The Magic of Trees: A Guide to Their Sacred Wisdom & Metaphysical Properties - Tess Whitehurst 2017

Pear
The Trees

Cultivated since the most ancient of times, the pear tree (Pyrus) is sacred to Hera, the divine Queen of Greece herself and quite possibly the reigning indigenous goddess of the region before the patriarchy prevailed. Indeed, the pear is a most magical specimen and transports one’s consciousness to the realm of beauty, sweetness, and pure potentiality.

Magical Uses

Cooling the Emotions

In Chinese medicine, pears are considered cooling, and they are used to treat health challenges related to excess heat. On the emotional level, this property of pears can be employed to instantly cool down a hot head and generally help one to “chill.” For this purpose, simply empower a clean pear in moonlight (or envision a cool, receptive, lunar light filling the fruit) and then mindfully eat. Simply spending time in quiet contemplation with a pear tree possesses similar benefits.

Good Spirits

While aligned with the receptive, feminine moon, the pear tree simultaneously possesses a masculine energetic charge. This combo, along with his correspondence with the air element, gives him a uniquely mystical vibration, somewhat like that of the poet William Blake. Blake’s line “Traveller repose & dream among my leaves” is reminiscent of pear’s energetic specialty of holding open a gate to divine perception and being an arboreal channel of divinity.

In Vainakh mythology (of Chechnya), pear trees were worshipped as sacred, because it was believed that divine spirits resided in them. Pear trees indeed possess an otherworldly sweetness, and if a spirit or divinity were in the market for a purely positive physical home, they could certainly do worse than a pear tree. Furthermore, pear wood is used for high quality woodwind instruments and as firewood for smoking tobacco and meats: and this ability to channel the invisible, ethereal air element in tangible ways mirrors the tree’s ability to be a physical home for the elusive realm of spirit.

Paradise

In Homer’s The Odyssey, abundant pears (among other fruit trees) appear in a beautiful, magical orchard outside the idyllic palace of the semidivine King Alcinous:

Therein grow trees, tall and luxuriant, pears and pomegranates and apple-trees with their bright fruit, and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. Of these the fruit perishes not nor fails in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; and ever does the west wind, as it blows, quicken to life some fruits, and ripen others; pear upon pear waxes ripe, apple upon apple, cluster upon cluster, and fig upon fig.

Plant and lovingly care for one or more pear trees in your yard to bless your “kingdom” with a verdant, otherworldly, and paradisiacal presence.

Wands

Pear wood makes excellent wands for a number of reasons. First, it’s highly positive, and its masculine resonance makes for an excellent tool for projecting energy. Second, it’s aligned powerfully with the Divine, so all uses will be blessed with the highest and truest good. Third, its lunar receptivity makes it extremely conducive to energy—upon holding a pear wand, many magical practitioners and energy workers will immediately sense its swift effectiveness.

Magical Correspondences

Element: Air

Gender: Masculine

Planet: Moon