We walked through an avenue of flowering tea-tree, small clustered white stars that formed a processional way. As we kept descending we met them singly, these scrubby but momentarily beautiful trees placed occasionally by the path or at turn below us on the hillside. By the pool the waterfall tumbled into there were another two tea-trees, guardians that greeted us as we stepped from the path onto the rocks around the pool. It was close to Beltaine and the flowers seemed a celebration of that. My son and I were discussing the girlfriend issue; how this was missing in his life.                                                                                                                                   ...b2ap3_thumbnail_Tea-tree-flowers.jpg

In magic sometimes we raise power deliberately; for healing, change or to charge a specific intent. Another way of working with energy is through the inherent power of places we’re connected to. By spending time there and getting to know special places sometimes we may find or access an energy not so much raised by us as granted to us, at least in that moment.

There was no-one at the waterfall and we took off most of our clothes and went into the pool. It was cold; when just my feet were in it, my ankles already felt turned almost to ice. I couldn’t bring myself to go more than waist deep but my son dived in, with some shouting and even swam over to the waterfall.

It’s a beautiful place. The water gathers at the top in a basin of rock and swirls around before pouring off the edge and twisting down, a long liquid ribbon of water-mixed-with-air… it looks like the long hair of the Goddess, tumbling into the pool as she leans over it. It’s very feminine; the round pool, the cupped water at the top of the falls, the narrow bright twist of the falls themselves. It’s a place I’ve been getting to know, visiting at different times of day and night and as the seasons turn and change.

Breathing its air, feeling its icy water and looking around I felt a part of the place and in that moment I saw the scene I was looking at slice away to reveal a different, possible scene; with just one thing changed. I saw my son there with a young woman and how the only thing that had to change was that I be replaced with her. That vision seemed so accessible, overlaid with this moment.

I reached out – not into myself, but into the energy of the place – and pulled that vision almost physically towards me. I accepted its price, for her to be here instead of me and it felt joyous and appropriate. As we left I picked a small twig of the white tea-tree flowers and told him to leave them in his wallet until she turned up. He was worried they’d be crushed but they’re tough, those tea-trees and I wanted them to be with him continuously. On the way up the path we talked of her qualities, this young woman we were calling in; we choose three qualities each. He chose intelligence and affection and attractiveness and I chose quirkiness and self-awareness and independence.

And I was not surprised and maybe he wasn’t either when  a few weeks later he met a girl at a party, someone quite different from the girls he’d been attracted to before and she asked him out. And of course she has those qualities and when they came to visit me a few weeks ago he took her down to the waterfall and took those flowers out of his wallet and gave them to her because really they belonged to her.

So my relationship with the waterfall has deepened immeasurably and now we are bound together not just through its proximity, its beauty but also through having worked magic together; a magic that seemed simply to arrive, to be available and freely gifted.