A ‘Green Witch’ Nature Walk

On the last day of August I went for a magical ‘Green Witch’ nature walk along the canal to Perdiswell Park here in Worcester.

A lovely friend and regular Reiki client wanted to make an ‘amulet pouch’ full of protective items from nature.

A ‘Green Witch Walk’ involves setting off with the intention to connect to a certain place ‘in nature’, make offerings and receive wisdom and gifts for a specific purpose – in this case protecting and strengthening personal boundaries – and we made time to pause and ask for guidance and insight along the way.

It was a beautiful warm Autumnal afternoon and the Hawthorn berries were in abundance, a beautiful deep red. Hawthorn is known for its protective qualities m, used as hedges for physical boundaries, utilising its dense and spiky nature. Hawthorn cares for all matters of the heart in a medicinal and magical sense. So a hawthorn berry and some thorns were added to the pouch. The intention was to keep the heart open and strong but to protect boundaries and keep our anything not for their highest good.

We also picked broad leaf plantain for strength and resilience. We spotted lots of Oak galls. The wisdom from the Oak and the galls (created by the gall wasp) seemed on reflection, to be a message about strength, longevity in relationships; reciprocity, adaptability and give and take. Galls are harmless to the tree and have also historically provided humans with natural dyes and inks.

We also spotted a grove of Wild Service Trees, also known as Chequer trees. This felt especially magical for me as I’d been hoping/wishing/asking to meet a Wild Service Tree! They are native UK trees and would have grown plentifully hundreds and thousands of years ago before so many forests and land was cleared, so to me they held messages of ancestral wisdom and help in healing the ancestral line, as well as abundance with their unusual fruit.

It felt especially poignant to find them at Perdiswell, which feels like a sacred site, (despite the ordinariness of the leisure centre nearby!) as the site of the park is on barrows (ancient burial sites) and many years ago, a torc necklace found on the site, likely lost in battle and now housed at the British Museum. So it feels like you are walking with the ancestors on this land.

The fruit of the Wild Service tree hang like berries but are more like tiny apples or pears. When ripe they can be sweet and in the past were used for alcohol. Pubs and places named Chequers are thought to be named after the trees. There is a Chequers Inn not far from here too!

Rowan berries are in season too so we collected some of their bright red goodness. Rowan berries are steeped in folklore and their properties for protection. Creating strings of them to hang in the home is a traditional use. They were sometimes called Witch Trees and thought to offer protection from witches and witchcraft back in the old days where fear of evildoers was prevalent.

We always paused to ask permission from the plant or tree beforehand and made small offerings of herbs and seeds in return.

We also gathered some huge thorns from some found, already-cut Blackthorn (another tree with much magical and folklore attached!); some thistle, and a young mugwort plant that had obviously been mowed and was growing back. Most mugwort is in its waning phase now and is a good time to collect its tiny seeds. It’s an ancient native herb with associations with protection, strength, divination/intuition.

The wind was especially lively on the walk and the trees seemed to respond enthusiastically when we asked questions and asked for them to share their wisdom!

The items we collected will be dried and then we’ll have another session together where we will decorate the pouch and ‘activate’ it with a little ceremony to set a clear intention, which the pouch then acts as a reminder of, to keep our word and remind us to act in ways that are aligned to our intention and highest good.

I’m using the term ‘Green Witch’ here to pay homage to our lost indigenous Shamanic practitioners, those who were the keepers of the knowledge about the healing and medicinal plants and our relationship with the seasons and cycles of the natural world.

It’s a term that for me evokes deeply integrated, nature oriented practices and expresses the rediscovering of our lost indigenous, ancestral wisdom, our British/European shamanism. Reconnecting to nature in this way is a remembering that we are nature.

‘Witch’ is a word that can still be provocative, even problematic for some people, whilst being empowering for others. For me I think it’s important to reclaim the word from the old negative stereotypes that were used to disempower and harm ordinary women. The word comes from the 5000+ year old word ‘wicce’ (pronounced witcher) which means ‘wise woman’ and it’s a direct link to our lost culture of matriarchal shamanic practitioners, those women (and men known as ‘wicca’, wise man,) who knew the healing herbs and the old ways.

For me ‘Green Witch’ conjures an image of someone in tune with and harmonising with nature aka ‘the green’. It’s about relationship and reciprocity with nature, working for the highest good, remembering that we are nature and what we do to the planet, we do to ourselves and vice versa.