Oh little Blackthorn you happily 
Gleam with your striking flower
Brightening up the days when the 
Sun is only waking.
Soon the other thorn will
take over your mantle.
But for now - It's your time. 

The Trailblazer
March 18 - April 14
If you are an Alder sign within the Ogham tree astrology system, you are a natural-born pathfinder. You’re a mover and a shaker, and will blaze a trail with fiery passion often gaining loyal followers to your cause. You are charming, gregarious and mingle easily with a broad mix of personalities. In other words, Alder signs get along with everybody and everybody loves to hang around with you. This might be because Alders are easily confident and have a strong self-faith. This self-assurances is infectious and other people recognize this quality in you instantly. Alder Ogham tree astrology signs are very focused and dislike waste. Consequently, they can see through superficiality and will not tolerate fluff. Alder people place high value on their time, and feel that wasting time is insufferable. They are motivated by action and results. Alders pair well with Hawthorns, Oaks or even Birch signs.
Under the Elm,
Ian
www.oghamtrees.com

 Welcome to the Spring or Vernal Equinox
Equinoxes are the other half of the solstices - when there are equal hours of light and dark. The word equinox is Latin for "equal night". The vernal equinox is the real beginning of spring. Each day the light will grow giving everything hope! The Druids recognized that the Gorse is a voracious light seeker and governed this time of the yearly cycle.
They also understood it was an opportunistic plant, observing the seeds flinging off the parent (mostly on the warmest, brightest days) distancing themselves as far as possible in order to begin a new colony free to have more sun to themselves without the crowding branches of the parent nearby.
We may translate this behavior in our own lives when we feel we are being overshadowed or staunched into a certain pigeon hole. It may be time to leap out on our own and find our own sunny trails. When conformity becomes the norm, the Gorse reminds us to always seek the higher road, the path of light.The bright golden flowers come most strongly around this time so the hillsides do indeed seem to burn with gold. The flowers blossom just in time to feed the newly woken bees - and bees are sun-beings and spirit carriers.
For the deeper delvers - The GORSE Oracle says - It’s time to gather your thoughts and come to a better understanding of your resources. You might be trying to force an issue – Transformation happens when you least expect it.
Yours under the Elm,
Ian
www.oghamtrees.com

You flourish in constant cycles -
grow in tender times.
You reach for the heavens -
touching the farthest stars.
You whisper in the wind -
speaking to the silent beings.
You thread softly in your mother -
awakening to her love.

You will often find a faery Tree at an ancient site, or a holy well. They are usually hawthorn trees, but not always. People leave prayers, gifts or a personal token of some kind attached to the trees branches in the hope of receiving healing, or good fortune, or having their prayer answered. 

The lone hawthorn standing in the middle of a field is also treated with much respect, and some suspicion by farming communities. Whilst it was thought to be auspicious, bringing good fortune and prosperity to the landowner, it was also thought to belong to the magical faery folk of the Otherworld, the Sidhe. As such, it was never to be cut or harmed for fear of bringing their wrath upon the perpetrator.

But how did the hawthorn come to be regarded as a fairy tree? Well, maybe because it flowers in the Spring, it was associated with the festival of Bealtaine, a sacred time to the ancient Irish and to the Sidhe.

In Irish, the hawthorn is known as Sceach Gheal, from sceach meaning ‘thornbush/ briar’ and geal meaning ‘bright/ lumnious/ radiant’. According to the ancient Brehon Law, it was classified as a Peasant tree. In Ogham,  the Tree Alphabet, the hawthorn is represented by the sixth symbol called Huath (pronounced Hoo-ah).

According to Druidry.org, this is what can happen when one destroys a fairy tree…
“Earlier in this century, a construction firm ordered the felling of a fairy thorn on a building site in Downpatrick, Ulster. The foreman had to do the deed himself, as all of his workers refused. When he dug up the root, hundreds of white mice – supposed to be the faeries themselves – ran out, and while the foreman was carting away the soil in a barrow, a nearby horse shied, crushing him against a wall and resulting in the loss of one of his legs.
“Even as recently as 1982, workers in the De Lorean car plant in Northern Ireland claimed that one of the reasons the business had so many problems was because a faery thorn bush had been disturbed during the construction of the plant. The management took this so seriously that they actually had a similar bush brought in and planted with all due ceremony!”

Consider yourself warned!

Yours under the Elm,

Ian 
www.oghamtrees.com