Pinus succinfera. It grew from the early Eocene period until today in the northern part of Europe, the area covered by the Baltic Sea, which includes Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. Would you like to determine what tree corresponds to your birth date?

Use this calendar from the book The Celtic Tree Calendar, Your Tree Sign and You by Swiss writer Michael Vescolli. This book was published in English translation in 1999 by British publisher Souvenir Press, Ltd., and Rosemary Dear (English translation). I would like to thank Souvenir Press, Ltd. for permission to reprint information from their book. 254 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies

Your Tree Sign

From The Celtic Tree Calendar Your Tree Sign and You

by Swiss writer Michael Vescolli

Oak

Olive

21 Mar

23 Sept

22 – 31 Mar

Hazel

24 Sept – 3 Oct

1 –10 April

Rowan

4 – 13 Oct

11 – 20 April

Maple

14 – 23 Oct

21 – 30 April

Walnut

24 Oct – 11 Nov

1 – 14 May

Poplar

15 – 24 May

Chestnut

12 – 21 Nov

25 May – 3 June

Ash

22 Nov – 1 Dec

4 – 13 June

Hornbeam

2 – 11 Dec

14 – 23 June

Fig

12 – 21 Dec

Birch

Beech

24 June

22 Dec

25 June – 4 July

Apple

23 Dec – 1 Jan

5 – 14 July

Fir

2 – 11 Jan

15 – 25 July

Elm

12 – 24 Jan

26 July – 4 Aug

Cypress

25 Jan – 3 Feb

5 – 13 Aug

Poplar

4 – 8 Feb

14 –23 Aug

Cedar

9 – 18 Feb

24 Aug – 2 Sept

Pine

19 – 29 Feb

3 – 12 Sept

Willow

1 – 10 Mar

13 – 22 Sept

Lime

11 – 20 Mar

Yew

3 – 11 Nov

Dialogue with the Trees of Strength and Everlasting Life @ 255

You can use also the following chart where I name these trees based on my experience and my impression in dealing with these powerful creatures of Mother Nature.

Apple, the tree of Beauty and Love

December 23–January 1

June 25–July 4

Fir, the tree of Independent Spirit

January 2–January 11

July 5–July 14

Elm, the tree of Fairness and Solidarity

January 12–January 24

July 15–July 25

Cypress, the tree of Freedom and

January 25–February 3

Recognition

July 26–August 4

Poplar, the tree of Moderation and

February 4–February 8

Doubt

May 1–May 14

August 5–August 13

Cedar, the tree of Achievement and Nobility February 9–February 18

August 14–August 23

Pine, the tree of Modesty and Wisdom

February 19–February 29

August 24–September 2

Willow, the tree of Humanity and Intuition March 1–March 10

September 3–September 12

Lime, the tree of Sensitivity and Satisfaction March 11–March 20

September 13–September 22

Hazelnut, the tree of Ambition and

March 22–March 31

Performance

September 24–October 3

Rowan,