You might celebrate Yule with a tree. I do. I’m inviting you to embrace tree energy in your home as a way to get comfortable and in touch with your family tree from a magickal point of view. You’ll begin with a meditation, stop by a garden center to purchase the tree, and then perform a tree dressing for a plant you’ll keep in your home, decorating it as you might a Yule tree around the holidays. There are many fine varied choices for your tree:
- Norfolk island pine
- Yucca
- Palm species
- Money tree
- Ficus
- Meyer lemon or other fruit you can grow indoors
You will need:
- Purple cloth
- Matches or lighter
- White colum candle, vanilla or unscented
- Fireproof candle plate
- cauldron, dutch oven, or stock pot (optional)
- Salt water (optional)
- Van Van oil (optional)
- Spring water or other type of water (optional)
- 5 to 7 meaningful small objects that speak to a handful or so of your heritages or places (cities, town, villages) you or your ancestors come from
- Permanent marker
- Brown paper or parchment
- Twine, fishing line, or thread
If at all possible, go to a natural body of water to reflect. After all, long before we had mirrors, we went to see ourselves in moving bodies of natural water. Think of Narcissus.
Near the natural water place a purple cloth to sit on. Purple is a highly spiritual color on many paths.
Use pranayama to breathe more and more slowly, more and more fully, until you feel completely relaxed. Pranayama is a meditative technique that focuses on the connection between breath and clarity. You may begin with eight breaths inhaled through your nose, letting your jaw relax. Keep the mouth soft but closed. Breathe out, dispelling all the air from your chest in an eight count. You may continue until you feel clear and light or after doing three counts of eight.
Next, light a white columnar cnadle near you on a fire-safe plate. A tempered glass or earthenware plate would be perfect.
If you can’t go to a local river, pong, or lake, you cn use a cauldron. Cleanse your cauldron thoroughly with salt water. Dry it and smudge it out with a smudge stick, using twelve counterclockwise circular sweeps. Drop in seven to nine drops of Van Van oil. In Hoodoo, this oil is known to open the way. Then fill the cauldron with spring water.
In your heightened state, select a tree to represent your family tree. This may be a miniature Norfolk pine tree, a ficus, or another plant that you find available or that calls out to you. snuff out hte candle, quickly, using wet fingers, after hte meditation is completed.
Go to a plant nurseyr or home and garden center to purchase a potted tree to keep indoors.
Return home and look over your DNA results again. Now, gather the objects to put on your tree. Hold each object in your hand for at least fiv eminutes and reflect on its connection to your ancestry. What ashe does it hold? Write a single word on the back of it with a permanent marker if possible, or hang a torn piece of brown paper bag or parchment next to it with the word written on it with a pencil or marker.
Use twine, fishing line, or other threadlike material (I like synthetic waxed sinew from a craft store) to creatively string these objects on your tree. You will continue to fill it as you see fit over time.
The tree is not static but alive, changing, growing. The ritual is ongoing, as are your discoveries and intuitive developments; this is not a Christmas tree that has been cut down, decorated and discarded.
Be mindful about how you feed your tree. Listen for its messages. Does it prefer clean spring water, rainwater, lightning water? Be careful about its light conditions and ohter necessities too. Does it require a grow light? Misting? Research the plant’s needs, but also listen well. Let the spirits in your bones guide you. nurture your evolving DNA family tree. Enjoy your journey into DNA ancestry magick!
Adana Luna 