Plant Witchery: Discover the Sacred Language, Wisdom, and Magic of 200 Plants - Juliet Diaz 2020

Maple Acer
A Compendium of Plants

ESSENTIAL PROPERTIES

protection, creativity, abundance, wisdom, balance

The glorious maple tree looks so astonishingly beautiful during fall, my favorite time of year. Her signature branching leaves turn so many different colors, through all shades of yellow, orange, and red. While maple wood is used for many things, including furniture, she’s also a tonewood, meaning she carries sound. This makes her particularly good for crafting a variety of instruments, including violins, cellos, and basses. She is also used to create paper.

MEDICINAL PROPERTIES

We all know and love maple syrup, and it can be very soothing to a sore throat. But the bark from a sugar maple can also be used to make a tea that will calm a cough. Molasses, also made from maple sap, is wonderful to use in cooking, and in horticulture as well—stirring molasses into water mixed with compost makes a hearty drink for your plants.

MAGICAL PROPERTIES

Some Native American tribes, particularly the Algonquins, believe the graceful maple tree represents balance. Her practical and useful nature is offset by her sweetness, and by her beauty. We all need to encompass both pleasure and hard work, and maple is here to help with that. Maple has so much wisdom, particularly when she speaks about the necessity of balancing the heart and the spirit. She wants us to learn who we are and work to balance our truth with “real life.” This is so hard for so many of us, but maple shows us that it is not impossible.

PLANT WISDOM

Are you living your best life? Are you living your life with purpose? For a purpose? Have you figured out the whys to your questions? Maple can help you navigate these important concerns and queries, and when you work directly with her, her wisdom will flow into you. You can sit beneath her branches, or take some of her bark or even maple syrup. If you burn the bark as incense, sit in quiet meditation and allow her to take you exploring. You can also pour maple syrup into your bath (make sure it’s the real stuff, and not the fake pancake syrup), add some bark, and drink maple tea—this bath session will provide a powerful spiritual opening. Keep some of her bark over your front door—or any door for that matter—to repel evil, and if you grow a maple, she will prevent demons and other evil entities from roaming your land. Dreaming of a maple tree symbolizes fertility and abundance, which of course go hand in hand—you can expect abundance in whatever it is you are working to create.