WHAT IS OGAM HEALING?
Ogam Healing is using life force energy via the prism of specific trees, for healing purposes. Each type of tree has an individual symbol which gives access to the energies associated with it. This energy can be used to heal yourself, others, plants, animals or situations. It can also inspire you to connect with your higher self, receive direct revelation, learn divination, bring peaceful repose through meditation, use in magic, link into your creativity and change your life for the better.
What Is Ogam Tree Energy?
It is made up of Highest Spiritual Energy or Consciousness (Life Force Energy). It exists in the higher planes and inner planes of Spirit and that is why we create an inner grove of trees to help source it. By following the guide to self-attunement in my book, or workshops, you too can access this energy. By attuning yourself to the symbols, it gives you the autonomy and control to use these energies wisely. This life force energy promotes physical, emotional, mental and spiritual balance. It can help return imbalance to normal.
Benefits for learning Ogam Healing
Self-healing (renews your Life Force Energy)/ Healing family members (with their permission)/ Healing friends (with their permission)/ Healing animals or pets/ Keeping illness at bay – staying in wholeness (power-full)/ Increasing existing knowledge/ Developing your psychic abilities/ Enhancing your spiritual nature/ Finding your personal soul path/ Healing the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual states/ Seeking enlightenment/ Working with the land/ Healing the land/ Learning distant healing methods.
Specifics
Ogam can reduce or eliminate pain/ It can renew your Life Force Energy/ It treats stress related disorders/ It brings about deep relaxation, grounds you and helps stimulate the body’s metabolism and detoxification systems/ Ogam can be used on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies of a patient/ Ogam can be used in a distant healing way and set to be received at a different time from when the healing session takes place (Spirit works outside the confines of the three dimensional world)/ Ogam can help you transform your life
How Long Does it Take to Learn?
The sooner you create the Ogam grove of trees in the inner world and meet and work with the spirits of the trees, the sooner you will feel the benefits. It is up to you!
Experiencing Ogam Healing
You can experience Ogam healing by channelling its energy directly via your grove, through meditation, or communing with the Ogam trees in this physical reality. During this event, people often report various feelings of warmth or coolness, itchy-ness, pins and needles or a sense of bubbling energy movement, or nothing. Some experience colours, the presence of spiritual beings, have visions but most people experience deep relaxation and peace, some fall soundly asleep.
Attunements
It is in the process of self-attunement that Ogam healing energy can be channelled. Once attuned to a specific Ogam tree, you need only tune into the symbol to unlock the energies you are seeking to use for healing. Please see my book, or attend my workshop for details of attuning to these energies.
Channelling
What is important is to remember that you are acting as an initiator for the Ogam healing energy to enter in a focussed way into the life of the person you are healing. Remember Ogam is not religious. You are not the source of healing, the Divine is. That is why giving treatments, does not drain you personally. During an Ogam session, both you and the patient are being treated because the Ogam energy balances you as well as the person you are healing.
The Ogam script consists of a number of letters or symbols. There is a horizontal or vertical line drawn, with shorter lines that are either centred across or branch off from it. There are five groups each made up of five symbols, the fifth group was added much later in history, see below for details. It is worth noting that up until now Ogam energy has been used mainly for divination and meditation purposes.
These symbols have survived down to modern day as inscriptions on stones that can still be found in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. We also have information about its use in The Scholar’s Primer from Scotland, which was transcribed from the oral tradition in the 17thcentury and O’Flaherty’s Ogygia from Ireland which was published in 1793. It was brought into the public domain in 1948 by Robert Graves in his book called The White Goddess.
WHAT IS OGAM?
It is not so much an easy language to write but it is in its symbolism where it really comes alive. There are many theories concerning its history, most inscriptions can be dated back to the 5th or 6th century but most people see it coming from even further back, as pre-Celtic in origin and perhaps as a tool of Druid wisdom.
The word ogam refers only to the form of letters or script, while the letters themselves are known collectively as the Beith-luis-nuin after the letter names of the first letters. The ogam alphabet originally consisted of twenty distinct characters (feda), arranged in four groups of aicme. Each aicme was named after its first character, as in; aicme beith, aicme huath, aicme muin, aicme ailim. There were five additional letters which were later introduced and called the forfeda. The twenty standard letters of the Ogham alphabet and the five forfeda are as follows:
B beith
Silver Birch
This symbol represents new beginning, change, purity and rebirth.
L luis
Rowan
The symbol represents protection, insight and control.
F fearn
Alder
This symbol represents strong spiritual foundation and principles, it also is linked with oracular powers.
S saille
Willow
The symbol represents spiritual growth and knowledge wisely applied. A strong feminine influence brings you healing and protection.
N nuin
Ash
The symbol represents the connection between the inner self to the outer worlds. A symbol of creativity and all that transitions between these points.
H huath
Hawthorn
The symbol represents the cleansing, protection and fertility.
D duir
Oak
The symbol represents the strength, the doorway to wisdom and self-confidence.
T tinne
Holly
This symbol represents courage, balance and power.
C coll
Hazel
This symbol represents wisdom, creativity and enlightenment
Q quert
Apple
This symbol represents love, choice and rebirth.
M muin
Vine
This symbol represents prophecy, truth and inner development.
G gort
Ivy
This symbol represents tenacity, growth and both physical and spiritual development.
NG ngetal
Reed
This symbol represents direct action, healing and communication.
S straif
Blackthorn
This symbol represents authority, control and power.
R ruis
Elder
This symbol represents transition, maturity and change.
A ailim
Pine
This symbol represents clarity of vision, awareness and understanding
O ohn
Furze
This symbol represents determination, collecting and passion.
U ur
Heather
This symbol represents generosity, healing and success.
E eadha
Aspen
This symbol represents endurance, courage and self-confidence.
I idho
Yew
This symbol represents transition, endings and change.
The Forfeda
The Forfeda is the fifth aicme of the Ogam system and was added after the Greek language came to Ireland. The people using Ogam needed other symbols for the diphthongs and extra sounds in Greek and so the forfeda was added.
As you may know and depending on your point of view, there are a number of different associations and meanings for these extra five symbols. Some people have used power objects, others, a number of tree options. I have been led to use specific tree options so as to stick within the parameters of what this book is about; a healing workbook for communicating with spirits of the Ogam trees, the gods/goddesses and accessing the healing energies accompanying them. Whilst these additional letters are not to be found on the stone inscriptions and sparsely used in manuscripts, they were part of medieval Ogam tradition and therefore up for development and use in the twenty-first century.
My choice for this forfeda are:
Aeeamhancholl
Beech
This symbol represents ancient knowledge, insight and learning.
Io/Iaiphin
Gooseberry
This symbol represents abundance, success, meeting your needs, sharing with others, stepping out of your comfort zone.
Uiuillean
Honeysuckle
This symbol represents manifesting of will, pathway to inner search and secrets.
Oi oire
Spindletree
This symbol represents community relationships, revelations and honour.
Ea koad/ grove
This symbol represents communication, resolution and justice.
The Druids placed the trees into one of three categories which were ranked to their value as a crop. It was also a good way to stop people from illegally felling them with distinct penalties for each of the specific categories.
Chieftain:
Alder, Ash, Oak, Hazel, Vine, Ivy, Blackthorn, Yew, Mistletoe, Furze, Beech.
Peasant:
Birch, Rowan, Willow, Hawthorn, Holly, Heather, Spindle, Honeysuckle.
Shrub:
Apple, Reed, Elder, Fir, Aspen.
The Deities
Within my research I have discovered many deities associated with the individual Ogam trees. These deities can help us access the tree energy and explore the qualities in new and different ways.