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Lombardy Poplar (Populus nigra ‘italica’)
Lombardy poplar is a natural form of the southern European black poplar found in Northern Italy and first introduced into Britain in the middle of the 18th century by Lord Rochford who planted it at St. Osyth Priory, Essex. It is the male trees, bearing large red catkins in April, that tend to be planted in Britain. Lombardy poplar can reach 130ft (40m) with a sweeping, elongated oval profile. In the USA, where it is commonly planted, the hot autumns turn the trees into stunningly beautiful, golden towers. In Britain too, given the right seasonal conditions, the trees can be a wonderful sight, both in spring and autumn. The leaves are similar to the black poplar but the diamond-shaped leaves are even wider than they are long, with translucent margins of small, regular teeth. Lombardy poplar grows rapidly, as much as 100ft in the first forty years, though lightning strikes and storm damage can destroy the single crown, which nonetheless can re-grow with multiple crowns within twenty years. The trunk is largely covered by vertical shooting branches and is heavily buttressed. Like all poplars, the roots are strong and draw groundwater from a large area. The lifespan is around 150 years, though fallen trees can still send out suckers.
The Essence:
Keywords: “Aspiration”; discrimination; acts of unique creativity; carried by life-force; revealing sources of purpose; flow of peace through achievement of personal unique inheritance; understanding the currents and tides of your life; understanding deep drives; inspiration to aspire.
The main quality of this essence is the understanding of intuitive processes. It helps to discriminate between information from different sources, sharpening the intellect so that it can make sense of intuitive feelings.
The second, sacral, chakra is particularly energised so as to allow an expression of personal creativity that can release and reveal one’s personal goals and ambitions. The creative flow when released will then naturally follow a very individual and empowering path.
The subtle bodies, particularly the Causal and Spiritual bodies (both very fine, non- personality based aspects of the self), are also motivated along the same lines. The Causal body is enabled to access karmic influences that directly influence the current life. There are certain patterns of behaviour that we carry with us and, unless we consciously let go of them, they tend to become entrenched, even though they are outmoded or prove continually to be unsuccessful strategies. These patterns can be set up as our belief systems develop in early childhood, or they can be much older genetic or past life patterns. Knowing what motivates our instinctive and automatically accepted responses can help to clarify how we behave and how we help or hinder our real goals in life.
In a similar way Lombardy poplar essence works with the Spiritual body to bring us a better understanding of the illusory strength of emotional reactions. Not that emotions are not real – simply that they occur much like the weather in the world occurs. They are not indicative of much meaning except as expressions of the movement or restriction of life energy. Emotions have no intrinsic moral or intellectual value, but nonetheless they give flavour to our experience of living. Lombardy poplar can help to integrate the experience of these emotional tides into the spiritual reality of our self-awareness. Emotions can then be seen not as the measure of our existence, nor as a hindrance to our spiritual understanding, but as an enrichment of our senses and another tune in the symphony of our living.
Lombardy poplar essence can help to reveal the most profound levels of communication from deep time (the edges of space and time as we perceive them), through the unique expression of the personality. The essence can reveal what is motivating our personal choices, our patterns of behaviour, and what activity naturally supports the flow of our unique life-energy. Aspiration derives from the same root word as “breath”. Aspiration –our hopes and dreams, what we reach for - is what feeds our life energy in the same way that our breath feeds the living organism.
Signature:
Lombardy poplar is a visual fountain of green; an elongated, sky-reaching variation of the black poplar. Like a green flame, it curves up into space, always reaching upwards.