Salix fragilis
Crack Willow
By Carolyn Ramos
Introduction
I first became interested in proving a tree remedy when I heard a talk on the radio by a man who had just written a book on olives. I was struck by the passion with which he had spent several years of his life researching and experiencing a different tree and its fruit, as well as by the culture, history and symbolism surrounding olive trees. Shortly after that, the BBC started to run a series called "Meetings with remarkable trees". I looked up the trees in Boericke and was shocked to discover that major trees, such as the yew tree, have never received a full proving, despite all the folklore surrounding them and their known uses in herbal medicine.
I decided I wanted to prove an English tree, and was intending to do yew. A group of seven willing and enthusiastic provers and supervisors formed itself effortlessly and was ready to start, when I discovered that Jeremy Sherr had already started a proving of yew in Holland. My second choice was willow, and I wanted to prove the common osier which is a flexible bush like plant used for weaving baskets. I had recently met a woman whose livelihood consisted of making live willow sculptures and I was struck by the flexibility of her lifestyle very much like the plant she worked with.
Unfortunately, our group had a deadline due to the commitments of several members after which we could not continue meeting so I ended up choosing, or being chosen by, crack willow because Helios Pharmacy had it ready and available. The concept of drawing the line and accepting the consequences turned out to be important in the proving.
The Substance The Anglo-Saxon wellig from which willow is derived means pliancy. There are many varieties of willow, white, crack, weeping, bay, purple, almond, grey, goat and others. All are indigenous except the weeping willow which was brought from China in the eighteenth century. Almost all varieties are used in basketry, being extremely pliable. The only exception is crack willow in which the branches and twigs snap off easily.
Folkloric Themes
I recommend Jacqueline Memory Paterson's book Tree Wisdom published by Thorsons, which contains a comprehensive section on the folklore of willow. In it, she comments that, as willows grow most commonly along streams and rivers the branches and roots together form a tube or tunnel which are like the venous system of the land. Willows are associated with Water, the Moon, the Underworld and powers of divination. Willow wands are used for dowsing, for druids staffs and for Witches broomsticks. The willow was attributed the power to avert evil. The custom of "knocking on wood" originally comes from the practice of knocking on a willow tree for luck. In pre-Christian times willow was traditionally placed in coffins or planted on the grave, to enable the spirit of the corpse to rise and free it from the body. To 'wear the willow" once meant to grieve. It was a custom for rejected lovers to wear willow in their hats, to attract new love to them and to protect them from jealous thoughts about their lost love. The tree is also associated with fertility and easing childbirth, and in herbal lore is used for the ailments of the newborn and the aged. The bark of the willow contains salycilic acid, which has been used in herbal medicine, and as aspirin in conventional medicine, to relieve the pain of headaches, rheumatism and flu. It is also associated with inspiration, and particularly poetry. There is an ancient tradition that poets would meet in willow groves. Many of the themes in the folklore also came up in the proving.
Death There is a "spookiness" about the tree, which has often been observed, especially in pollarded trees, as they can resemble wild men or hunchbacked women in the dark. There are stories of willows uprooting at night to stalk unwary travellers. During the proving, one couple saw a ghost, and two of the provers made a connection to a sibling who had died in infancy. Fertility One of the supervisors was pregnant when the proving began, two of the women provers became unexpectedly pregnant shortly after the proving, and one of the provers felt as if she was pregnant. Poetry One of the provers joined a creative writing group shortly before the proving and found herself writing pieces that were stranger and darker than the rest of her group.
Jilted Lovers Virtually all the provers experienced some tensions in their primary relationship. Maybe this is common in a proving. The general feeling was one of "drawing the line". Situations that previously had been unresolved but tolerated either became intolerable or spontaneously moved towards a solution. Out of the members of the group who actually took a remedy, one prover's partner started seeing a counsellor to resolve his problems, another couple split up temporarily during the proving, one couple came together and moved in together really quickly, mile couple split up shortly after the proving, one prover nearly started an affair, and another got her partner to discuss the issue of having children, which they had been avoiding for years.
My own seven year marriage, which had appeared very stable, split dramatically and my husband left, a few weeks before the proving group finished meeting, to start a relationship with someone he met the week after the proving started.
Water Whenever l talked to the provers on the phone, and subsequently when we met, I noticed that they were using water metaphors in their speech.
Drifting and floating were common words and there were statements like: "I felt like I was in the prow of a boat going forward through the water."
Several provers had important experiences in swimming pools.
The Moon Menstrual cycles were strongly affected by the proving. However, as only one of the provers was male and he received placebo it is not really possible to confirm, though it seems likely, that there are strong lunar modalities in the remedy.
Themes
Mind Themes of Salix fragilis We decided to arrange the mind symptoms of Salix fragilis in themes that reflect the method of reproduction of the tree: thebranch cracks and splits off, then drifts down the stream, finally finding a home and embeDDing itself in the river bank further downstream and growing into another tree, which, as the branches become heavy, will be liable to crack or split in its turn. Buried Stagnating Secretive Surfacing Tension On the edge Drawing the line SuDDen cracking, splitting and breaking Drifting Swept along Water metaphors Discontented Unheard Alone Coming together Roots