New Year's greeting!

Grandmother Birch is moving off this site are moving...

Dear Subscriber, you may have noticed that my last post on this platform was a long, long time ago. That’s because I really have not felt comfy for Substack! But I have been writing! And I have been sending my Newsletters to folks for awhile now via an email list.

So I am putting it out to those of you who are not currently on this email list: if you are interested in continuing to receive newsletters please let me know by emailing me at: grandmotherbirch@gmail.com and I will joyfully add your name to the email list.

After this notification I will no longer be using the Substack platform anymore and eventually I will delete it.

As a parting gift I am posting my most recent Ruth’s Newsletter. I hope to hear from you all, and I am wishing you many, many Earth blessings.

peace and friendship

Ruth (aka Grandmother Birch)

Newsletter

January 09, 2025

🌿

Courage my love!

“To our young selves there is no difference between the small questions and the big ones. We follow our curiosity to the edge of our understanding and then ask whoever is around what lies beyond it. I have spent my adult life fighting to keep what I possessed as a child: the ability to see the biggest questions sitting inside the smallest ones and the willingness to try to answer them.”

― Diana Beresford-Kroeger, To Speak for the Trees: My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest

Planting Black Walnuts. For the love of it!

Time and again I have watched children who have never handled a seed before know exactly what to do with them. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, all seeds insist on being admired. Children know this. And children are known to admire seeds exquisitely. Seeds are Holy after all. And by their Holy nature seeds inspire childish wonder and unencumbered reverence. It is not unheard of for a particularly revered seed to end up in a child’s pocket. This is perfectly acceptable and likely even desired by certain seeds. Carried about, a kind of rumination ensues. Seeds in pockets, touched by sensitive, inquisitive child fingers undergo a kind of mental metabolization and become inscribed into human consciousness. Before words seeds are thus known and enjoyed. Known by touch as much as sight, a bean seed is a bean seed; corn is corn; acorns are acorns, and horse chestnuts are the makings for wild-heart adornments – long before diamonds or pearls.

When I was a child my Dad taught me that certain seeds – like Jack Pine – require fire to be released from their protective cones. Other seeds require a journey through the guts of birds, deer or even a mouse before they can awaken to seek the sun. A seed, seemingly inert, knows the precise temperature, moisture, and daylight hours needed to animate.

A human child, guided by a caring human adult, can be initiated into the ancient and secret understanding – that to lay an acorn, just so, in the soft, moist soil provides the necessary orientation for the tenderest tap-root of a would-be mighty oak to venture deep, deep into the dark earth. Thus, a small child can conjure an oak tree. An oak tree that can live for hundreds, even thousands of years. This dear human, this is our true lineage of power. Power of the best, purest and most Holy.

It is my prayer for this coming New Year that this powerful, ancient relationship we have with seeds – co-inspired and timeless – germinates in each of us the courage to live fearlessly, generously, and with abiding reverence and tenderness towards our Holy home, the Earth. After all, we all have it in us to plant seeds and grow forests.

Please feel free to share this Newsletter with friends, family and colleagues.

If you no longer wish to receive Grandmother Birch Newsletter please email me at this address.