Last Winter Moon—Etching Deep Nature

‘Between the Birch’ 

Snow untouched, a birch stand in the moonlit

stillness of the Acadian Forest on trails and sidings, 

a hidden wilderness, regenerate.

As life speaks through her boughs, 

fragile pale skin in winter whites, 

warm tan skin within, 

silver white peeling without.

Rei,2025

Known as the ‘Lady of the Woods,’ this once-sacred tree heralds the birth and new life of Spring. With the budding branch, the catkin blows its clouds of pollen, as the seed springs and sprigs a new leaf. In the cold of winter, the new bud forms, and then with the warmth from the earth, sweet sap rises and runs, and the seasons turn once more. 

This medicinal tree, the ‘Easter branch’ or the ‘wise one's broom’, with her maiden silk bark is the first to awake. In the Celtic traditions of my ancestors. The trees and the forests are the living, that connect us to earth and to our ancestors, who like the trees hold the soil of us together in the weave and web of lifetimes. 

They exhale and we inhale in symbiosis and in rhythm. All the while, the slow life inhabits the deep forests, in council of the old growth and the birch, etching deep nature.