The Ivy Labyrinth
'Life from eternal life'
A few evenings ago, as dusk descended, I visited the huge tree towering over our back garden - easily the largest in the neighbourhood. I marvelled at the labyrinth of dead ivy vines clinging to the trunk, a pattern map… a dimensional Ogham1 maze. This Sycamore, a strong, conscious being, a protective anchor. Could I decipher the code, the infinite mystery? I touched the bark, ants ran over my hand, the leaves whispered.
“To the Druidic mind, trees are sentient beings… The Celts believed a tree’s presence could be felt more keenly at night or after a heavy rain… There is a special word for this recognition of sentience, mothaitheacht.” Diana Beresford-Kroeger
I felt the power of the tree, roots of life force, a magnetic river of earth, water and air. Should I sleep under it, my dreams would contain subterranean conversations from a being far older and intricately connected to the natural world than I. A flowing alchemical discourse, pulsing with green earth rhythms, disclosing hidden knowledge. One listens differently to trees, the internal beat, the creak and crack of branches, to the flutter and sigh of leaves, no words needed in this elemental communion.
As I write, our forests are burning at an unprecedented level, poisoned and disregarded by many. Until we all befriend the natural world, trees and wildlife, and respect and protect our precious organic family, we risk losing some of the wisest council on this planet, as well as beings actively helping and engendering our survival.
Breath is life for us.
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone… Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life…” - Herman Hesse from Wandering
“Ogham or Beth-Luis-Nuinn alphabet, a secretive hieratic Druid alphabet limited to mnemonic learning by question and answer and embodying special symbolic uses. In use from about 600BC to about 700AD and hidden in the monasteries of the early Celtic, or Culdee, church. The use of this alphabet was symbolic and not used for speech or writing in the modern sense of the words. Instead, each letter had a host of ideas and thoughts centred around it relating to Celtic cosmology and philosophy.” – From The Celtic Tree Oracle, A System of Divination by Liz and Colin Murray
Words & Photographic Art: ©C. Stringall 2026 - Video: ©Sunn Creative - Music: ESP Project
String lives in the UK – and holds a BA in Sociology/Arts and a Hazardous Materials Management Certificate from the University of California at Davis. An independent business owner since 1993 she currently owns the indie imprint music label - Sunn Creative. She coined the term ‘Creative Alchemy’ in the early 90’s illustrating her love of the transformational aspects of the Arts, Science, Parapsychology, Metaphysics, Health and Nature. ‘Dust in Your Eye’ is an extension of her, popular, but now retired, Creative Alchemy blog.
She is a Druid with the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD)