The apple. Where would we be without it—without apple pies and apple cider and apple cake and pork baked with apples and apple brandy and … I could go on, but I’m sure you can fill in the blanks with some of your own favorites. Apples make the world go ’round. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. We take our friend the apple for granted because it’s available to us year-round in plain sight, filling the grocer’s shelves. And yet despite the apple’s apparent plainness and simplicity, it has a rich, complex history and is associated with a number of traditions. Let’s consider the apple….
If you’re Pagan, you already know that many cultures and traditions venerate the apple in myth and story. Norse mythology, which depicts apples as a food of the gods and a key to immortality, tells the story of Loki luring Iounn, the apple keeper, out of Asgard on the pretense of checking out some new apple cultivars. (This didn’t work out well for Iounn.) In stories of Avalon, the mythic Isle of Avalon is home to verdant, mystical apple orchards, and the name “Avalon” is said by some to be a derivation of the word apple or to mean “Apple Isle.” The Roman goddess Pomona is said to have been responsible for the apple harvest in ancient times and for the spring’s apple blossoms, while Polish folklore believed apple trees were “dream trees”; sleeping under one could induce prophetic visions. The Greeks share a number of myths in which apples are either a focus of immortality or appear as “golden apples,” a treasure of unimaginable worth—everybody wants one. Indeed, the golden apple pops up throughout both myth and fairy tale across many cultures, always as a symbol of wealth, power, and/or immortality. Science fiction genius Ray Bradbury would, in 1953, pen the story “The Golden Apples of the Sun,” a futuristic testimony to hubris and the search for power. And, of course, the Christian mythos has its Garden of Eden, with the apple as the forbidden fruit that ruled mortality, casting humans out of paradise and into the realm of finite life and original sin.
Modern Pagan traditions continue to venerate the apple, typically viewing it as a power object. Discordianism recalls “The Apple of Discord,” a golden apple belonging to the Greek goddess Eris and used to get Olympus’s goddesses mad at each other, which may have led to the Trojan War. To Celtic reconstructionists, the apple is an emblem of transformation. Druid lore tells of carrying apple branches to which were affixed small silver, gold, or brass bells as tokens of office, and many Druids continue this practice today. Wiccans view apples as symbols of fertility and the harvest as well as having a feminine correspondence, with apple blossoms used frequently in love charms and spells. Cut an apple through its equator, and a perfect pentagram appears in the center. Peel an apple so the peels fall in a single piece, and the fallen strip is said to take the shape of one’s future mate. In Wicca, apples are also seen as a food of the dead, appearing during the autumn harvest as the year wanes toward the metaphorical death of winter, and they often show up on Mabon (MA-bunn, with the MA rhyming with “cat”) and Samhain (SOW-unn) feast tables or in the Dumb Supper.
Apples are also associated with the practice of “Wassailing the Orchards,” which involves trooping into orchards in January to sing to the trees (and to drink a hearty quantity of mead!). The singing and loud festivity are aimed at frightening away evil spirits and ensuring the trees’ health, while cider and cream are spilled around each tree’s roots as offerings for health and fecundity. This is a custom that began as uniquely British but today is maintained in many other places as well—including my own mini-orchard in northwestern Oregon.
Probably the greatest homage to the apple is the autumn harvest festival. Autumn is one of the year’s pivot-points: temperatures drop, days shorten as we move toward the Winter Solstice (the longest and darkest night of the year), and most of us feel a fierce drive to prepare for the coming cold months. Harvest festivals are a worldwide phenomenon—every culture has one. It’s the time to celebrate the harvest and collectively put away food and goods for winter, a process known as “wintering in” (or in some places as harvest home). Since apples ripen between late summer and early to mid-autumn in perfect synchrony with reaping time, they’re a focal point of harvest celebrations. Today there are more than 2,000 apple cultivars throughout the world—with more being developed all the time. A visit to a fall farmers’ market is a good opportunity to sample a number of them as well as check out the latest technology in apple-peelers and hand-screwed cider presses.
Overall, apples and orchards are honored throughout the year in a number of ways, beginning with the wassailing of existing orchards in deep winter—January. The wassailing is followed by the planting or grafting of new apple tree stock in early to mid-spring, which is invariably accompanied by spontaneous rituals of nurturing and care as the young tree is fed, watered, and protected from the elements. Skip ahead several months to autumn’s harvest home, where the tree’s life cycle bear’s fruit for all.
A Fruit for Most Seasons
Apple love, ritual, and nurturing in the winter, spring, and autumn. Sounds great—but what’s missing? Why, the summer! Summer is the time when fruit is set and the apple trees put all of their energies into producing the bounty of brilliant, crunchy fruit that we’ll covet come September. But they’re apparently doing that without magickal support from us, the ones who love them. I have a small orchard of my own (and by the way, if you have three or more fruit trees, you have an orchard!), and in terms of the apples, summer had always seemed like a big empty gap in the midst of a year of ritual work among the trees. “What was needed?” I asked myself. And then it came to me. What was missing was a summertime ritual to bless and cheer on the trees during their growth period, appealing to the gods for each tree’s life and success as well as raising energy to inspire their bountiful production. And what followed next was me pulling a chair out in the space among my trees and sitting down with pen and paper to draft an apple blessing ritual.
When would be the ideal time for the ritual? I settled on Midsummer—the Summer Solstice, known as Litha (LEE-thuh) in some traditions. The wassailing tradition had gotten the trees off to a good start in the winter, and the nurturing and care had extended through spring. Midsummer is the pivot point between summer and winter—the Summer Solstice features the solar year’s longest day and the longest period of daylight, with the days then beginning to diminish in length as the wheel swings back toward the winter solstice. It seemed like the perfect time to give the trees a seasonal boost.
Midsummer Apple Ritual
With that decided, I asked myself what such a ritual would need.
First, it would need people. Since the apple crop leads to the celebration of harvest—traditionally a communal activity—I decided that a proper Midsummer apple ritual needed a number of people: a gathering of magickal friends. The participants would work together to carry out the ritual and to celebrate after.
We’d begin by walking together in procession to the ritual location: the apple orchard. An altar space would be set up in advance, and we’d sing and maybe even dance a little as we walked—getting an early leg up on the energy raising. We might wear apple colors too.
Once at the ritual site, we’d pray to or entreat the gods of choice or the local land spirits. We’d raise additional energy with singing, drums, and bells—frightening out any lingering evil spirits as we did so. We’d sing with joy for the apples and the bounty they’d bring to the world. We’d follow this with care and offerings, allowing the energy to begin to ebb as we worked, and then we’d pause for a moment of shared gratitude. Finally, we’d offer thanks and enjoy “cakes and ale” with an apple focus. Later on, we’d walk quietly from the trees, duty discharged (and full of delicious apple treats!).
The original plans took shape and a ritual was born. I have since done this ritual several times, all but once with my friends. The one time I worked solo was fine, although not as richly ceremonial as when others were with me. But it was all good, and with each year’s ritual, I’ve fine-tuned the proceedings. In response, I have been rewarded each year with healthy, thriving trees and a ridiculously huge crop of apples—so many that I process bushels, give away boxes, and still take a carload to the annual cider pressing in the nearby urban farm store. I’m a believer, and I’d like to share the ritual details with you so you and your trees can benefit as well. Later on in this chapter (starting on page 227), you’ll be able to read the entire ritual. I hope you enjoy it!
The Correspondences of Apple
Here is some additional information about the apple—you can use it to work with details in your seasonal or ritual work.
Family: Rosaceae
Genus: Malus
Species: x domestica (various cultivars)
Other names: Crabapple, Fruit of Avalon, Fruit of the Gods, Fruit of the Underworld, the Silver Bough, the Silver Branch, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Love, Wild Apple, Witch Tree
Gender: female
Elements: air, water
Direction: west
Stones: rose quartz, emerald, garnet
Planetary: Venus
Astrological: primary in Libra and Taurus; secondary in Cancer, Pisces, and Scorpio
Gods: Apollo, Dionysus, Eros, Lugh, Mananan, Olocun (blossoms), Shango (blossoms), Tegid, Vertumnus, Zeus
Goddesses: Athena, Aphrodite, Astarte, Babd, Cailleach, Cerridwen, Diana, Flora, Freya, Gaia, Hera, Idunn/Iounn, Ishtar, Macha, Nemesis, Ochun (blossoms), Olwen, Pomona, Rhiannon, Venus
Day of week: Friday
Modern (Gregorian) calendar: spring (planting), summer (growth), and autumn (harvest)
Celtic calendar*: September
Ogham: Quert
Rune: Ing
Energy: yin
Chakra: brow
Parts used: peel and flesh; the seeds are mildly poisonous if taken in large quantity
Medical actions: treats diarrhea (lots of natural pectin); may ease sleep
Magickal uses: one of the nine sacred woods in Celtic lore; sometimes called a gateway to the Underworld; an excellent wood for making wands; ancient Druids carried bell branches made from apple wood; apples are often used in the “dumb suppers” of Samhain; protection; consecration; contacting the afterlife; known to be a sacred food of the Gods; widely used in spells for love and attraction and to heighten sexual desire; the blossoms’ scent is considered intoxicating and bewitching; fertility; marriage; rebirth; wisdom; youthfulness and immortality
*Note: The “Celtic tree calendar” is a modern invention and was actually neither known nor practiced by the ancient Celts. However, many folks today follow it as a modern convention.
For Further Reading
Drew, A. J. A Wiccan Formulary and Herbal. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page, 2005.
Kynes, Sandra. Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Correspondences. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2013.
Rosenberg, Donna. World Mythology: An Anthology of Great Myths and Epics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.