Excerpt from the chapter "Evergreen" from the Talking Forest

Kenning: Sanctuary, Shelter Significance: Peace, Tranquility, Sleep

The silent evergreens stand guardian in the winter: dark beacons in the white wilderness. When all else is gone, they remain. Overlooked most of the year, Spruce and Fir possess the winter landscape. Hidden within their silence, birds, squirrels and other small animals sleep in safety, perhaps dreaming of the spring to come. Evergreen cones also sleep, closed against the north wind; each scale folded like a blanket over its single treasured seed. There is no artifice about the evergreens: solid, unlovely, unblossomed, unadorned, yet beautiful in their austerity, like the snow-covered world that is their domain....

Within their dense branches, Spruce and Fir offer safety for creatures needing protection from winter's extreme weather. The Evergreen rune thus deals with peace and repose, as well as sanctuary from the excesses of day-to-day living. This rune also represents sleep, for it too is a type sanctuary.

Excerpt from the chapter "Beech" from the Talking Forest

Kenning: Mother, Book Significance: Teacher, Mentor

When you stand beneath Beech, the immense branches barely clear your head. Beech exudes a comforting motherly aura and was made for children of all ages to climb. With her smooth, luminous grey bark and profound shade, Beech calls us to our primal, simian home.

Like any decent mother, Beech has made it her duty to educate her human children. In ancient times, messages and poems were etched upon her smooth trunk, much like a chalkboard. Her pale-coloured wood, easy to work with, was likely the first upon which magical runes were etched and was certainly the first shaped into books. The tree's very name in German, buche, is virtually the same as that for "book" — buch....

Where Birch, the Maiden, deals with learning, Mother Beech represents instruction and mentoring. This is the tree of teaching and memory. More than any other winter silhouette, the naked branches of beech in winter recall the grooves of the human brain.

Excerpt from the chapter "Sumac" from the Talking Forest

Kenning: Horned God Significance: Wilderness, the Natural World

Sumac's phallic pods proclaim this a masculine tree. October and November, when the fruit is fully ripened and the leaves have turned, is Sumac's time of greatest power. These are the months of the Hunter's Moon, when men traditionally took the first of their winter treks to hunt large game as food to sustain the tribe... Gods appropriate to this tree are Pan, the protector of wild creatures, Herne the Hunter and Cernunnos, a Celtic horned god worshipped both as god of fertility and of the Underworld — life and death held in balance...

People of ancient times paid tribute to the animals they ate and used as livestock by attributing to their gods the physical and emotional qualities of domestic and game animals. Hence cow-headed Hathor, goat-footed Pan and the antlered Cernunnos, among many others. The respect First Nations people had for the animals they hunted is well known. Food animals such as bison, deer, turkey and salmon were regarded as mighty totems...