Tree Flower - Robinia

Robinia (Locust Tree, Black Locust, Yellow Locust, False Locust, False Acacia) 

               (Robinia pseudoacacia)

The Robinia is an American tree native to the south-eastern States of the US where it can be found in woods and thickets in the Allegheny Mountains and the Middle Mississippi Valley. The tree was introduced into Britain by John Tradescant in 1638 and was championed by William Cobbett in the 18th century as a useful substitute for oak where the land was too dry for that native tree. His idea failed to take hold, mainly because the demand for timber declined with the development of the iron industry. Robinia prefers dry soil and a hot climate so really only prospers in the southern half of Britain. It does well as a city tree as it is resistant to heat and poor soil and its late leafing and early fall reduces the effects of pollution on it. When the weather is warm enough robinia flowers in midsummer with cascades of fragrant, white, pea-like flowers. When fertilised these flowers form dark brown seed pods, which originally reminded the American settlers of the locust beans, or carob, native to the deserts of the eastern Mediterranean.

The robinia grows to 80ft (25m) with an open crown of angular thorny branches bearing bright green leaves comprising eleven to fifteen oval leaflets. The Latin name derives from the French gardener, Jean Robin, who grew trees from seed in Paris.

The Essence:

Keywords: “Awakening”; calm mind; dissolving ‘glamour’ and obsession; “drama queen”; optimism; clearing emotional and mental clutter; open to larger reality.

This tree and its essence are cooling and calming. It allows the mind to flow in imaginative ways that inspire and create peace rather than, for example, becoming locked in fearful anxieties about future outcomes. A  positivity and relaxation help the flow of energy through the body.

When there is some disparity between hopes, wishes, dreams and the actual reality of the situation, Robinia helps to bring a new clarity. Locked into imagination people can become isolated and withdrawn from those around them. This tree energy gently restores a balanced appreciation of interior imaginative worlds and external phenomenal experience. Obsessive behaviour, repeating mental anxiety, phobias, and what used to be called ‘hysteria’ – becoming locked into imaginative dramas, can all be relieved with the energy of robinia.

There is a general enlivening effect based around the throat chakra making it possible to really communicate one’s own ideas and concepts and simply to be able to express one’s own joyfulness. This subduing of fears and anxieties, focusing more on positive values gives a chance for a better understanding of situations, better memory and clearer intellectual capacity. It creates a cleansing and purification of the mind, a clearing away of old emotional cobwebs.

This clearing has a further effect on how the emotions are experienced. There is an increase of balance and peace, an ability to take in a larger, less individualised viewpoint, to be able to understand things from a universal perspective where evolutionary forces and the very nature of matter and awareness expand and flow in order to experience and relate in new, unexplored ways.

Robinia clears the mental and emotional clutter created by looking too closely at the details and allows us to get a spacious panorama, to take a deep calming breath, and to see that really things are flowing and that joy can be had in simply being real and paying attention to what is going on now.

When we know and see clearly what is really going on we can decide to act in appropriate ways. The more we become open to reality, the more our actions naturally follow the flows of universal energy. We do what we want to do, but what we want is also what the universe wants. This is how the enlightened person disappears into the universe. Nothing is sublimated, personality is not annihilated, desires are not squashed. Simply, the bit of awareness within the bit of the body, expands to encompass everything else as well. In fact, this is the situation that already exists. The idea of difference, separation and the existence of individuals distinct from an ‘outside’ is really an inaccurate assessment of the real state of things. Robinia helps to create the opportunity to expand into the universe a little more effectively.

Signature: 

The cascades of pure white flowers. The acacia–like thorny twigs waking us out of our dream.