Introducing the Ogham of the Northeast

I grew up in the shade of a truly majestic white oak. When I was a kid, the local science museum did a survey of trees in the area and we were told that it was the second largest/oldest tree in our county. (Since that survey, which was done in the mid-90s, there was a news story about the oldest tree in the county dying, and while I wouldn’t celebrate the death of another majestic tree, it wasn’t lost on my mom and I that this theoretically means our tree is now the very largest, the very oldest.) 

As a child, this gave me the absolute right to brag about my tree on the playground. Yes, Andy, my tree is bigger than your tree, scientists even said so! But I think it also shaped something about my relationship with trees. For other kids, maybe, trees were things for climbing and playing on. My tree was far too big for any of that — its lowest branch is about 45 feet off the ground! — and it was something that I lamented a little as a kid, actually. I wouldn’t have put it like this at the time, but it felt like I couldn’t have a relationship with my tree the way I wanted, or the way others did. It was majestic, but it was also kind of… imposing. I didn’t exist on the same scale as my tree, and it was part of a totally different world way up there. But in retrospect, I did have a relationship with my oak. It was a constant in my life. It demonstrated something to me about stability and strength. It watched over me. 

Today, my relationship with trees is very strong and I spend a lot of time with them. I think of trees as companions—quiet and steadfast and patient—who overlook sacred spaces of rest and contemplation. So I suppose that’s what my oak taught me about how to engage with trees.

I could wax poetical about how much I love trees all day (and now that I have this blog, I likely will in the future) but what I really want to do is introduce my project and how I hope this blog will help it along.

To understand what I’m trying to accomplish with the Ogham of the Northeast, you first need to know something about the traditional Ogham. Keep in mind that this is a very cursory overview of an extremely rich and interesting topic that one could easily spend their entire life studying.

here's what ogham stone inscriptions look like!

Ogham, originally, was an ancient alphabet used in Ireland, generally around the 4th to 10th centuries. We know about it and how it was used for writing because we have found rocks (called ogham stones) with inscriptions of it, but we don’t have the full context of the early Irish language that it was used to write, because most of the ogham stones we’ve discovered are just names of people or places. Each letter in the alphabet is associated with a particular species of tree, and it’s this association that has kept ogham relevant into modern times. It has spawned a divination system, not entirely unlike tarot cards or the I-ching, where each letter has divinatory meaning that is derived from the qualities and history and folklore of its corresponding type of tree.

For me, working with ogham spiritually was a no-brainer; I’m a neopagan with a love for trees and a deep spiritual connection with the part of Ireland that my ancestors are from. But the more I worked with the trees of the ogham alphabet, the more I realized that having a spiritual connection with a place just isn’t the same as having a physical connection with it. The way I like to work with trees is by spending time and sharing space and breath with them, and many of the traditional ogham trees aren’t common or even aren’t found at all where I live, in the American Northeast, so there would always be gaps in my understanding. I’d also never be able to make my own set of ogham staves, because traditionally each one is made out of a stick of its corresponding wood. I own a very nice set of staves, made by someone in the British Isles where all the ogham trees are common, but I was enchanted by the idea of someday making my own set, using only wood from trees that I personally know and have a relationship with.

Then I got to thinking about this same problem, but in reverse. Okay, so there were non-native trees in the original ogham that I didn’t feel connected with. But there are also native trees that aren’t in the original ogham that I do feel connected with! Where I live, it feels difficult and almost silly to engage with trees without acknowledging the prominent role of the maple in particular, and also the white pine—they’re just too important to my culture here in America to overlook. Getting to know trees is such a big part of getting to know a place, of listening to the land speak, as it were. So at first, ogham was a way for me to connect with the place of my ancestors, which is, of course, cool and worthwhile. But eventually I realized I had a deep craving to connect with my own here and now: the land on which I live, the community of which I am a part of. 

So that’s the point at which the idea for the project was really born. Originally I was calling it the Ogham of Buffalo—that’s where I’m from, and I was thinking about it at the time as a project just for myself and my own practice. (I have a personal spiritual ethos that I’ve been gradually compiling as a sort of private, one-person religion; it’s a bit out of scope for this discussion but it’s something I’ll probably talk about more in the future.) But Buffalo, NY doesn’t have its own unique ecosystem; the trees I’m familiar with here are certainly familiar across the American Northeast. And I can’t imagine that I’m the only neopagan in my part of the world who resonates with ogham as a divination practice but wishes they could connect more directly with it in their own natural habitat. And that’s how the Ogham of the Northeast came into being.

This project is a large undertaking—I know that, and I want to be respectful of it. 

I’m 35 and have only recently come to understand the idea of lifelong projects. When I was younger, everything felt like a rush. If I had an idea, I had to do it right away, and if I didn’t do it right away and finish it in a reasonable amount of time, I was giving up on it and failing. If I left it too long, I’d miss my chance and the moment would be gone, lost in the sea of other hobbies and pursuits and ideas I was trying out in my twenties. It feels a little counterintuitive, but now that I’m older, I feel like I have more time. I’ve started, only recently, to identify things that I love that I don’t just want to do for a while, I want to do them for the rest of my life, like letterpress and singing, and fostering my spiritual ethos and how it relates to trees.

I’ve been working on this project for about a year so far, and to be honest, I have very little to show for it. Most of my work at this point has been intellectual. I’ve thought about the project a lot. I’ve spent time with trees in my neighborhood and gotten to know them. I’ve researched tree folklore and taken extensive notes on it. But I haven’t yet made anything. I’m still not even sure what I want this to look like when I do make it. The tentative idea is to create an art book, using as many of my skills in book arts as I can—words that are letterpress printed, images made with cyanotype and risograph, a book bound by me and possibly even using paper that I made myself. That’s extremely ambitious, yes, but I’m comfortable with the idea of working on it over many years, and I’m also comfortable with the vision for the end result changing over time. But because of that, I haven’t done any actual writing yet, because I don’t really know what the vibe or format of the final project will look like, so I’m not sure yet what it will end up including or what the style of writing should be like.

That said, research and notes are valuable, but they don’t give me the sense of making progress that I want. Making progress is motivating, and writing helps me retain information. Even if what I write for the blog is too casual for the eventual book, it will be easier to edit into something usable than raw research notes. Plus, it’s just a good feeling. I want to be able to see my own progress. For a long-term project like this, it’ll be cool to have a record of the process. (As a bonus, I’ll be able to direct people here if they’re interested in the idea, and the blog can show them what it’s all about!) And it’s a good time to start, because I’m doing an artist residency next week in the White Mountains, and I intend to immerse myself in this project during it. Excited!

Anyway, thanks for following along—and hello to future me if you’re the one reading this! I’m looking forward and feeling hopeful.