The Celtic People also believed that the thorns on the tree provided protection for Ghosts, particularly in Ireland, so the tree can also protect you for your ghosts, and lay them to rest. The Celtic other use for the Staff or walking stick or Shillelagh was as a Cudgel combining supportiveness and a way of fending off people in self defense, this you can remember when anybody tries to beat you down or suppress those new creative thoughts and aspirations, a the Blackthorn also is sin ominous with standing up for ones rights, assertiveness and obstinacy, which is not a bad thing in rebuilding ones life. The Blackthorn as it name implies, is a thorny tree, this is for its protection and it also protect all who use this protection for the safety of their nests, their homes, and in caterpillars, their metamorphosis into beautiful butterflies, and in this way theīlackthorn will protect you in your infancy of your new found creativity, and during your metamorphosis into the wonderful being you are, so that you may bask in the warm rays of the sun in harmony with mother nature. On your path there will still be trials and tribulations, but new growth of your strength will see you through, with the help of you staff and perseverance. Let your creative thoughts planted blossom and come forth in positivity.

Let the Blackthorn be your strength, your perseverance, use it as your staff, as did Joseph of Arimathea when he arrived in Glastonbury and planted his staff which took root and blossomed. The Black thorn is the Tree of Strength and Perseverance, so strong and resilient is its wood to the weather, the cutting of its branches for staffs and also for the shillelagh, it is hard wood and, grows back very quickly and stronger, and can grow where many other trees cannot. A time of a stirring of positivity within one's self and a time of emergence from the long dark times of winter, a dark place, time of difficulty, a depressing time. Let the blossom be your light at the end of the dark tunnel.Īs the first green shoots of the early leaves start to appear, so our first creative signs will start to appear, nourish them and let them open out as the leaves of the Blackthorn open out in nature. A coming out into the white pure light, shown by the brightness of its flowers appearing out of the darkness of the winter, like our ancestors we can see this time of blossom as time of coming out of a black period, a time of darkness, of death, and a new awakening. It was firstly symbolic of its bright white blossom in the early spring. One of the trees that had great powers in their world was the Blackthorn. We can once again use this ancient wisdom, along the part the trees played in the seasons of the year, and the time of birth and death in their lunar months. The trees were particularly important in the role each should play in their lives. 'From the earliest times our Celtic and Druid ancestors from Iron Age times and probably before, the countryside in which they lived was the centre of their universe.

Irish shillelagh walking stick