I had wanted to connect further with a very old Faery Tree that I found in the middle of a wood two years ago. For my birthday at the end of August, some friends came over and we went for a walk on the heath and in the woods, and I showed them this wonderful tree. Not long after, something happened to the tree. I had been in those woods since it happened, but didn’t visit the tree, as I was filming for a video in specific locations and so I had no idea what was going on.

I subsequently had the strangest experiences with the trees in the wood. For the first time ever, I felt anger, at me, and I didn’t know why. As I walked down a path I heard a sharp crack, and looked up to see a tree leaning over and about to fall on me, coming down, down… I jumped and began to run out of the way, and then stopped when there was nothing but silence. I looked back up and the tree was still there, standing tall, and not coming down. The trees were angry.

I left the wood, completely bewildered and wondering what I had done. Why were the trees angry with me? We’d always had a special, magical relationship. But then a week later when I went to visit the Faery Tree, it had been cut down. It had been slowly dying already, for it was an old tree, and the drought this summer and last summer did not do it any favours. But still, it was alive, still strong and not posing a threat.

And then, a week later, when I went to visit it, I saw it had been cut down by the landowner.

Numb, I continued on my way. I couldn’t deal with this just yet. It was too much. Two weeks later, I knew I had to make reparation, and so went out with my offering pouch and some mead. I circled the tree and gave my offerings, and I laid my hand upon the newly sawn wood. There, wood lice were crawling, and I knew that there was always life in different forms. Without death there cannot be life. But this death was still untimely, and a blow to the soul of the wood.

The trees were no longer angry with me. There were no more threats. Only sadness, a deep lingering loss of the magical opening between the worlds that this tree provided. But there are others in that wood, not as old, and not as deep within the wood. Not as hidden. Not as “special”. Perhaps one day one will be, taking over as a portal between the realms. Until then, I vowed to wait until the magic returned.

What was lost can be found again. After a horrific breakdown soon afterwards, I stood outside in the dark of night with the full moon hanging over the beech tree as I tried to gather up the pieces of my soul. A fox screamed into the night, and I wished that I too could scream into the dark shadows. I then heard the sound of trotting paws, and down the path to my right something was going down to the garden. I could see the shadow, dark in the moonlight, unilluminated. Snuffing, snuffing everywhere, around the pond, stopping, drinking, snuffing, under the beech tree, looking for nuts. Back to the pond, drinking, and then noticing I was standing there on the patio, watching. The fox came up to the bottom of the steps, and watched me. We stood there for a while, and then it left, through the hole in the hedge at the bottom of the garden, where all the creatures, magical and mundane, used to come through.

And the magic returned.