CELTIC TREE ASTROLOGY
What is Celtic Tree Astrology?
Celtic Tree Astrology is a form of divination that maps a birthday onto a table correlating dates with 22 kinds of trees, and reads the qualities that tree is said to symbolize. It is sometimes introduced as an "ancient Celtic tradition," but it is in fact a modern system devised in the 20th century, and its lineage differs from any historical Celtic calendar.
Overview
- System
- Fate Reading (maps a birthday onto 22 kinds of trees)
- Origin
- Modern era (Celtic-themed)
- What You Need
- Date of birth
- Best For
- Life, love
- Time Frame
- Whole lifetime
Origins & History
Celtic Tree Astrology is built on the "Celtic tree calendar" put forward by the poet Robert Graves in his 1948 book The White Goddess. Graves drew inspiration from the fact that each letter of Ogham, the ancient Celtic writing system, is associated with the name of a tree, and devised a calendar assigning the year to 22 kinds of trees.
Later researchers, however, have pointed out that this tree calendar was not an actual calendar system that existed in historical ancient Celtic culture, but rather a modern invention and interpretation by Graves. Even so, it spread from the latter half of the 20th century onward as a "Celtic tradition" within the fields of divination and self-help, and remains popular today as a type of birthday-based personality reading.
How It Works
- 01Prepare your date of birth.
- 02Check your birthday against the correspondence table assigning it to one of 22 kinds of trees.
- 03Identify the corresponding tree.
- 04Read the qualities and symbolism associated with that tree.
What It Reveals
It is well suited to reading innate personality tendencies through the approachable symbolism of trees. At the same time, because it is not a system derived from historical ancient Celtic culture but a modern creation devised in the 20th century, it is not suited to uses that require the backing of a traditional divinatory practice.
Related Methods
References
- Wikipedia: The White Goddess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Goddess)