Wood Woman

     She stands at the edge of the trees, as melancholy as the twilit woods she haunts.  She hold much knowledge and knows many secrets, for the restless winds bring her messages from distant forests.  The sound of each leaf's minute rustle is part of a great world arboreal eloquence.  There is not a lone tree, bent low on the moor, that does not hear the murmur of rain forest on the other side of the earth.

     All forests are the domain of the faeries who make their homes in roots, branches, or right inside the heart of a tree -- in which case their health and longevity are tied to that of the wood.  In the vast woodlands of northern Europe you'll find many faery wood women, including the shy skogsfru  of Denmark and the seductive swor skogsfru (wood wife) of Sweden.  In Greece, the dryads (oak faeries), melia (ash faeries), and caryatids (nut faeries) are all types of hamadryads (wood faeries). In India, tree spirits called the yakshi protect the trees under their charge.

     Wood women are fertility spirits, imbued with a sensuality as wild and mysterious as moonlit groves of an ancient forest.  They are famous for seducing humans, luring them deep into the woods.  Afterward, the discarded lover will pine away for want of their touch.  Sometimes wood women even marry humans, but usually this is not a success.  These wood creatures are too wild and eventually flee back to their forests.  As more and more ancient woodlands are destroyed by civilization, the wood faeries have been forced to retreat into the remaining forests and groves, zealously guarding their homes.  Irreverent, unthinking human destructions creates fierce opposition in some wood faeries; while others, in sorrow at the loss of their homes, "die" back into the soil.

     The wood woman represents a state of divine wildness and abandonment to natural rhythms, cycles, forces -- an aspect of the Goddess (the personification of the life-giving forces of nature) in her primal, vegetative state.  We feel her touch upon our lives not only in times of deep communion with nature, but also in moments of wordless rapture when we are dancing, singing, listening to music, making art, or making love.  Look, she is still standing there at the edge of the wood, smiling slightly, drawing you deeper into the gloaming.  Her hair is tangled with dried leaves and moss; her scent is of new green leaves and earth.  Suddenly she is gone, and all that is left is the distant sound of her laughter.  Do you weep for the joy of having seen her, or for the loss of her now that she's gone?  Listen to the voice of the wind in the trees.  It has a message for you.