"Tree of Enchantment","Osier",and"Sough Tree"
Lore and Divinatory Aspects:
The Willow is associated with the
elements of water, the moon, and the
gods Artemis, Ceres, Hecate, Persephone,
Hera, Mercury, Belili, Circe, and
Belenos.
Willow is associated with death,
femininity, love, and healing. It
posesses the powers of love, divination,
friendship, joy, love, peace,
protection, and healing.
Magical Usage:
For love magic, protection magic,
healing magic, and peaceful magic. Used
to create loyalty, make friendship
pacts, treaties, or alliances. Used for
intuition, knowledge, gentle nurturing,
and will elucidate the feminine
qualities of both men and women.
Its leaves are used in love attraction
sachets and moon magic wands from its
wood. Used to dowse for water
(underground), earth energies, and
buried objects.
Used combined with sandalwood to invoke
spirits. Placed in homes, it protects
against evil and malign sorcery.
Carried, the wood will give bravery,
dexterity, and help one overcome the
fear of death. If one needs to get
something off their chest or to share a
secret, confess to a willow and your
secret will be trapped.
Willow wood is good for magical harps.
Good for planting and lining burial
graves for its symbolism of death and
protection. If one wants to know if they
will be married, on New Year's Eve,
throw your shoe or boot into a willow,
if it doesn't catch in the branches the
first time, the individuals has eight
more tries, if they succeed, they will
wed.
Medicinal Usage:
Dioscorides (1st c. A.D.) discovered its
use against pain and inflammation. The
Hottentots discovered its use for
rheumatic fever.
Willow bark is used to
treat rheumatic conditions, gout,
heartburn, to stop internal bleeding,
gargle for sore throats, skin problems,
wounds, and burns.
The purple willow is most effective for
lowering fevers.
Black willow bark can be made into an
infusion as a sexual sedative and to
treat gonorrhoea, relieve ovarian pain,
and to curb nocturnal emissions or as a
tincture for hysteria, hysteria based on
genital organs, nymphomania,
spermatorrhoea, satyriasis, erotomania,
and lascivious dreams.
Sallow or Goat willow eases indigestion,
whooping cough, catarrh, and to
disinfect bandages. It is a good
eyewash, and if taken orally will clear
the skin and face of blemishes, or
applied to hair for dandruff. Its flower
essences will remedy bitterness and
resentment.
Other Uses:
Tender shoots are good for baskets.
Willow rods were used as thatching in
European traditional homes. Willow
protects riverbanks from erosion
(Peachleaf Willow), drys the soil in
soggy/flooded gardens, and its charcoal
(Crack Willow) is used in gunpowder.
BACK TO TEMPLE
