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Welcome to Destiny. Now here's your
host, Cliff Dunning. Hey, well

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there you are, step on in
join me here today on Destiny. It's

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good to see you. You know, I mentioned and we've had people on

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the show talk about the importance of
being in nature, walking in nature,

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decompressing from a busy day and getting
out taking a walk in the natural settings,

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be it next to your home.
Some people that I know can literally

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step outside of their front door and
be in nature, although it's more likely

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that you've got to get in your
car or take your bike and you know,

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go a mile or two or maybe
more to experience nature. And you

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know, there's all kinds of scientific
papers and research that when we connect with

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a natural setting, we automatically decompress. Our body takes a sigh, and

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our metabolism change, our physiology changes, we feel better, and there's nothing,

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there's nothing but benefits from being in
nature if I don't get out at

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least a couple of times a week. And for me, it's a neighboring

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hill. I'll tell you. I
go to a place called Wildcat Canyon,

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and Wildcat Canyon is a group of
there are a group of hills that make

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up the Contra Costa County line that
actually overlooks the bay. So if I

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am hiking on this trail, it
takes about I think it's about four and

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a half miles from the parking lot
to the top of the hill. If

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I do that on a regular basis, I'm feeling fairly fairly good. If

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I go for a you know,
just a couple of days a week,

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I feel significantly better. I really
truly believe that when you get out in

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nature, you're resetting yourself. I
use the same analogy when I'm doing a

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meditation. I'll meditate twice a day, try to do it twenty minutes in

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the morning. After I kind of
adjust myself, have a cup of coffee,

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and I'll do it again in the
evening around six or seven, sometimes

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eight o'clock because the sun doesn't go
down right now until about eight thirty.

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And when I do a meditation,
I'm resetting. I actually call that I

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reset for the evening. And if
I don't do a meditation in the afternoon,

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I go to bed early. So
I feel the same thing about getting

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out and walking in nature. And
as much as we can do it,

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the better off we're going to be
physically, emotionally, and even spiritually,

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even though we don't think about,
you know, spiritual things when unless you're

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meditating, unless you're sitting by a
tree, unless you're taking a moment to

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pause on your walk, hike,
whatever you're doing to consider the spiritual ratifications

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of your then we don't typically bring
in the spiritual aspect. But getting out

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in nature is really really a big
deal. Now. Today's program is an

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aspect of getting out in nature,
and that is the trees, the trees

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that you interact with. And from
a very young age, I've had a

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special place in my heart for trees. I think of them as people in

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some ways, and I have a
few of my favorites. When I go

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on on my hike. There's a
place where I used to hike in on

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this trail when I lived in Oakland. That is it's a world class trail.

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It's called Sea View. It's in
the Oakland Hills, the ridge that

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overlooks the bay. And literally when
you hike on this trail, you see

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San Francisco, you see the Golden
Gate, you see Marin County, and

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as you're coming down this trail you
see on a clear day you can see

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the mouth of the bay connecting with
Napa Napa Valley, famous for its wines.

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And then as you keep dropping down
on this trust so you start high

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and you can come down off the
hill, you can see Martinez and you

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can begin seeing the Delta which leads
to Sacramento. These are all northern California

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areas, and it is so pleasant
and so revitalizing that I'm always kind of

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like, God, this is so
amazing. And it's really funny because I'll

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force myself sometimes to get up,
get my tiking shoes on, put a

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sweater on or a sweatshirt or whatever, and get out there. And if

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I don't, I really regret it. But I'll tell you after I come

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back from feature, I feel amazing. So today we're talking about trees and

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on each trail that I hi.
I have a few favorites now every place

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in the world, pretty much almost
every place, I should say, I'm

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thinking of the East coast of the
United States. I have friends in the

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Carolinas, in Virginia, New Hampshire, and New York. There's places where

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you can go and be among groves
of trees. And I lived in willets

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and in the areas really high north
of say, Marin County, north of

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San Francisco, where the trees are
ancient old redwood groves. Some of these

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trees that have been left to us
are you know, two thousand, five

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hundred years or three thousand years old, and they're still standing today. Today's

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program talks about the importance of trees, why the ancients venerated trees, and

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also they were special in many ways. What the tree of life is,

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what the universal tree is, and
how our ancestors communed with trees and the

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benefits behind the trees. It's fascinating
because there's an intelligence behind trees. Scientists

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have discovered that trees not only help
themselves and their acquaintances. Somebody a tree

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who could be next to another tree. But it's now known that trees share

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their food, share their water,
and can you believe it, they also

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share their physiology. These are hormones
apparently that trees have that they can share

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with other trees to keep them strong. And it sounds like a real family

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community. We're we're gonna hear about
the details of it today. Part of

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my childhood was incorporated was interacting with
my grandparents. My grandfather was a great

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gardener, and he moved into central
California, and he was a huge tree

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and planted pines and planted different trees
in his garden. So by the time

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I became an adult, many of
these trees were already fifty years old.

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Some of them were a little younger
than that, and they had really sprouted

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there. You know, there was
twenty thirty forty feet tall because of the

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because of how he cared for them. He was a real tree steward,

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you know, making sure they have
plant food and they were water constantly.

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You know, it's funny because I
have memories he had. His office was

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in the front part of the house. He built a waiting room, and

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then there was a receiving room,
and then there was the clinic where he

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actually saw patients. And he would
take I mean when I went down there

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to visit, take a lunch and
meet with me and maybe my brother and

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his wife, my grandmother, and
we'd have lunch together and we talk and

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he kind of decompressed, but he
would walk I think he was He must

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have taken at least an hour for
a lunch break, sometimes more. But

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we'd have a quick lunch and then
he'd go out water trees and waters plants.

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He had a huge garden. He
loved growing flowers, roses, and

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she really gave me an appreciation for
plant life and most notably trees. And

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I had a feeling that, you
know, when he had to have an

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arborous the tree surgeon come out and
cut one of his trees down. I

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could see him physically pained at this
and I never forget he, you know,

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watching this tree come down that was
right in front of the house,

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and I could almost sense that he
was physically ill at the fact that he

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had to take this tree down.
So I've had I've had a big influence

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on me and I love for trees. Now, if you've never been to

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a forest grove, it's an experience. You need to go and experience and

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try Southern California. There's an area
in northern California called Avenue of the Giants.

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And these are trees. These are
Sequoia redwoods. Are These are some

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of the largest trees in the world, two hundred feet tall, monstrosities,

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beautiful and they're all in there,
you know, a fifteen hundred to two

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thousand year old plus they were saved
at God turn of the century. I

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think John Muir saved this grove as
a re minder these beautifully gorgeous trees that

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once populated most of northern California.
They were as far south as Marin County,

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and in Marin County there's a small
grove called mural Woods that you can

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still see a few of these trees. There's a small couple of acres were

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preserved. These big trees were what
built San Francisco. They felt, you

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know, thousands of wood acre trees
all through Marin and present day Petaluma,

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Santa Rosa, well, Mendocino,
Humboldt County, which interesting enough, is

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now the Golden Triangle for cannabis.
Some of the best cannabis in the world

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is grown in this area that was
once home and still is home to some

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of the oldest and largest redwood trees
in the world. So just an amazing

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place. But if you get a
chance to get out and walk into a

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forest grove, do it. Because
there's a certain chemical reaction that humans have

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when they're in these places that it's
extremely beneficial. We don't know quite what

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the process is. It's likely to
be a hormone release of some kind that

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relaxes us. That makes us mellow. And this is why some people love

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to sit or lay now down next
to trees because of the effects that they

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have on us. So today's program
is all about trees. The book we're

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focusing on is has just come out. It's called Under the Sacred Canopy,

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Making Magic with the Mystical Trees of
the World. And my guest is she's

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a pagan. Her name is J. D. Walker, and she's an

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herbalist, a gardener. She wrote
a book a couple of years ago called

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a Witch's Guide to Wildcrafting Uncommon Magic
with Common Plants. And so she's really

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a herbalist, an outdoor person who's
very very sensitive to this and I,

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as you'll quickly learn, she is
coming to us from North Carolina and there's

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a lot of old grove trees that
have been around for for for centuries.

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So really really going to be a
fun interview. Uh. But you know,

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consider while you're listening to this interview
the importance of getting outside. And

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you know, if you live in
a big city, get out, you

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know, and and connect maybe once
a week to the you know, to

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the local uh nature areas. You
know, if you don't have a forest.

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Maybe you can get outdoors ocean if
you can get to the beach.

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The beach is very healing as well, so lots of healing available to all

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of us. So all right,
So again the program is under the sacred

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canopy, making magic with the mystical
trees of the world. And my guest

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is J. D. Walker.
I was raised by my grandfather to a

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degree, and he I would consider
a master gardener. Every year we had

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in his garden. He lived in
a place called Oceania, which is in

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central California, right by the ocean, and he had probably I want to

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say, a couple of acres,
but a good portion of it were roses,

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and we've got to learn all the
different names, and we got to

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learn about the plants and so forth. And he had established his home in

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nineteen I want to say, thirty
two and actually planted trees. And he

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was a big, big proponent of
trees. And I had a love for

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trees from a very very young age. I live here in northern California.

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We have some monstrous trees. The
sequoias are the oldest trees. And my

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guest today has written a fascinating book
on trees called Under the Sacred Canopy,

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Making Mad with the Mystical Trees of
the World. And I had to have

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her on the program simply because I
appreciate trees. We have ancient trees.

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We have one tree that's older than
Christ. I think it's twenty eight hundred

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years old, and there's some other
ones that are close to three thousand years

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old. And when you see not
only the height and the width of these

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trees, they are quite amazing.
But today we are talking about sacred trees,

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the importance of trees down through the
ages, how different cultures venerated trees,

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and also why they're very very important
for personal growth, not only from

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a potential magic point of view,
but also for healing. Let me tell

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you about my guests to name.
Her name is J. D. Walker.

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She is an avid student of herbalism
and guard name. She wrote a

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book just before this one called a
Witch's Guide to Wildcrafting Uncommon Magic with Common

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Plants. And this is another Llewellyn
book. And she's an award winning author,

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journalist, and magazine editor. And
she writes about plants and trees.

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And I got this book from my
assistant who said, clip you're gotta look

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at this section in here on the
Maya and the Aztecs and how they've venerated.

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She's not like, yeah, yeah, this is a very good book

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for Destiny. So hey, JD, welcome to Destiny. Great to see

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you. Thank you, Clip.
I appreciate the author to come on.

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We had to kind of clarify ahead
of our talk here. You are identify

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as a pagan. What is the
interest in your background and why you would

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write a book like this if you're
a pagan. I think I mentioned this

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one before we started that my idea
of a pagan is somebody who cherishes Guya,

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the earth, who works with Guya, who recognizes the beauty that,

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the healing, that the natural elements
of guya. But what what was the

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the desire to write this book,
because I mean you're really drilling down pretty

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deep here and going around the world
and and uh, lifting traditions from different

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cultures. But talk a little bit
about the influence of trees on this book.

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The I have always had and I
think I picked it up a lot

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from my grandmother, Uh, a
sense of trees or something special. And

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this was before I was old enough
to understand what paganism was. But it

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was a sense that trees have an
energy, an s since, a presence

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of their own. And that's not
to say that every tree that you walk

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up to h is going to be
pre beard or some sort of little spirit

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in barky leafy form, you know. It's just that there is an energy

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there and they're around for so much
longer frequently than we are. They have

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a storehouse of knowledge and I think
perception of how we should live in the

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world that we don't have, and
willing to share that if you will reach

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out, if you will go into
the woods, if you will connect with

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the wood, with the trees and
things around you. And not not to

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pat myself on the back or anything, but I didn't. I don't often

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see people making that connection. They
know trees are important, they know that

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they're pretty out in front of their
house, but they really don't make that

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connection that trees have an essence or
spirit of their own, and it's beneficial

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to connect with that spirit. So
in a large part, I just wanted

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to remind people how important trees have
been to humans throughout life. And I'll

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have to apologize. Somebody decided that
it was time helping your help since I

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was talking. I must be talking
to her. This is pearl and she'll

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be up here until she gets pissed
off, and she will spit of pearls.

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Your interview helper's assistance a cat that
just jumped up on JD's lap to

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assist her in this interview. Give
give her some support. You write in

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your book that trees have and humans
have had a special relationship for thousands of

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years. Talk a little bit about
this. Is it a great example?

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You get right into it. And
Lebanon, there's sixteen trees that make up

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an olive grove that are over five
thousand years old. Talk about yourself.

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I can't believe they're still alive.
They've they've must have been planted in an

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area that has an underground water flow
or something that keeps them alive. That's

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long. That is something that is
amazing to me too. And of course

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in Christian traditions, this is the
grove of olives from which the dove plucks

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the olive branch to take back to
Noah when he sends out the bird to

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try to find out if it's sake
to come off the boat or not.

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But the thing that is amazing to
me is Not only are these things supposed

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to be close to five thousand years
oh, they're still producing. People still

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get olives off of these things and
make olive oil and eat the fruit off

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of them. And that's just one
of multiple examples, as you mentioned,

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with the supporias of trees that have
been around for a long long time in

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our storehouses of knowledge, in the
tree community, in the arborous community,

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there is a great concern right now
that we don't lose any of our older

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trees, because not only do you
lose this wonderful, stately thing that is

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on a property somewhere, you lose
the biodiversity that it can provide. It's

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providing you DNA from a hundred years
ago, five hundred years ago, or

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in the case of these, all
of several thousand years ago. And this

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is I think this is another way
that people connect to trees to say life

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is enduring, life can be endured. Think upon those trees have endured over

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thousands of years, and it gives
us hope to endure, it gives us

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strength to endure if again we will
make that connection with them. Yeah,

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talk a little bit about another tree
in Japan that is two thousand years old.

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I didn't know Japan has trees that
are that old. I keep thinking

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they're all cut down through the various
UH periods that have the Japan Japan has

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gone through. But what is the
name of this tree? And is it

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like one of those pines that are
in the mountains. It's usually one of

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if I'm not mistaken, and I
have to look back in my book,

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it is one of the pines UH. And again these uh these are planted

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at the well. The kadamas are
the ones that are the tree spirits in

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the Japanese tree. Some of them
are planted at temples UH and essentially are

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believed to embody the spirit of that
particular temple. These older trees, the

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tree spirits, the Kadamas in particular, are thought to inhabit the older,

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wiser, more mature trees. I
don't know if that means that they they

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are the essence of the wisdom of
that tree, or if they're the beneficiary

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and the conduit that humans connect with
to get to the wisdom of that tree.

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But the sense in that sounds so
lovely in Japan is that they recognize

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these old, mature living specimens are
so important. They have to be protected.

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Uh. These are our national monuments, living monuments, UH, and

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something that we have to an extent
in the United States. We call them

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heritage trees or witness trees. You
have trees around, for instance, manassas,

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around major battlefields that we're witnessed to, unfortunately, the carnage and the

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strife that went on dur the Civil
War, and those are special trees because

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they having experienced that, they embody
it. And that's what gives you the

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somber feeling when you go through places
like this. To understand that there's another

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tree down in South Carolina your readers
or your listeners may be familiar with.

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I didn't mention it in the book, but it's called the Angel Tree,

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and people modern people think that,
well, it's called an angel tree because

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of an association with angels that just
happens to be the name of the family

258
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that owned the plantation this tree was
on. And people have a sense of

259
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reverence when they go to it,
not just because it's an old, old

260
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tree, but unfortunately there's the sadness
in the tree because it was the site

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of many hangings and disciplinary measures for
some of the slaves in the area.

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So it's not just here's this thing
that's been around for a long long huh.

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It was witness to some of the
worst and some of the best parts

264
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of what we had growing up in
America becoming America. To excuse me a

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second, make a part of them. That's some caffre or something, I

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guess. Talk a little bit about
witness trees. Are they necessarily trees that

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are in an existing area? You
mentioned the Civil War. We should let

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our listeners know that you're in North
Carolina, which is kind of the epicenter

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for many of the great battles of
the Civil War, the American Civil War.

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Were they planted after the fact or
were they just trees that were there

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that were just huge here? Okay, so they would talk about it,

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talk about that the witness trees.
Witness trees are trees that were there at

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the time. People are familiar in
American history with liberty oaks. Some of

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them are still standing. A lot
of them, unfortunately, have passed away,

275
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either through vandalism or storm damage or
encroachment by other people. They are

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there, and they are a tangible
connection to a particular point in time of

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particular history. And again, I
think what happens in those situations is the

278
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tree becomes an embodiment of that so
that you get a certain feeling whenever you're

279
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around there. Unfortunately, a lot
of our witness trees are identified with some

280
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of the harsher points in our history. There is one, a modern one,

281
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an elm tree at the site of
the Oklahoma City bombing that took out

282
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the Federal Building. A beautiful old
elm, which is interesting in and of

283
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itself because so many of the American
elms have died due to a disease.

284
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They live up to about twenty some
years and then they become infected and unfortunately

285
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dying, And this one has survived. But not only that, this particular

286
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tree, which was a gathering site. When you would be there at work,

287
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you come out of the ability to
go have you lunch under the tree.

288
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It was a pleasant place to be
when the bomb went off. When

289
00:28:23.839 --> 00:28:30.400
the devastation went off, it took
out a lot of surrounding plant material and

290
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structures and whatnot. This tree survived, and this tree has come to embody

291
00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:47.039
that sense of survivors surviving going on
despite this terrible thing that happened, and

292
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it's now a focal point of veneration, both for the memory of those people

293
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who were lost to a totally senseless
action and to the thought that we can

294
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do better, we can endure,
we can go on. So there's a

295
00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:07.759
lot of focus on this tree.
You can actually go on the website of

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00:29:08.039 --> 00:29:14.799
if you look up the Oklahoma City
bombing, there is the museum associated with

297
00:29:14.839 --> 00:29:19.799
it, and it's not understanding.
You can actually order tree seedlings and plant

298
00:29:19.839 --> 00:29:26.039
one of these that's a offspring of
this particular fascinating yeah, so that you

299
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:30.680
can actually plant that in your yard, and again it becomes that tangible connection.

300
00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:33.200
You go out there and you can
lay your hands on that and feel

301
00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:41.319
that connection to that history. When
you go to these battlefields again you lay

302
00:29:41.359 --> 00:29:45.400
your hands on this and you feel
that connection with history, it's more real

303
00:29:45.799 --> 00:29:51.079
to you. So would you say
that the people who have identified I mean,

304
00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:55.160
because this is generational, this can
go hundreds of years as a unique

305
00:29:55.240 --> 00:29:59.880
tree. Who's which is a witness
tree to a battle to an event?

306
00:30:02.440 --> 00:30:07.200
Unfortunately, is there any positives that
we can say a witness tree is associated

307
00:30:07.279 --> 00:30:11.640
with? Well, here again,
in the case of this un tree,

308
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it does become that notion that in
the harshest part of my life and the

309
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:23.839
deepest part of my despair. There
is life, and there is a continuity,

310
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There is a going on exactly.
It's the sense that this thing has

311
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survived despite the presence of all of
this negativity around it and sometimes the physical

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00:30:38.799 --> 00:30:45.640
damage associated with it. It's just
that sense that there is hope, and

313
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so many times that's what we do
need whenever we are struggling to make connections

314
00:30:53.559 --> 00:30:59.559
in our lives, struggling to understand
what was the purpose of this thing that

315
00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:03.880
happened to me that seems so bad. I can survive. I really can

316
00:31:04.119 --> 00:31:12.480
go on. I have I wear
and have for about twenty years, a

317
00:31:12.559 --> 00:31:17.720
jet bracelet, and a lot of
people may know, some may not know

318
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:25.079
that jet is fossilized cold, which
is it's a byproduct of a tree that,

319
00:31:25.720 --> 00:31:29.640
over a period of time after it
fell into a bongy area, was

320
00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:33.400
turned into natural cold. But at
one point it was a tree, and

321
00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:40.279
it's very significant to me. It
gives me a sense of the continuity of

322
00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:45.000
life. Life goes on, and
I wear it. In the pagan community,

323
00:31:45.079 --> 00:31:51.279
jet is usually worn for protection,
but again it's that connection not just

324
00:31:51.880 --> 00:31:55.880
to one hundred years ago or a
thousand years ago or ten thousand years ago.

325
00:31:56.440 --> 00:32:02.599
This is Andaluvian cold from six million
years ago. So life goes on,

326
00:32:02.880 --> 00:32:08.440
and that is that's that spark that
I turned to whenever I'm going to

327
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:13.640
know, what's the bother? Why
everything's going to Helen handbag? You know,

328
00:32:14.119 --> 00:32:17.960
it's just it's just why are you
in trouble yourself? Well, yeah,

329
00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:23.160
life goes on despite whatever happens around
us. I have this feeling and

330
00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:28.680
I hear from what you're saying and
what I read from you that trees are

331
00:32:28.759 --> 00:32:34.359
sacred and the longer they've been on
the planet, the more energy they have.

332
00:32:34.440 --> 00:32:44.839
Talk a little bit about an ancient
pagan belief that these trees have cosmological

333
00:32:44.920 --> 00:32:49.759
and spiritual truths in them. How
how how does that? How do we

334
00:32:49.759 --> 00:32:54.200
relate to that? Though? I
suppose that how can they have that?

335
00:32:55.160 --> 00:33:00.839
How can something that has survived for
so many years not have picked that up?

336
00:33:01.839 --> 00:33:07.480
I suppose that's one of the answers
that it would just have to be

337
00:33:07.799 --> 00:33:13.720
a natural occurrence, that again,
having been witnessed to the passage of time

338
00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:20.599
over hundreds of thousands of years,
that of course it would be natural for

339
00:33:20.680 --> 00:33:27.640
it to assume that I know that
in the Celtic cultures, tribes would tend

340
00:33:27.640 --> 00:33:30.519
to identify with a particular tree.
So some of them would identify with elm

341
00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:35.240
trees, some would identify with yew
trees, and some of course with oaks,

342
00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:42.920
because oaks were frequently considered a very
important source in the community. Irmasil

343
00:33:43.079 --> 00:33:49.759
was probably a big oak tree at
one time for a particular Saxon group of

344
00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:58.319
Celtic folks. But the idea was
that this tree absorbed the history of the

345
00:33:58.359 --> 00:34:01.400
tribe, absorbed the history of the
plan with the passing of each plan.

346
00:34:01.480 --> 00:34:09.599
And again remembering back in our history
when a lifespan was probably thirty forty years,

347
00:34:09.719 --> 00:34:13.400
I mean, you had people who
lived older than that, but generally

348
00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:16.760
speaking thirty forty years. And you've
got an oak tree that's going to live

349
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:22.679
be living for five hundred years,
even say two three hundred years. And

350
00:34:22.840 --> 00:34:30.519
see how many generations came to maturity
under that tree, after celebration after celebration.

351
00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:34.800
And it was that connection, not
just amongst the people that you were

352
00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:38.719
with right then and there, as
you host your seasonal celebration of the harvest

353
00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:45.800
or the coming celebration for winter,
or the celebration of the renewal of spring.

354
00:34:47.079 --> 00:34:51.079
You knew that your ancestors did the
same thing, and there was that

355
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:57.199
sense of community and continuity. That's
why it was so important whenever tribes or

356
00:34:57.239 --> 00:35:00.880
clans would attack one another to go
to the center of that community and cut

357
00:35:00.920 --> 00:35:05.960
down that tree, because at that
point you cut the life of the tribe.

358
00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:10.559
You destroyed the tribe when you destroyed
that significant tree that they held their

359
00:35:10.639 --> 00:35:15.360
rituals and their ceremonies. And I
never heard that that sounds. I mean,

360
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:20.360
that's brutal to cut down an ancient
tree that's part of a community.

361
00:35:21.400 --> 00:35:27.280
That's like killing the lifeblood exactly energetically. And that's to be quite honest.

362
00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:34.039
That's one of the reasons why you
frequently have Christian stories from around usually around

363
00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:40.480
I would say six hundred AD,
particularly going up to about fourteen D when

364
00:35:40.559 --> 00:35:46.960
Christians would move into an area and
they were trying to to be honest,

365
00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:51.639
there was a lot of cajoling to
bring people into their Christian community. But

366
00:35:52.119 --> 00:35:55.239
when they got that right down to
it and wanted to force conversion, one

367
00:35:55.239 --> 00:36:00.239
of the first things you did was
go in there and cut their their tree,

368
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:04.920
their ancestral free down to destroy it
and then, of course, on

369
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:08.559
top of that they built a ceremony. Achieving, they built a church usually

370
00:36:08.559 --> 00:36:12.679
on top of it. That's why
I think it was very interesting when we

371
00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:20.360
speak about some of the Lithuanian and
Central European traditions, they were some of

372
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:24.880
the last to be converted to Christianity, and in those cases it was not

373
00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:32.440
unusual for the overwhelming Christian force that
came in to convert the local population by

374
00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:37.760
that time, and at this point
we're talking about by the fourteen fifteen,

375
00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:43.599
sixteen hundreds, rather than take that
drastic measure of cutting that free down,

376
00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:47.280
they would simply go to the tree
and carve Christian symbols into it. So,

377
00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:53.519
okay, now this is a Christian
source of your community spirit, so

378
00:36:53.599 --> 00:36:59.039
to speak. And they found that
that was an easier way to bring people

379
00:36:59.079 --> 00:37:04.960
alone. You didn't destroy their entire
history. You assimilated it, and you

380
00:37:05.159 --> 00:37:08.239
reinterpreted the legends to give them more
of a Christian spin to them. But

381
00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:14.400
importantly, you carve those Christian symbols
on the tree, and then you held

382
00:37:14.480 --> 00:37:19.639
certain ceremonies under the tree, and
that made the religion more accepting, more

383
00:37:19.679 --> 00:37:23.400
acceptable to the pagans in those communities. We're gonna come back to some of

384
00:37:23.400 --> 00:37:30.519
these ancient traditions, especially in the
meso American area, which you highlight beautifully

385
00:37:30.519 --> 00:37:35.440
in the book. But I want
to talk about tree spirits and the energy

386
00:37:35.480 --> 00:37:39.599
behind that. You get into a
whole section where you're talking about the apple

387
00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:46.159
tree man and the various Greek and
Roman spirits that are within the trees.

388
00:37:46.280 --> 00:37:52.719
Talk about the apple tree man and
why that's significant. That's a continuation,

389
00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:59.840
I think probably of a lot of
the traditions that may have come out of

390
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:07.360
the Mediterranean. It was not unusual
for those people to see living spirits in

391
00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:12.400
the tree, such that when you
cut the tree down, it actually bled,

392
00:38:13.119 --> 00:38:15.960
and frequently there was some curse attached
to it. When you get to

393
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:22.519
the apple tree man, this is
for people who are managing orchards. It

394
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:28.400
is usually found in the oldest tree
in the orchard. And again we're usually

395
00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:32.480
talking about apples here as opposed to
pears or points or something else. But

396
00:38:34.159 --> 00:38:38.800
you appeased the apple tree man because
he was the guardian spirit of your orchard.

397
00:38:39.239 --> 00:38:44.760
He was he was coordinating the activities
in your orchards so that the orchard

398
00:38:44.880 --> 00:38:49.039
was healthy and it would be fruitful
and you would be especially nice to the

399
00:38:49.159 --> 00:38:53.800
apple tree man. You'd leave little
gifts of food, certain libations, and

400
00:38:53.840 --> 00:39:00.719
things around him, because not only
would that keep him encouraged to make sure

401
00:39:00.760 --> 00:39:06.000
your orchard was a healthy place to
be, but of course because he'd been

402
00:39:06.039 --> 00:39:09.280
around for a long time, he
knew where things were buried. Because of

403
00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:13.519
course, what did you do back
in the day before there were banks available,

404
00:39:13.599 --> 00:39:16.400
you buried your wealth. Well,
he knew where the guy buried it

405
00:39:16.559 --> 00:39:21.599
who had the orchard before you kidding
me? And if you were really nice

406
00:39:21.639 --> 00:39:24.679
to him, maybe he would tell
you where the treasures were buried. Go

407
00:39:27.800 --> 00:39:32.920
back to the inception of the apple
tree man. How did someone will his

408
00:39:34.639 --> 00:39:39.079
physicality to a tree the energy of
a human being or how does that work?

409
00:39:39.800 --> 00:39:45.760
This is an interesting idea in in
my approach, and when I looked

410
00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:51.440
at the book which started I specifically
started out talking about trees having a particular

411
00:39:51.559 --> 00:39:55.079
energy that is unique to them.
They're not leafy people. Again, they

412
00:39:55.119 --> 00:40:01.679
are not gray beard. They are
spiritual entities in and of themselves that you

413
00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:10.159
can feel. I think in time
that energy in some cases can evolve into

414
00:40:10.199 --> 00:40:15.639
a spirit. Now that's my interpretation. That wouldn't be necessarily anyone else's.

415
00:40:15.679 --> 00:40:19.079
And certainly in the case of the
apple tree man, you didn't go to

416
00:40:19.519 --> 00:40:23.800
the oldest tree and do some sort
of spell or ritual and poof the energy

417
00:40:23.800 --> 00:40:31.119
in that tree suddenly becomes the old
man. He evolves there and is attached

418
00:40:31.400 --> 00:40:37.320
to that tree. In the case
of the so are you saying like a

419
00:40:37.400 --> 00:40:42.159
sensitive from the group, say the
psych the local psychic or pagan or whatever,

420
00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:47.760
would come upon this tree and fill
an energy and identify it as much

421
00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:53.039
much more than one the other in
the grove? Is the exactly, This

422
00:40:53.119 --> 00:40:58.199
is the energy keeper, This is
the spokesperson for the grove. Is that

423
00:40:58.199 --> 00:41:02.159
what you're suggesting? Exactly? It
takes someone who would be able to recognize

424
00:41:02.159 --> 00:41:07.079
it, or a sensitive would.
In today's parlance, we would say a

425
00:41:07.199 --> 00:41:14.239
sensitive, not a shaman, not
not a druid, not necessarily a religious

426
00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:15.880
leader, but a sensitive to go. You know, there's there's more than

427
00:41:15.960 --> 00:41:22.840
just the energy of the forest and
this particular tree. I have a beech

428
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:28.840
tree on the property here, and
there's a lot of beech trees on the

429
00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:34.559
property. They all have wonderful energy
to them. This one has feels to

430
00:41:34.599 --> 00:41:40.119
me like a special energy, and
she's beech trees are usually considered in Celtic

431
00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:47.519
traditions to be female. And I
say she because the beech tree is one

432
00:41:47.639 --> 00:41:53.760
of the oldest trees. They equal
age frequently of oak trees in a natural

433
00:41:53.840 --> 00:41:58.960
forest, so they're one of the
older trees, and we call her queen

434
00:41:59.039 --> 00:42:04.960
of the woods, the traditionist conquered
crean woods or mother beach in that case.

435
00:42:05.559 --> 00:42:10.119
And in that case, there is
a particular root formation under beach trees.

436
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:14.840
And if any of your listeners are
familiar with beech trees, you know

437
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:22.239
that they send out these rolling roots
that look like boil constrictors. Oak tree

438
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:25.199
will generally have nobby roots that go
down into the ground and come off the

439
00:42:25.239 --> 00:42:30.400
tree. They go downunder ground.
Beech trees can kind of contort their roots

440
00:42:30.440 --> 00:42:36.960
a little bit and really roll over
one another. And in this particular tree,

441
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:43.519
it has put together a mass of
roots that has two branches or two

442
00:42:43.599 --> 00:42:46.840
roots going off this way and two
roots coming down this way, so that

443
00:42:47.159 --> 00:42:52.000
you can lay on those put your
arms and legs over those roots, put

444
00:42:52.039 --> 00:42:57.880
your head literally in the lap of
the beech tree, and do a meditation

445
00:42:57.960 --> 00:43:01.840
and feel perfectly safe with doing this. And it makes it easier by talk

446
00:43:01.880 --> 00:43:07.239
in the book about how to do
a spiritual journeying, or some people call

447
00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:13.119
it astral travel, by doing a
meditation with the tree. And when you

448
00:43:13.239 --> 00:43:17.280
lay on this tree, you can
just about feel yourself just sinking into it,

449
00:43:17.519 --> 00:43:22.039
becoming one with it. You're looking
up at the canopy and you see

450
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:27.400
the leaves rustling, or if it
happens to be in the wintertime, you

451
00:43:27.960 --> 00:43:31.079
just see the branches going up,
sinking into the sky the way the roots

452
00:43:31.119 --> 00:43:37.280
sink down into the earth. And
you can fall into a meditation that is

453
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:40.360
just so wonderful and so relaxing if
you will allow yourself to do that.

454
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:45.760
Now, there are plenty of other
beaches on the property, and they all

455
00:43:45.800 --> 00:43:51.079
have lovely energies. Some of them
have nice root formations so that you could

456
00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:53.760
sit down on them, lean back
and you have your lunch or read a

457
00:43:53.760 --> 00:43:59.000
book or whatever. They don't have
the same energy as this particular beach.

458
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:05.960
And yeah, that's where I think
you go from being simply alive and vibrant

459
00:44:06.400 --> 00:44:10.519
to having a personality or a character
that we can as humans we look at

460
00:44:10.559 --> 00:44:15.239
and say, oh, this is
the old Man apple, or this is

461
00:44:15.800 --> 00:44:21.800
mother Beach, as the case may
be, I love your example of laying

462
00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:28.079
down and meditating or kind of contemplating
where you're at with a tree. What

463
00:44:28.239 --> 00:44:36.280
do you think is the compliment between
human physiology and tree physiology is there?

464
00:44:36.920 --> 00:44:39.199
We'll get into some some specifics later, but I'm just curious, as we're

465
00:44:39.239 --> 00:44:45.000
at this point right now, what
would you say makes us so so compatible

466
00:44:46.559 --> 00:44:57.280
there? There is a universality to
the structure of trees. We see the

467
00:44:57.320 --> 00:45:02.280
pattern of trees, peat it over
and over again. If you if you

468
00:45:02.280 --> 00:45:07.760
are aware of how the vessels,
blood vessels go through the body, that's

469
00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:14.239
how they branch off of the truth. The blood vessels come out and there's

470
00:45:14.360 --> 00:45:19.760
arteries, and then they go off
into their smaller and smaller veins. If

471
00:45:19.800 --> 00:45:22.840
you look at a delta, you
can see either a root system of river

472
00:45:22.880 --> 00:45:25.719
delta. You see a root system, or you see a tree top.

473
00:45:27.039 --> 00:45:34.400
You can look at the patterns of
crystallization on a window or on a lake

474
00:45:34.559 --> 00:45:39.559
and see that veining pattern. It's
repeated over and over and over again.

475
00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:45.000
I don't know that I necessarily subscribe
to the idea, but I actually came

476
00:45:45.039 --> 00:45:53.800
across one author who suggested that the
human lungs again you have that trunking system,

477
00:45:53.840 --> 00:46:00.639
you have a leaning system branches off. And this author was suggesting that

478
00:46:00.039 --> 00:46:07.039
that is a carry over somehow or
other and far distant evolution from trees to

479
00:46:07.199 --> 00:46:13.920
humans or two mammals, that that
same pattern, which was just it's just

480
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:19.519
a perfect way of being, was
just a natural to be repeated over and

481
00:46:19.559 --> 00:46:24.239
over and over again. Nature uses
things that work, she discards or let's

482
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:29.159
go extinct things that don't work,
and this is something that works, and

483
00:46:29.199 --> 00:46:34.519
whether we realize it or not.
And perhaps ancient people would have been closer

484
00:46:34.559 --> 00:46:37.320
to this, because of course they
would have been into animals laughter, and

485
00:46:37.360 --> 00:46:42.639
probably would have seen quite enough death
and carnage in their own lives. They

486
00:46:42.679 --> 00:46:45.519
would have seen the branchings and the
lungs and co whoa. You know,

487
00:46:45.880 --> 00:46:50.280
they would see, if they could
get up high enough, the branching of

488
00:46:50.320 --> 00:46:57.239
the rivers and be able to say, here is a tangible representation of this

489
00:46:57.320 --> 00:47:00.039
system that we see over and over
and over again, even in our own

490
00:47:00.039 --> 00:47:06.639
bodies. Yeah, I love that
analogy. We're going to take a short

491
00:47:06.639 --> 00:47:14.639
commercial break to allow our sponsors to
identify themselves, and we will return quickly

492
00:47:14.719 --> 00:47:17.920
with my guest today, J D. Walker, discussing her in her new

493
00:47:17.960 --> 00:47:59.639
book Under the Sacred Canopy. We'll
be right back. My guest today is

494
00:47:59.719 --> 00:48:04.079
Jay Walker, who is a pagan. She has written a new book called

495
00:48:04.239 --> 00:48:08.719
Under the Sacred Canopy, Making Magic
with the Mystical Trees of the World.

496
00:48:08.960 --> 00:48:15.280
This is a look at trees in
different aspects of the world, the antiquity

497
00:48:15.360 --> 00:48:23.480
of trees and how our ancestors use
them as healing modalities and a connection to

498
00:48:23.599 --> 00:48:30.039
nature. We mentioned the Apple tree
Man. Talk a little bit about the

499
00:48:30.119 --> 00:48:35.480
Native American Grandmother Cedar. I really
love that one, and I can imagine

500
00:48:35.480 --> 00:48:39.480
a cedar being hundreds of years old, that various generations of Native people,

501
00:48:39.559 --> 00:48:44.639
I think the Iroquois. I don't
know if that was the Iroquois or not,

502
00:48:44.840 --> 00:48:52.239
but they have these oral traditions of
these ancient trees in the Americas.

503
00:48:52.280 --> 00:48:59.400
Talk about that. That one was
an interesting story of the great God,

504
00:48:59.480 --> 00:49:07.400
the the Protector Guard who goes and
he creates all of these creatures, and

505
00:49:07.480 --> 00:49:13.000
he creates humans, which he calls
his two legged creatures, and they don't

506
00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:17.960
know very much, they're not very
smart. So he goes to Grandmother's cedar

507
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:24.360
and says, will you teach my
two legged creatures, you're wisdom, and

508
00:49:24.440 --> 00:49:29.800
she agrees to do that. So
she teaches them how to use her bark

509
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:34.079
at her leaves from medicine and for
food. She teaches them how to take

510
00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:42.000
the inner bark and weave it into
hundreds of things, from strapping to baskets,

511
00:49:42.039 --> 00:49:49.639
to things help to hold the housing
together, making the tree itself,

512
00:49:50.039 --> 00:49:54.599
and making boats and one thing and
another out of it, so that the

513
00:49:54.679 --> 00:50:01.239
tree becomes something that supplies all of
all of life. So she shares that

514
00:50:01.280 --> 00:50:04.920
wisdom. And you say, well, why would she do that, because

515
00:50:04.920 --> 00:50:07.760
if they're hacking on the tree,
the tree is going to die. She

516
00:50:07.840 --> 00:50:14.199
does that because the Great Protector ask
her to. But she does that to

517
00:50:14.320 --> 00:50:19.719
give of herself. And by giving
of yourself, you ensure the longevity of

518
00:50:19.719 --> 00:50:22.360
the community. And I think that, as much as anything, is one

519
00:50:22.400 --> 00:50:28.280
of the things that in the Native
America and that particular Native American culture,

520
00:50:28.960 --> 00:50:34.480
they were saying, this is how
as a community we survive. We give

521
00:50:34.480 --> 00:50:39.039
of ourselves so that others can benefit. In the long run, we benefit

522
00:50:39.119 --> 00:50:45.719
too, but the whole community can
surve on well. This book, this

523
00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:51.519
book has so much in it,
we can only scratch the surface exactly what

524
00:50:51.559 --> 00:50:54.199
you have. I want to get
into the tree of life. And this

525
00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:59.960
is a fascinating topic because it really
gets into ancient cultures, the Babylonian,

526
00:51:00.159 --> 00:51:08.639
the Egyptians, the early American people, Aztec Maya. A lot of the

527
00:51:09.159 --> 00:51:15.280
mythology and storytelling is the tree of
life, how humans came to be.

528
00:51:16.480 --> 00:51:22.960
And let's start with the Babylonians who
have the mighty trees and how they relate

529
00:51:23.039 --> 00:51:30.559
to spawning the humanity. Well,
you have a number of different stories,

530
00:51:30.039 --> 00:51:35.239
and again it gets a little confusion, confusing. A lot of times,

531
00:51:35.320 --> 00:51:39.599
these these myths begin to mesh because
you start out with Sumerians, and then

532
00:51:39.679 --> 00:51:44.639
you go to the Acadians and the
Amoroids, and then you get to the

533
00:51:44.679 --> 00:51:50.840
Babylonians. So a lot of these
myths will will overlap. For instance,

534
00:51:50.880 --> 00:51:59.320
there is the beginning of life and
Eridu, where Aridu is one of the

535
00:51:59.440 --> 00:52:02.159
first city. It's one of the
five first cities in the world where the

536
00:52:02.199 --> 00:52:13.360
gods create human beings and all life
is supported by the Kishkanu tree with a

537
00:52:13.519 --> 00:52:20.079
top that is has turquoise leaves and
crystal branches and roots uh and if you

538
00:52:20.119 --> 00:52:27.199
take the leaves it provides immortality.
Now, in one of the myths h

539
00:52:27.280 --> 00:52:31.440
and Anu, who is a principal
goddess of that particular region, her tree,

540
00:52:31.519 --> 00:52:38.199
the Kishkanu tree, becomes invested.
It's invested with serpents. Uh and

541
00:52:38.599 --> 00:52:45.480
with all of a sudden her name
got away from me. Uh Lilith is

542
00:52:45.559 --> 00:52:50.760
a demon who invests the tree.
So she needs to get this out of

543
00:52:50.800 --> 00:52:54.679
the tree. So she asks Marduk
to get these demons and things out of

544
00:52:54.679 --> 00:52:59.800
the tree. And in this myth, he runs the demons off, but

545
00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:01.880
and he ends up cutting the tree
down and he turns it into a throne

546
00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:07.800
for Anna. There's another myth that
says that here is this tree of life

547
00:53:07.199 --> 00:53:13.360
that provides for the structure of the
world and the organization of the world,

548
00:53:14.119 --> 00:53:21.800
and then there is a battle between
the gods who have become upset with humans,

549
00:53:22.199 --> 00:53:24.760
and in the course of that battle, the tree is destroyed. So

550
00:53:25.760 --> 00:53:31.559
once life has been established through one
way or another, the tree gets destroyed.

551
00:53:31.880 --> 00:53:35.639
It's no longer there, but that's
okay. Life is going on at

552
00:53:35.719 --> 00:53:43.280
that point. Interestingly enough, Arado
still exists. It's not called Arado anymore,

553
00:53:43.320 --> 00:53:50.360
but it does still exist in that
rent or in that particular area as

554
00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:53.880
one of the oldest cities in the
entire world. Whether or not you can

555
00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:58.239
go there and find some old Kish
canoe trees, I don't think you'll be

556
00:53:58.320 --> 00:54:02.039
able to do. That might be
interesting to go try. I find it

557
00:54:02.119 --> 00:54:12.960
just amazing that these myths really involving
trees are really fundamental or foundational for the

558
00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:17.039
story of man coming around. Of
course, Adam and Eve pulling the apple

559
00:54:17.119 --> 00:54:21.760
from the apple tree, and and
and and that story you bring up a

560
00:54:21.760 --> 00:54:27.840
little bit of that. But in
Europe, you you, you, you've

561
00:54:27.880 --> 00:54:36.440
talked about the how humans were formed
by the logs of trees by Odin and

562
00:54:36.760 --> 00:54:42.199
I've never heard that story before,
how he was created by tree tree parts.

563
00:54:42.599 --> 00:54:46.039
And this is one of the fun
and the frustrating things about mythology.

564
00:54:46.760 --> 00:54:50.840
We don't know why. But he
and his brother were walking along the beach,

565
00:54:50.880 --> 00:54:54.000
and I don't know if they challenged
one another or if they just said,

566
00:54:54.039 --> 00:54:57.960
hey, let's let's see what we
can create here. They have an

567
00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:01.360
old ash law, a log from
an ash tree. They have a log

568
00:55:01.440 --> 00:55:06.199
from an elm tree. They turned
the ash tree into a van. They

569
00:55:06.239 --> 00:55:10.199
turned the elm tree into a woman. And this is where people come from.

570
00:55:10.239 --> 00:55:17.599
They begin to procreate and they populate
the world. Interestingly, you don't

571
00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:22.840
see a lot of myths in the
Nordic traditions about elm after that point.

572
00:55:22.880 --> 00:55:27.079
It's it's mostly focused on the ash
tree, and there are a couple of

573
00:55:27.159 --> 00:55:29.440
areas that they know. It was
never an ash tree, it was an

574
00:55:29.440 --> 00:55:35.199
oak tree. But in the Nordic
tradition most of us are familiar with the

575
00:55:35.239 --> 00:55:42.079
important tree is the ash tree.
But again, why sometimes you get a

576
00:55:42.199 --> 00:55:46.000
reason. For instance, in the
Mediterranean area when we're talking about the Babylonians

577
00:55:46.239 --> 00:55:55.599
or in ill And at that time
created humans to serve them. They wanted

578
00:55:55.760 --> 00:56:04.039
someone to venerate them. And the
first bunch of people that they create are

579
00:56:04.159 --> 00:56:09.480
noisy, they're loud, they're obnoxious, so they get destroyed and then you

580
00:56:09.559 --> 00:56:14.920
have to have one or two people
left over to repopulate the world again.

581
00:56:15.280 --> 00:56:21.400
And of course you know in the
mess American tradition there are five iterations of

582
00:56:21.480 --> 00:56:27.079
the world where you the gods start
out again. They're trying to create someone

583
00:56:27.159 --> 00:56:32.920
who will venerate them, So they
go through several iterations of worlds trying to

584
00:56:32.960 --> 00:56:39.679
create a suitable subject to venerate them
as and to worship them, and to

585
00:56:39.719 --> 00:56:45.320
supply them with the energy that they
need the blood that they need over time,

586
00:56:45.559 --> 00:56:51.960
so it's not just one time.
Sometimes it takes several times to try

587
00:56:52.000 --> 00:56:57.119
to create the world, but the
reason being mostly to create someone who will

588
00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:00.920
venerate them. In many of the
other myths, the gods are doing it,

589
00:57:01.000 --> 00:57:04.920
for instance, and the Celtic it's
very hard to nail down. In

590
00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:10.000
the English Irish tradition a creation story, one of the ones that you see

591
00:57:10.079 --> 00:57:16.679
periodically is that where the ocean and
the earth came together, these two forces

592
00:57:17.360 --> 00:57:24.599
procreated, and so you end up
with the mother goddess who then procreates with

593
00:57:24.639 --> 00:57:30.960
the child. In this case you
should consider being carnunists. And then from

594
00:57:31.039 --> 00:57:36.679
that you get all of creation and
others. When you get those two forces

595
00:57:36.719 --> 00:57:42.760
coming together, you get an oak
tree, and everything that is that evolves

596
00:57:42.800 --> 00:57:45.440
from that point on comes from the
oak tree. People come from the acrons

597
00:57:45.559 --> 00:57:50.039
that fall from the oak tree,
and other parts are used by the gods

598
00:57:50.079 --> 00:57:53.679
to create other creatures and other things
in the universe. That one's a little

599
00:57:53.679 --> 00:58:00.639
bit more hard to nail down,
because like the Nordic folks, uh,

600
00:58:00.719 --> 00:58:04.719
nobody worth the stuff bail. It
was passed down word of mouth, so

601
00:58:06.400 --> 00:58:09.360
we hope we got it right.
I want to jump into the Americas now,

602
00:58:09.400 --> 00:58:15.679
because you have a wonderful section on
the Mesa. American cultures, notably

603
00:58:15.880 --> 00:58:22.000
the Maya and the Aztec, talk
about the Maya maze god junyan Yi from

604
00:58:22.079 --> 00:58:30.760
how he separates the earth from the
sky h so that the two domains are

605
00:58:30.840 --> 00:58:38.599
separated, Yeah, allowing allowing the
humans to exist. It's it's interesting because

606
00:58:38.599 --> 00:58:45.280
there's a correlation actually in Greek mythology. Uh, this is the time of

607
00:58:45.320 --> 00:58:49.639
the laying down sky, so that
the sky, the sky and the earth

608
00:58:49.679 --> 00:58:53.840
are laying on top of one another
and they need to be separated before any

609
00:58:53.880 --> 00:58:57.960
creation can go on. And again, as you're familiar, this isn't the

610
00:58:58.000 --> 00:59:00.880
only creation myth. There are other
Asian myths. In the Aztec world,

611
00:59:00.920 --> 00:59:06.719
in particular, it's a matter of
taking the monster that's in the middle of

612
00:59:06.760 --> 00:59:10.239
the lake in Mexico and ripping it
apart and creating it, kind of like

613
00:59:10.880 --> 00:59:17.159
Tiamat, but in this case,
the maze god has this situation where these

614
00:59:17.199 --> 00:59:22.920
two energies are right on top of
one another and you can't create a world,

615
00:59:22.960 --> 00:59:27.760
so you separate them and to hold
them apart, you create the Seba

616
00:59:27.840 --> 00:59:34.360
tree, and the Siba tree is
the cotton silk tree that provides so much

617
00:59:35.320 --> 00:59:43.639
material for the indigenous populations there and
gets so large, has these almost flying

618
00:59:43.719 --> 00:59:49.679
buttress type roots that support the tree. Just absolutely huge, a massive.

619
00:59:49.760 --> 00:59:53.559
So you set this one tree in
the middle to hold the two apart.

620
00:59:53.679 --> 01:00:00.519
The top of the tree, the
canopy tree becomes the Milky Way points to

621
01:00:00.559 --> 01:00:06.480
the north, and then you set
up four additional trees on each of the

622
01:00:06.880 --> 01:00:09.480
four quadrants north, south, east, and west. Each of them have

623
01:00:10.239 --> 01:00:17.599
deities associated with them. The main
tree then becomes the universe tree that the

624
01:00:17.719 --> 01:00:22.239
ruler identifies with. He is the
embolument of the universe tree and makes that

625
01:00:22.360 --> 01:00:28.559
living connection between them. But then
you have the creation of the thirteen different

626
01:00:28.639 --> 01:00:36.280
layers of heaven above or heavens above, and the believe it's eight below,

627
01:00:36.920 --> 01:00:42.239
the various levels of what we would
consider the underworld or hell, and this

628
01:00:42.320 --> 01:00:47.519
gives structure to the universe. Amazing. I want you to talk a little

629
01:00:47.559 --> 01:00:53.480
bit about and this is fascinating.
I'm going to be in Plank in November

630
01:00:53.639 --> 01:01:01.119
with our annual tour on the Surcompicus
of Lord Pacall, King Pacall Is.

631
01:01:01.159 --> 01:01:07.159
The Tree of Life is a lot
of people have interpreted that as a spaceship,

632
01:01:07.719 --> 01:01:10.599
and he's pointing the way. Of
course, that's ancient aliens, Eric

633
01:01:10.840 --> 01:01:16.880
Donegan. But actually, as I
look at it more closely, it actually

634
01:01:16.960 --> 01:01:23.119
is a tree. And how do
you interpret Pacall's Is he iscending the tree

635
01:01:23.239 --> 01:01:30.880
into the afterlife? It is my
understanding that the ruler is the personification of

636
01:01:30.920 --> 01:01:36.440
the tree. He is that living
conduit. He is the one who can

637
01:01:36.880 --> 01:01:40.480
speak to the gods and the upper
levels, and if there were a need

638
01:01:40.559 --> 01:01:44.280
to be in the lower levels.
Of course, in the Mayan, an

639
01:01:44.320 --> 01:01:49.920
Aztec and several of these Central American
traditions, I don't know why anybody wanted

640
01:01:49.960 --> 01:01:52.039
to go there. But by the
same token, I don't know anybody why

641
01:01:52.079 --> 01:01:57.760
anybody would want to go to hall
in Eddrasill for that matter. But he

642
01:01:57.880 --> 01:02:07.360
is He is the personificatian of the
Tree of life and the androgynous deity,

643
01:02:07.119 --> 01:02:15.280
primary deity in these Central American traditions. He is that embodiment. He is

644
01:02:15.320 --> 01:02:21.880
your living conduit. That's why he
is so important to leave rituals and to

645
01:02:22.519 --> 01:02:27.119
lead you into battle, because he
is your connection to heaven. He is

646
01:02:27.159 --> 01:02:32.440
your connection to the after life.
His vitality is the vitality of your community.

647
01:02:32.559 --> 01:02:39.039
Yeah, did you see a correlation
between the kings of the Maya and

648
01:02:39.199 --> 01:02:43.920
the pharaohs of Egypt at all?
I'm just trying to think, because I've

649
01:02:43.960 --> 01:02:51.000
been the Egypt quite a few times, and I'm thinking there are representations of

650
01:02:51.039 --> 01:02:58.159
the pharaoh's ascending earth to the afterlife, But i don't think I remember a

651
01:02:58.280 --> 01:03:02.559
tree being involved. But I'm sure
there must be symbology that you've discovered that

652
01:03:04.159 --> 01:03:12.360
relate to the pharaoh transitioning physical life
into the spiritual life. The pharaoh does

653
01:03:12.440 --> 01:03:15.920
transition, and if you read the
Egyptian Book of the Dead, that is

654
01:03:16.000 --> 01:03:22.800
your game plan for how to get
through the afterworld so that you can then

655
01:03:23.360 --> 01:03:31.480
ride with raw on the sunboat going
through the daily cycles and if you needed

656
01:03:31.519 --> 01:03:37.440
to at any point come back to
your place of risk where your body was

657
01:03:37.079 --> 01:03:45.760
mummified and your spirit could reinhabit that
they did not. It's my understanding that

658
01:03:45.079 --> 01:03:52.039
again in the Central American traditions,
the king is the embodiment. He does

659
01:03:52.079 --> 01:03:57.440
not become. He is not the
God. He is the physical conduct.

660
01:03:57.480 --> 01:04:02.679
He's the what we would call an
avatar. Would of of the deities of

661
01:04:02.719 --> 01:04:06.320
the afterlife are the main deity of
the afterlife. Here is the embodiment of

662
01:04:06.360 --> 01:04:11.599
the universe. Tree. In the
Egyptian tradition, you have a tree of

663
01:04:11.760 --> 01:04:14.599
life, a concept of a tree
of life, and it's usually the palm

664
01:04:14.679 --> 01:04:17.480
tree. And again that's a phalic
symbol, so of course that would be

665
01:04:17.519 --> 01:04:26.360
the symbol of life in a masculine
community. And there are the sycamore trees,

666
01:04:27.199 --> 01:04:30.840
the turquoise sycamore trees that you pass
through at some point on your journey,

667
01:04:31.880 --> 01:04:38.159
and nuts greet you there at the
sycamore trees, saying you are welcome.

668
01:04:38.519 --> 01:04:42.440
Partake of my milk, take partake
of the honey and everything that I

669
01:04:42.480 --> 01:04:45.079
can offer you. You are now
one with the sycamore tree. And that

670
01:04:45.159 --> 01:04:50.960
was just another way of saying you
are now immortal and you are allowed passage

671
01:04:51.079 --> 01:05:00.760
into the afterlife. But as far
as the favor was certainly the God's representative

672
01:05:01.440 --> 01:05:05.440
on earth, but not in the
sense at least in my reading of it,

673
01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:12.599
that the Uh in the Mayan and
the aztect traditions, the the leader,

674
01:05:12.800 --> 01:05:21.039
the king of those particular traditions was
the literal embodiment of that energy.

675
01:05:21.199 --> 01:05:28.599
That primary deity Uh, the Pharaoh
is the representative. Now he would become

676
01:05:28.719 --> 01:05:40.000
deified like Ramsey's for instance, or
in Hope becomes deified over time. But

677
01:05:41.159 --> 01:05:46.920
they are humans with the divine connection. They are avatars of the the of

678
01:05:47.119 --> 01:05:51.440
Raw or aman or depends on the
period of time Aman Raw on the case

679
01:05:51.519 --> 01:05:57.199
may be. And it depends on
the dynasty as to what emphasis they put

680
01:05:57.239 --> 01:06:01.440
on which deity. But it's a
slight difference. I suppose it might be

681
01:06:01.480 --> 01:06:05.519
like splitting heres when you get right
down to it. But it seems to

682
01:06:05.519 --> 01:06:13.039
me that one is an avatar on
one is a living embodiment. The books

683
01:06:13.079 --> 01:06:17.599
called under the Sacred Canopy, making
Magic with the mystical trees or the world.

684
01:06:17.639 --> 01:06:21.519
My guest is J. D.
Walker. JD. You talk a

685
01:06:21.519 --> 01:06:27.880
great deal of using magic with these
trees. Let's talk a little bit about

686
01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:34.199
applying personal will, personal energy towards
it. Give us some examples of a

687
01:06:34.199 --> 01:06:41.519
tree and how it is used magically. Well. One that comes to mind

688
01:06:42.119 --> 01:06:47.480
pretty readily is the willow tree.
The willow tree in and it has an

689
01:06:47.480 --> 01:06:57.000
interesting interpretation depending on the nationality.
In the Chinese tradition, it is a

690
01:06:57.039 --> 01:07:01.599
symbol of immortality and eternal. One
of the reasons for that if any of

691
01:07:01.599 --> 01:07:05.199
your folks who are listening our gardeners, you know that it's very easy to

692
01:07:05.239 --> 01:07:10.280
take a stem off of a willow
tree, stick it in the wet ground,

693
01:07:10.320 --> 01:07:17.159
and get it to root, so
it has this wonderful rejuvenating ability to

694
01:07:17.800 --> 01:07:24.960
clone itself. So to speak.
With the Celts, it was not uncommon

695
01:07:25.440 --> 01:07:30.559
to have to take when someone died
and plant a willow tree at the grave,

696
01:07:30.000 --> 01:07:34.639
and the spirit of that ancestor would
be assumed up into the willow tree.

697
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:42.280
Yeah. Yeah, Now, over
time associations in the European traditions,

698
01:07:42.719 --> 01:07:48.599
willow trees frequently have a sorrowful association, maybe because you know, you're planning

699
01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:55.519
trees on dead people's graves and hoping
they migrate into the trees, so you

700
01:07:55.639 --> 01:08:00.559
could you know, it's not uncommon
that they would make that association. But

701
01:08:01.960 --> 01:08:08.119
I like the idea of, particularly
in the pagan community, that the willow

702
01:08:08.159 --> 01:08:14.400
tree is a symbol of reflection.
So she's important. Again, frees get

703
01:08:14.480 --> 01:08:19.039
male and female designations. The willow
tree is female. She is important to

704
01:08:19.680 --> 01:08:24.840
poets, she's important to writers,
she's important to create a people, to

705
01:08:25.079 --> 01:08:31.359
dreamers for that matter, So to
go and meditate under a willow tree is

706
01:08:31.399 --> 01:08:36.119
a good thing I've talked about.
I can't remember if it was in this

707
01:08:36.159 --> 01:08:41.399
book or in my first book.
You can do if you need to do

708
01:08:41.520 --> 01:08:45.319
a little bit of work to get
you some inspiration, taking willow leaves and

709
01:08:45.359 --> 01:08:51.600
combine them with mug to make an
incense to burn while you are just relaxing

710
01:08:51.760 --> 01:08:59.800
and trying to get in touch with
your interviews so that you can be creative,

711
01:09:00.039 --> 01:09:06.479
because again she is very good for
helping to inspire people. Beyond that.

712
01:09:08.079 --> 01:09:13.159
In the book, I mentioned that
it's very appropriate at Beltane. Beltane

713
01:09:13.239 --> 01:09:15.800
is May. It's what most people
would be familiar with as May Day,

714
01:09:15.840 --> 01:09:21.920
the first of May, and it's
that period in the Celtic calendar where the

715
01:09:23.039 --> 01:09:27.920
veil is considered thin, So again
there's that association with death. You can

716
01:09:27.960 --> 01:09:31.319
more easily speak with the spirits at
Beltange and at Solon, Solon being the

717
01:09:31.359 --> 01:09:35.000
association with Halloween. At those two
times the veil is thinness, and that's

718
01:09:35.039 --> 01:09:40.479
the easiest time to be able to
speak with spirits beyond the grave. But

719
01:09:41.239 --> 01:09:46.119
another thing at Beltane is the reinvigoration
of life, so you have Beltane celebrations

720
01:09:46.159 --> 01:09:53.920
of fertility. You can braid willow
branches because they're very pliable, and create

721
01:09:54.279 --> 01:09:57.399
a garland a head crown, and
then you can stick flowers in it.

722
01:09:57.439 --> 01:10:01.159
And you've got a lovely little declaration
that you can use too as you are

723
01:10:01.279 --> 01:10:06.159
going about your festivities. And there
is a very practical things as a gardener

724
01:10:06.600 --> 01:10:11.079
kind of plays on that notion that
we were saying earlier, the Chinese idea

725
01:10:11.159 --> 01:10:15.279
that willow trees are in mortal and
a connection to eachterm of life. If

726
01:10:15.319 --> 01:10:20.119
you take willow leaves, and this
is an old gardening trick, take willis

727
01:10:20.359 --> 01:10:25.119
willow sticks, put them in a
bucket five gallon bucket, build bucket with

728
01:10:25.159 --> 01:10:29.520
water, let it set somewhere in
the sunlight so that it kind of like

729
01:10:29.800 --> 01:10:35.640
cooks or stews or steeps. And
then after that you take the plant material

730
01:10:35.720 --> 01:10:43.119
out and use the water to water
your new vegetable sets in the garden,

731
01:10:44.000 --> 01:10:48.439
or if you've transplanted a tree or
a bush or something planting new things in

732
01:10:48.560 --> 01:10:54.359
your landscape, or if you are
starting new seats, use that willow water

733
01:10:54.800 --> 01:11:00.479
to water those plants because it has
a compound in it that's similar to an

734
01:11:00.479 --> 01:11:04.560
effect to the routine that you use
in the garden. So if you're a

735
01:11:04.560 --> 01:11:10.680
gardener, you're familiar with taking a
powder called routine and dipping a stem or

736
01:11:10.720 --> 01:11:15.600
something in it and then planting it, and that is that encourages root development.

737
01:11:15.880 --> 01:11:20.840
You can get the same effect with
using this willow tea and again you

738
01:11:21.000 --> 01:11:28.399
use that. You can use that
in ceremonial activities where you're encouraging new growth.

739
01:11:29.399 --> 01:11:35.079
Where you're encouraging new development. We
do something in the pagan community in

740
01:11:35.119 --> 01:11:41.119
some traditions where before someone comes into
circle or comes into a ritual, you

741
01:11:41.319 --> 01:11:46.319
expurge them. You you sprinkle water
on them, and frequently it is done

742
01:11:46.520 --> 01:11:51.319
with oils, essential oils that are
appropriate to the season, well at beltane

743
01:11:51.439 --> 01:11:55.479
or any of the growing seasons.
If you wanted to use this willow water

744
01:11:55.680 --> 01:12:01.600
again to encourage that creativity, that
new growth, that a vigorousness, for

745
01:12:01.720 --> 01:12:05.279
lack of a better word, that's
a good way to use the willow tree

746
01:12:06.920 --> 01:12:12.760
to help bring that magic into your
life. Talk a little bit as we

747
01:12:12.880 --> 01:12:21.399
conclude JD on how to use trees
for healing. In other words, I'm

748
01:12:21.399 --> 01:12:27.520
talking about emotional healing. People go
to like I go and try to hike

749
01:12:27.680 --> 01:12:30.239
or walk in local nature a couple
of times a week, just because it's

750
01:12:30.279 --> 01:12:36.439
rejuvenating. I feel a connection to
Earth and Gaya. But if somebody is

751
01:12:36.680 --> 01:12:43.319
having depression and sadness and they just
can't get out of their funk and they

752
01:12:43.359 --> 01:12:46.520
go out and they're in an area
with trees, what would you suggest to

753
01:12:46.560 --> 01:12:51.640
them to connect with gaya? And
how do we use trees? Well,

754
01:12:53.359 --> 01:12:57.199
there is a something out there that
some of your folks may or may not

755
01:12:57.319 --> 01:13:02.960
have heard about called four bathing.
Uh. It's a there's a Japanese term

756
01:13:03.039 --> 01:13:09.720
for it, but it became popular
or in the nineties as a concept that

757
01:13:09.800 --> 01:13:14.279
we brought over from Japan. And
it wasn't that they invented this. Everybody,

758
01:13:14.479 --> 01:13:16.920
not anybody. A lot of people
understood that this was a thing.

759
01:13:16.960 --> 01:13:20.720
They just didn't have a term for
it. So we call it these days,

760
01:13:20.720 --> 01:13:29.760
we call it forest bathing. Where
this in this situation, ideally you

761
01:13:29.800 --> 01:13:32.680
would go to a park. In
my case, I've got several little walking

762
01:13:32.720 --> 01:13:43.039
trails around the house here. Just
to get into a wooded environment begins to

763
01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:46.880
lower your levels of stress. It
just naturally will do it. There's some

764
01:13:47.520 --> 01:13:51.600
people say it's because the ion exchange. You have a lot of negative ions

765
01:13:51.640 --> 01:13:55.920
there, so that helps to kind
of calm you down. Some people think

766
01:13:55.960 --> 01:13:59.439
it's the earthy smells that you just
have to get. You may not be

767
01:13:59.520 --> 01:14:02.239
terribly aware of them. Usually we
don't notice them until there's a low front

768
01:14:02.439 --> 01:14:08.079
coming in and that would see humusy
smell that you get. That's because the

769
01:14:08.399 --> 01:14:11.960
odors are being held close to the
ground, and that way you're more aware

770
01:14:11.960 --> 01:14:15.479
of them. They're always there,
but regardless, when you go out into

771
01:14:15.479 --> 01:14:21.720
that wooded environment, you inhale those
and those smells begin to calm you down,

772
01:14:23.279 --> 01:14:29.319
begin to help you to feel more
relaxed when you go into these environments.

773
01:14:29.760 --> 01:14:32.000
It's wonderful if you can find a
place where you're comfortable sitting down,

774
01:14:32.079 --> 01:14:35.760
take a towel with you, take
a blanket, if you will have a

775
01:14:35.880 --> 01:14:41.319
place where you can set up a
permanent place and put a bench or chair

776
01:14:41.359 --> 01:14:45.359
out there in a wooded area close
to your home where you can sit down

777
01:14:45.439 --> 01:14:51.560
and literally take your shoes off and
be in contact with the ground. I

778
01:14:51.640 --> 01:14:56.359
have a lot of folks that come
to ritual who, regardless at the time

779
01:14:56.399 --> 01:14:59.119
of year, how hot or cold
it is out there, whether the ground

780
01:14:59.199 --> 01:15:01.840
is wet or dry, whatever,
they feel like they have to have their

781
01:15:01.880 --> 01:15:06.720
shoes off in order to make that
connection. And again there is some mundane

782
01:15:08.199 --> 01:15:14.520
scientific rationale for the exchange of ions
and energy where your feet are touching the

783
01:15:14.560 --> 01:15:18.960
ground. And interestingly, from a
nerbology standpoint, if you want to get

784
01:15:19.079 --> 01:15:24.279
something into someone's system, quickly do
a foot set, because you have more

785
01:15:24.279 --> 01:15:28.880
receptors on the bottom of your feet
than just about anywhere else except perhaps the

786
01:15:29.000 --> 01:15:32.600
palms of your hand, so you
can absorb that. And when you get

787
01:15:32.640 --> 01:15:36.760
into that environment, you don't.
I think some people when you say do

788
01:15:36.800 --> 01:15:42.319
a meditation, they immediately tense up
and come, I don't know anything about

789
01:15:42.319 --> 01:15:46.239
meditations. You don't have to set
down, set on the ground, set

790
01:15:46.279 --> 01:15:54.079
on a chair, and just breathe
deep breaths in and out. Listen,

791
01:15:54.159 --> 01:15:58.840
what are you Here's the wind moving
through the trees. Are the birds chirping?

792
01:16:00.039 --> 01:16:04.359
Do you hear insects? Is there
water running nearby? Is there just

793
01:16:04.439 --> 01:16:11.720
something scampering over here? Mouse running
through the leaves. You take your mind

794
01:16:11.840 --> 01:16:16.439
away from whatever it is that's stressing
you, whether it's work or a relationship.

795
01:16:17.560 --> 01:16:24.840
You let your mind come away from
that. There used to be and

796
01:16:24.880 --> 01:16:28.640
I can't remember now where I first
came across it. Someone told me that

797
01:16:28.800 --> 01:16:31.600
the best way to solve a problem
is to stop thinking about it, push

798
01:16:31.600 --> 01:16:36.439
it down, take your mind off
of it, let your subconscious work on

799
01:16:36.560 --> 01:16:42.000
it and present possible solutions to you. Well, it's hard to do that

800
01:16:42.079 --> 01:16:45.000
if you're sitting there going, oh
golly, I'm gonna go at this workload.

801
01:16:45.039 --> 01:16:47.079
I've got to get this thing done, and then there's this other deadline.

802
01:16:47.119 --> 01:16:50.560
I've got to how I'm gonna get
it all up. Take your mind

803
01:16:50.640 --> 01:16:56.039
off of it. If nothing else, it gives you a brief spell where

804
01:16:56.039 --> 01:17:00.520
you can say, I can do
this. It's not going to be pleasant

805
01:17:00.560 --> 01:17:06.720
to get through this particular knot of
conflicting schedules and people yammering at me from

806
01:17:06.720 --> 01:17:12.119
both sides, but I can get
through this if I can just have a

807
01:17:12.119 --> 01:17:15.119
few minutes to myself and relax.
And when you do that, particularly when

808
01:17:15.119 --> 01:17:19.520
you do it on a regular basis, I think that you find that you

809
01:17:19.600 --> 01:17:24.479
begin to get an innerst piece and
you can take that back to your work

810
01:17:24.560 --> 01:17:30.439
environment or home environment with you to
tap into as those things begin to crawl

811
01:17:30.600 --> 01:17:34.600
right back up on you and start
demanding your attention again, Okay, I'm

812
01:17:34.640 --> 01:17:40.800
back under the tree that things canna
be Okay, you do that on a

813
01:17:40.840 --> 01:17:45.720
regular basis, and that's how you
make that connection with Guya if you call

814
01:17:45.800 --> 01:17:50.960
her Gaia, or with nature or
with the divine, however you interpret it.

815
01:17:51.479 --> 01:17:56.159
I love that remedy, JD.
Getting No. I mean I always

816
01:17:56.159 --> 01:18:00.479
say, get out of nature.
Everything else will resolve itself. The big

817
01:18:00.520 --> 01:18:04.560
issue though, is to leave your
phone in your car. That's my problems.

818
01:18:04.800 --> 01:18:09.159
I take my damn iPhone with me
because I'm always looking at it.

819
01:18:09.560 --> 01:18:12.920
You're gonna leave that alone because that
just makes it a big mess. So

820
01:18:13.479 --> 01:18:17.439
yeah, that that's a source of
a lot of our anxiety these Days's exactly.

821
01:18:17.720 --> 01:18:21.000
The book is Under the Cannaby,
Under the Secret a Cannamy. My

822
01:18:21.039 --> 01:18:26.920
guest has been j D. Walker. Uh, give us your your website,

823
01:18:27.000 --> 01:18:31.359
j D. And anything else that
we can use to have people contact

824
01:18:31.399 --> 01:18:35.920
you or get a sense of where
you're going to be speaking or how how

825
01:18:35.960 --> 01:18:42.479
how they can interact with you.
You can reach out to me at roadside

826
01:18:42.560 --> 01:18:46.039
magic dot com and that is magic
with a K H. Tagan spell Magic

827
01:18:46.439 --> 01:18:53.159
mg c K dot com. Uh. You can find me on Facebook at

828
01:18:53.239 --> 01:19:00.279
House of Acasto Gso generally speaking,
that's the best way to get in touch

829
01:19:00.359 --> 01:19:05.399
with me either one of those two
ways. And the books are available of

830
01:19:05.439 --> 01:19:10.279
course through Llewellyn dot com. Just
came out in May, so this book's

831
01:19:10.520 --> 01:19:14.960
available. I saw it on Amazon's
book and yes, Amazon is another good

832
01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:17.159
place to get it. Please leave
me a review if you find that you

833
01:19:17.239 --> 01:19:21.800
liked either one of them, right, you would really appreciate that. Are

834
01:19:21.840 --> 01:19:26.680
you on YouTube? Are you talking
on you should give videos at all?

835
01:19:26.800 --> 01:19:32.319
Again, I am a I am
a very bad technopagan. I am trying.

836
01:19:33.600 --> 01:19:36.159
I am trying to get better at
that. If I get to that

837
01:19:36.279 --> 01:19:43.319
point, it would be on the
roadside magic or at the house of Akasha

838
01:19:43.520 --> 01:19:46.800
Gso okay, J. D.
Walker A real pleasure. This is a

839
01:19:46.800 --> 01:19:53.039
fascinating book and we could spend a
whole day talking about the different aspects that

840
01:19:53.079 --> 01:19:57.520
you presented in it. But real
fun read. Thank you, Thank you

841
01:19:57.640 --> 01:20:05.439
very much. I do appreciate the
invitation to come on your podcasts. I

842
01:20:05.560 --> 01:20:11.439
was thinking after this interview, it's
like we take trees for granted. We

843
01:20:11.560 --> 01:20:16.159
really do here in northern California.
I mean, I'm a native and I'm

844
01:20:16.199 --> 01:20:20.640
at fault for this too. Not
pain enough attention. I really felt the

845
01:20:20.720 --> 01:20:29.920
pain last year though, because we
had just unprecedented firestorms that burned millions of

846
01:20:29.960 --> 01:20:35.760
acres, and you know, it's
it's funny because a lot of environment mentalists

847
01:20:35.920 --> 01:20:41.399
believe that the trees are our lungs, our planets lungs, and when we

848
01:20:41.479 --> 01:20:45.239
lose that many trees, it's devastating. And you know, people on the

849
01:20:45.359 --> 01:20:49.720
East coast of the United States have
been suffering, especially up around New York

850
01:20:49.760 --> 01:20:55.399
and some of the states that border
Canada. And there's been this big,

851
01:20:55.520 --> 01:21:03.520
huge Canadian fire that's burned millions of
acres of old growth, but the pollution

852
01:21:03.560 --> 01:21:10.079
has been terrible, so and it's
just really sad that we lose these trees.

853
01:21:10.239 --> 01:21:15.600
They you know, one hundred,
two hundred and three hundred and older

854
01:21:15.720 --> 01:21:20.960
trees. To lose those is a
devastations. So I've become more sensitive to

855
01:21:21.000 --> 01:21:27.359
the whole tree, the whole story
of trees and their importance. And I

856
01:21:27.359 --> 01:21:31.880
think it's fascinating that they are on
some levels, they have a consciousness,

857
01:21:31.880 --> 01:21:35.319
you know, to be able to
share their water, share their food,

858
01:21:36.039 --> 01:21:43.520
pass on hormones and other elements of
life to one another. I love that,

859
01:21:44.359 --> 01:21:46.640
you know, and I also believe
that at some point, and I

860
01:21:46.720 --> 01:21:51.640
say this every time some amit kids
going to invent a scanning device that can

861
01:21:51.720 --> 01:21:59.399
scan the life force, the oric
fields, the chakras, the energy feels

862
01:21:59.399 --> 01:22:03.680
that are sisters knew about and be
able to tell that these trees are are

863
01:22:03.760 --> 01:22:11.000
actual living beans. People say that
casually, Well, they're living entities,

864
01:22:11.039 --> 01:22:15.600
they're living beans. I think they
really are. How far are they assentient?

865
01:22:16.880 --> 01:22:23.600
Now, that would be a trip. If you discovered that your trees,

866
01:22:23.680 --> 01:22:30.039
your neighboring neighboring trees, were aware
of you and could respond in some

867
01:22:30.199 --> 01:22:33.640
manner, that would be a trip. That would be just a plaining trip.

868
01:22:34.520 --> 01:22:39.920
I mean you would. I mean
if I went out and I hung

869
01:22:39.920 --> 01:22:44.239
out with my favorite trees and I
knew that they were able to respond,

870
01:22:45.439 --> 01:22:50.359
and we're taking in the information.
Oh, it changes the whole dynamic,

871
01:22:51.039 --> 01:22:57.720
you know, it just it just
changes the whole dynamic. So get that

872
01:22:57.760 --> 01:23:02.680
book just came out under the Sacred
Canopy J. D. Walker. That

873
01:23:02.840 --> 01:23:09.840
was fun. Hey, we are
coming to the end of summer, but

874
01:23:09.960 --> 01:23:15.880
that means that the fall is fast
approaching and we have some tours that are

875
01:23:15.880 --> 01:23:18.640
coming up. We have our we
have our Mexico tour, which is the

876
01:23:19.199 --> 01:23:26.479
it's called the Maya of Tabasco and
Chiapis. It is a one week tour

877
01:23:26.560 --> 01:23:30.880
from November tenth to the seventeenth.
We have a few spots left, and

878
01:23:30.920 --> 01:23:33.399
this is going to be led by
Ed Barnhardt, who's in Mayanas. He's

879
01:23:33.439 --> 01:23:41.159
also an archaeologist, and we're gonna
see Polank, Bottom Pack, we're gonna

880
01:23:41.159 --> 01:23:45.920
see Leventab, We're gonna see a
whole bunch of Mayan sights, and we're

881
01:23:45.920 --> 01:23:50.399
gonna see it from the eyes of
an of our archaeologist who's excavated many of

882
01:23:50.439 --> 01:23:55.319
these places, and that's really really
cool. He's even promised to take us

883
01:23:55.359 --> 01:24:00.000
to some of the back areas of
Plank Is a ruin of the Crown Jewel

884
01:24:00.039 --> 01:24:03.239
rules of the ancient Maya, and
I've never been there. I'm looking forward

885
01:24:03.319 --> 01:24:05.720
to it. So if you want
to come out and join us, we

886
01:24:05.840 --> 01:24:11.600
have a few spots left. Go
to Earth Ancients dot com, forward slash

887
01:24:11.680 --> 01:24:17.920
tours t O U R S and
look for the banner for Mexico and November.

888
01:24:18.399 --> 01:24:23.560
Click on it and you'll see the
entire itinerary. If you have any

889
01:24:23.640 --> 01:24:30.000
questions whatsoever on any of our tours, send me an email to Earth Ancients.

890
01:24:30.039 --> 01:24:33.399
The number four of the letter U
at gmail dot com and I'll get

891
01:24:33.479 --> 01:24:39.199
right back to you as soon as
I can. We just announced our Egypt

892
01:24:39.279 --> 01:24:44.319
tour. It's going to be April
twenty eighth May ninth, two weeks of

893
01:24:44.439 --> 01:24:50.119
amazing visuals and details, and that's
going to be an amazing tour. It

894
01:24:50.159 --> 01:24:53.800
always is. Every year we change
it up a little bit. We add

895
01:24:53.800 --> 01:24:58.680
some new sites, some new visits, and it is world class. That

896
01:24:58.800 --> 01:25:03.359
tour is also to be found on
Earth Ancients dot com forward slash Tours and

897
01:25:03.479 --> 01:25:08.880
guess what, we have a new
tour. I'm gonna mention it quickly because

898
01:25:08.920 --> 01:25:12.359
we have a lot of people that
want to come. It's our first annual

899
01:25:12.800 --> 01:25:18.600
trip to Ancient Turkey and we all
fly into Istanbul just two weeks with Muhammed

900
01:25:19.760 --> 01:25:24.039
Embrym, and he's also going to
have a couple of other people that we're

901
01:25:24.079 --> 01:25:29.000
going to take us to Darren Kuru, the Underground City, Go Beckley Teppi,

902
01:25:29.600 --> 01:25:33.239
Carahan Teppi. We're gonna see a
number of ancient sites. We're gonna

903
01:25:33.239 --> 01:25:36.920
see a ton of stuff. You
should see the itinerary. It's not out

904
01:25:38.000 --> 01:25:41.279
yet, but if you want to
come, send me an email because we're

905
01:25:41.279 --> 01:25:44.439
only going to take a handful of
people on this one. It's gonna be

906
01:25:45.199 --> 01:25:48.800
August twenty twenty four, and we'll
give you more details. If you want

907
01:25:48.800 --> 01:25:53.960
to come, send me an email
just for you at gmail dot com and

908
01:25:54.000 --> 01:25:58.680
I'll get right back to you.
It's funny because I already have I think

909
01:25:58.680 --> 01:26:01.439
we're already have full We've been talking
about Turkey for a couple of years now,

910
01:26:01.479 --> 01:26:05.319
and everyone's kind of going, don't
tease us, we want to come.

911
01:26:06.640 --> 01:26:11.359
Our Earth Ancients tours are world class. All that's all I can say.

912
01:26:11.399 --> 01:26:15.680
They're very inexpensive and you see a
ton of stuff and I get to

913
01:26:15.680 --> 01:26:17.680
hang out with you too, which
is kind of fun. So send me

914
01:26:17.720 --> 01:26:21.479
an email if you want to go
to Turkey or you want more information Earth

915
01:26:21.520 --> 01:26:27.960
Ancients for you at gmail dot com. Hey, I love touring. I

916
01:26:28.000 --> 01:26:30.000
love hanging out with you guys,
and it's a chance to get me out

917
01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:35.520
of the studio, into the seat
of a plane and into another country.

918
01:26:35.560 --> 01:26:40.399
I love it. I love seeing
the world. So come out, come

919
01:26:40.399 --> 01:26:44.239
on and join me. All right, that's it for today's program. I

920
01:26:44.239 --> 01:26:47.720
want to thank my guest today,
J D. Walker, coming from North

921
01:26:47.760 --> 01:26:54.840
Carolina. And it's funny because she
was reminding me of the landscape there,

922
01:26:55.359 --> 01:26:59.159
and I have a really good friend
there. So debo Kimsie, if you're

923
01:26:59.199 --> 01:27:02.479
listening, I need to come out
and visit. I hope you're doing well

924
01:27:03.279 --> 01:27:09.000
all right. As always, the
team of Ruth Thomas, Mark Foster and

925
01:27:09.520 --> 01:27:14.800
Chris Hazel thank you for your help. You guys rock all right. Take

926
01:27:14.800 --> 01:27:16.560
care of you well and we will
talk to you next time.