Flower of the Forest
Norse ceremonial work deep in the Sussex woods
Numbers carry power. They are the language through which the universe speaks to us, threading through every sacred system from the ancient runes of Northern Europe to the temple pyramids of the Maya. But sometimes this sacred mathematics reveals itself not in books or cards, but in the raw immediacy of forest ceremony, in the grief of holding a dead bird, in the synchronicities that weave through our days when we're living in alignment with these ancient rhythms.
Let me take you on a journey through the mystical significance of particular numbers—3, 12, and their hidden connections—as they appear across tarot, runic tradition, and Mayan cosmology, and then into the living experience of how these energies manifest in ceremony and life.
The Magic of Three: Creation in Motion
In tarot, the number 3 represents creative energy. Look at the cards: the Three of Cups celebrates community and joy; the Three of Pentacles builds collaborative mastery, while the Three of Swords cuts through illusion with painful truth. Even the Empress herself, Major Arcana III, embodies the ultimate creative force—fertility, abundance, and the nurturing power that brings life into being.
But why is 3 so universally revered as magical?
The answer lies in synthesis. Where 1 represents the initial spark and 2 creates duality and tension, 3 transcends this polarity by creating something entirely new. Think of the triangle—the most stable geometric form. Consider how our stories naturally unfold in three acts, how we instinctively group things in threes (beginning, middle, end), and how spiritual traditions worldwide recognize the sacred triad: maiden-mother-crone, father-son-holy spirit, land-sea-sky.
Three is the number where creation becomes manifest.
The Hidden Three: Ansuz in the Uthark System
When we shift to the runic tradition—specifically the esoteric Uthark system—we find 3 taking on even deeper esoteric meaning. Unlike the traditional Futhark, which begins with Fehu (cattle, wealth), the Uthark system proposes that the rune row is actually a cipher. This theory, first suggested by Sigurd Agrell in the 1930s, shifts the entire sequence, making Ansuz the third rune.
Ansuz—the rune of divine breath, sacred speech, and Odin's wisdom—becomes the third expression of this hidden order. Following the primal force of Uruz and the hammered force of cracking open that primal force with the hammer blow, or the piercing thorn of Thurisaz, Ansuz represents divine communication breaking through. It's the word that creates worlds, the inspiration that transforms chaos into meaning.
Modern runic practitioners who follow the Uthark path see this third position as representing the moment when raw power and protective boundaries give birth to sacred wisdom. It's the divine "ah-ha" that emerges from the interplay of force and form. When chanted as "Aaaaan-suuuuz," this rune can help reduce anxiety by connecting us to divine breath and the calming power of sacred speech—literally breathing wisdom into our being.
Twelve: The Threshold of Transformation
Now we arrive at 12—a number that carries profound significance across multiple traditions, though perhaps none more poignantly than in the Mayan I'X trecena and the tarot's Major Arcana.
In the 13-day I'X (Jaguar) trecena of the Mayan calendar, today (1 June 2025) day 12 represents crystallization—the moment when all the energies of the cycle coalesce into wisdom. The jaguar, that solitary master of both the physical and spirit worlds, reaches the peak of shamanic sight on this day. It's the culmination of the journey through the underworld of consciousness, the final integration before transformation.
Similarly, in tarot, 12 gives us The Hanged Man—that enigmatic figure suspended between worlds, seeing everything from a radically different perspective. The Hanged Man embodies voluntary sacrifice, the surrender that makes transformation possible. He hangs in that liminal space, integrating all he has learned before the great change that Death (13) will bring.
This archetype reaches back to Odin himself, who hung upside down from Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, lost an eye, and received the wisdom of the runes in return. The Hanged Man is Odin's sacrifice made universal—the willing surrender of one way of being to gain profound wisdom and sight.
The Hidden Three Within Twelve
Here's where the magic deepens: 12 reduces to 3 in numerology (1+2=3). This isn't coincidence—it's cosmic design. The Hanged Man, suspended in his moment of integration, embodies that same creative synthesis we found in the number 3. He's taking all the dualities and tensions of his journey and finding a third way through surrender and new perspective.
This 12-to-3 reduction reveals that the threshold moment before transformation is itself a creative act. The Hanged Man isn't passively waiting—he's actively creating a new way of being through his willingness to see the world upside down.
Sacred Three and Soul Liberation
The sacred mathematics of 3 offers us a profound tool for liberation, particularly when it comes to releasing ourselves from the drama triangle of our human relationship soul contracts that have served their time. The classic drama triangle—victim, persecutor, rescuer—is itself a distorted expression of the number 3. It's a closed system that keeps cycling the same energies without true transformation. When we have soul contracts that have served their purpose, we often find ourselves stuck in these triangulated dynamics, playing out the same patterns again and again until we understand the patterns and do the inner and outer work to clear them.
We can use the power of 3 for this conscious release through grief work. Instead of staying trapped in victim/persecutor/rescuer, we can consciously shift into Witness ("I see this pattern clearly"), Guardian ("I protect my energy with boundaries"), and Wise Guide ("I offer wisdom but don't carry others' burdens").
The three-part grief ceremony becomes our pathway to freedom: Acknowledgment of what the contract gave us, Release through allowing ourselves to fully grieve what's ending, and Integration of the wisdom without the attachment. When we work with conscious grief around soul contracts, we're not just ending something—we're using the creative power of 3 to birth something new. The triangle becomes a sacred vessel for transformation rather than a prison of repetition.
The Carrier Pigeon: A Forest Ceremony of Grief and Release
The pigeon—a carrier pigeon, grey flecked with white and silver—lay motionless on the forest floor. Bright green, bottle-green, iridescent flies were starting to swarm over its lifeless body. I stopped abruptly on seeing the stillness of this bird.
I was seeking out a tree—an old tree in this West Sussex Arboretum—to sit by and call in unbidden images from which my ‘narrative charm’ would emerge. We were in the middle of a North Wisdom day of workshop and ceremony with my teacher Andreas Kornevall and Lee, guardian of the most beautiful birchwood forest at Fittleworth.
This is a place where last year we were doing Utiseta, preparing for ceremony, and it was a year ago on the 1 June that we held this first cycle of three.
That very same day, a year ago on this anniversary, I drove from a full day in the Arboretum with Andreas to a sound vision journey with Colombian musician and sound healer Anthar Kharana. Little did I know what adventures awaited after that first powerful vision I had of the black jaguar in the jungle, who told me I was now ready to access the akashic records—which are themselves part of the Vedic system of wisdom from the Indian subcontinent.
On this day, a year on—the day of the spider, day 11 in the 13-day trecena of Ix, the Jaguar in the Mayan calendar that I'm also following in ceremony—it's a day of the High Priestess, a day of letting go, a day of high magic. Already we'd had the red kite visit overhead on the drive down. I saw the red kite fly up above us, and again when we were sat in circle in the birchwood, the red kite was circling above us. It felt a day of high magic, (the red kite always appears to me when there is positive magic or energetic work taking place) and a day for letting go, on day 11 in the Jaguar trecena.
I am a Jaguar in the Mayan calendar—I was born on the day of Ix. Reviewing my life, I've can see I have long since spoken with jaguars. Jaguars have always been with me in the symbols I’ve carried and the clothing that I have worn throughout my life—always the large cat, always the wild cat, always that print. I love both cats and dogs, but have I ever shared my life with a dog? Only my invisible spirit dog, and constant companion as a child, my black and white sheepdog. Which is interesting, as some of my ancestors were shepherds.
However, I've walked with a black cat, and it was a very beautiful relationship I had with him. His name was Chooch.
Let's return to this carrier pigeon. It clearly had been shot down, judging by the wound to its neck, its lifeless form recently stilled. There was no sign of decay had set in, although the flies knew and were gathering. I instinctively picked up this bird and I knew I had to keen for it. I had to do some psychopomp work.
I was heading for the tree that I'd seen—a beautiful ancient oak tree. It had the perfect spot because it was on a raised little hump and was surrounded by a birch tree and a beautiful pine tree in this arboretum. There was a place in the roots of the tree where I could lay the bird to rest.
I cradled the carrier pigeon, a messenger with two gold rings around its feet—it was a ringed bird. This was a messenger pigeon, a great communicator who had been shot down. I felt there was a deep message here.
I've been working with birds all this week. I realise now all my lifetime. Last Saturday, I was in a powerful sound ceremony, a sound vision journey with Anthar, who was in the UK, and the vision I had was rich in symbolism—an initiatory journey with birds. I gave birth to a golden egg at the end of the vision, and inside that golden egg were thousands of tiny golden birds who had a clear message for both me and for community: that all will be well, all will be well, and that I must share my gifts in service for those who are ready to receive them.
This imagery of birds and working with the bird people has really stayed with me all week. The whole vision itself has since been manifesting in reality—that's the subject of a whole other essay, and I'm still just sitting with it all. But I find this so interesting: when I do this deep work and have visions easily, how often they then manifest without me even trying to conjure it up. They just seem to happen.
Here I am with now a dead bird, and I felt this wave of grief—an incredible wave of grief coming over me. I cradled this bird like my own dead child and immediately started singing in a high voice that somehow was otherworldly. It didn't feel like my voice. I was singing and crying and keening this beautiful bird in my arms, and I was singing its soul to be met by the great red kite, to be met by Hella, to be met by the Lady of the Dark, the Dark Night, the Lady of the Black Rose.
Once I had sung out the song, I felt the soul of the bird was released and had crossed over. I was then able to place the bird, but before I did that, I sat with the bird on my lap, wrapped in my shawl, and I started to smoke in ceremony. I had some coca leaf drops, and I was using the smoke to bless myself, to clear my energy for myself and the bird.
I remembered that this particular cigar was wrapped in tobacco leaf from organic tobacco from growers in Nicaragua, on the side of a volcano. The volcano was instrumental in my vision journey last week, and volcanoes have been coming up all week—both the energy, and the fire volcano, Mount Merapi, where I did much early magical work in my early twenties. That really was an initiation point for me and another part of my initiation vision journey last weekend.
Then I was able to write—or rather, the words flowed out of me—the narrative charm, which is a technique used in the North Wisdom tradition. It's different from a galdralag, a spell poem, a binding poem, but a narrative charm is something that you can use either privately to send a blessing to somebody or for healing, or to release—it might be something negative that you want to release or transmute. I'm often transmuting difficult things and finding the gold within so that you can transmute the energy from dark to light. I think sometimes these narrative charms can be spoken out for others to hear and receive. Therein lies the gold.
Because what was coming up in this ceremony was grief, and I realised this bird was the communicator of that. I'm a communications manager, and my team has been decimated in recent months. I have spent so many years building up, getting the structure right, working with the bureaucracy of higher education, and finally recruiting the right grade of professional talent and nurturing that talent and the roles required to service what my employer, what the institution, really needed. And now, because I'm working in an industry in crisis, we are having to contract. So I've had my budget severely cut, I've had my team pulled from underneath me, with frozen vacancies that I can't recruit for, and now another role cut, and there is grief there. So many colleagues are leaving at the same time, including my own manager who's been such an ally and support.
I'm grieving with colleagues who are remaining for the moment, for the death of the institutional communicator in its current form. And also, I'm facing other changes. What I want in life has shifted and changed, and I'm having to navigate a way through this. It's about letting go. So this day 11 was a letting go ceremony, and that fully surfaced in the North Wisdom practice.
And so here is the narrative charm for grief:
Oh Lady of the Black Rose
Lady of the Dark Night
Oh Hella, oh Inanna
Lady of the Thorn that pierces the heart upon death
Take el corazon of this messenger struck down from the sky
Two golden rings about their feet
Give their golden heart to the dung beetles
To compost into the earth
And their feathers to the red kite
To fly upwards to the sol
With soul for life to begin again
As I was writing this, the words were just coming out of me as they do, like waterfalls, I could feel things crawling over me—and I looked down and I was covered in tiny beetles. They were forest bugs or shield bugs. It felt somehow magical. I found out they live and feed on the sap of oak trees, and I was sat underneath an oak tree. So I had this dead bird that I had been keening over, yet the new life of these emerging grubs, bugs crawling all over me.
Whilst I was working with the smoke, halfway through, the conch sounded. The conch is also part of my vision, where I find this golden conch at the bottom of the black obsidian lake and I blow this golden conch to call in all the birds of the sky. And here the golden conch was sounding, but it was too soon—it felt too soon—but I had to gather up my things and put out the cigar. I hadn't done the second narrative charm, which was to be for myself. So it was. I emerged through the forest ferns, the last one, and my teacher said, "Here is the flower of the forest," which warmed my heart after the shedding of the tears.
We walked to the great tree—the great grandmother tree the Wollemia Pine. This is a tree which has been identified as the oldest lineage tree on earth that has been found. Truly it is Yggdrasil, the tree of life. It was found in New South Wales in 1994 and it's since been seeded all over the world. It's incredibly endangered in its natural habitat, but it's growing really well in arboretums and gardens all over the world, so its lineage continues. This is the tree that dinosaurs grazed on. This is the tree that yews were born from. You can see that the leaves of this Wollemia are similar to a yew but much bigger, and it feels prehistoric.
I remember that I took the seeds—or what looks like they could be pollen, the seeds of the Wollemia—to the ceremony with Anthar last year. At the end, I felt to give a gift, but all I had was a little parcel of silver foil with these seeds wrapped in them, and so that's what I gave. In that gesture I planted something that would take me to the Andes, which is such a beautiful, powerful place for me. I'm looking forward to returning and working more with the creativity of the land and how that transmutes through me. It's a highly creative place for me, as is Sussex, but there's a different magic about the Andes, and there's so much still to explore there.
I was able to offer my narrative charm at the foot of this incredible tree, and other people shared some of theirs that were able to come forward. Then we walked back, and somehow I got lost temporarily in the woods. Then we did some healing work with our drums in circle and the powerful drum—my drum Wa Ti Ka Tla, the name I've received for my buffalo drum, which means Carrier of the Sacred Sound.
I was going to write an essay today on names and the names that are given by spirit or in journeys and in visions, because I have many names where I've been given names, or my magical tools, have been given names, or trees tmor spirits of the land I work with have revealed their names. By chance, this week I met Minea in the nail bar a Finnish linguist and academic, and we were chatting about where language comes from and also synesthesia, because she teaches a module on synesthesia and language in children, and I have synesthesia. I think there's a connection there between my perception of language and my synesthesia. She was interested to hear how I receive words and then I look up their meaning, and they might be composite words of different languages, but they come together to create a soulful meaning. That will be another whole essay, which I started but then I wanted to write about what happened yesterday and how today is a day of integration, because we're at day 12 of the Jaguar ceremony.
The day of integration. I had to release the tears of letting go, and I was able to complete my ceremony on the beach at my Salty Temple yesterday and complete the tobacco ceremony. I've got the narrative charm—this one will stay secret because it is for me to work with quietly, to transmute and transform a particular frequency and energy into high creativity.