Elder-Mother (Ruis)
Take what you need of me, love. But ask first — or it will cost you more than wood.
Who they are
The crone who lives in the elder tree — and the old countries took her entirely seriously. Nobody cut elder without asking the Elder-Mother's leave out loud, and the asking-verse survives to this day; in Scotland the bourtree was never burned in the hearth; in Ireland the elder stands among the fairy trees, left alone at wells and boundaries. She wears the tree's own year: elderflower cream at midsummer, elderberries black by Samhain, a veil of plum and dusk-moth wings — the tree that shows you both ends of a season, presiding over the passage between them. Kohl-dark eyes, ancient, courteous, exact. She has no objection at all to endings. She has strong objections to rude ones.
Drawn upright — the teaching
Endings can be done gracefully, with respect — and there is real protection in doing them right. How you leave a thing — a job, a love, a house — follows you into the next one. Graceful is not weak. Graceful is warded.
The working
Take her own protocol and use it on your ending. Ask leave aloud before you cut: tell the person, the employer, the friend — plainly, and first, before any act. (At an actual elder, the rule is the same: ask her leave before taking so much as a stem.) Then close what's closing with thanks in your heart — in the heart, mind, not on the lips; a spoken thank-you hands your power over, a grateful heart keeps it and honors them anyway. Pay one parting respect: return what's theirs, settle what's owed, say the one true good thing you can say. Ask leave, honor what's ending, and even the ending gives you its blessing.
Drawn reversed — the shadow
Force an ending — walk out cruelly, cut someone off without a word, tear it down in a hurry — and the grief comes back for you. What you end by force ends something in you too, and you feel the missing piece for years.
The undoing
Go back and close the door properly — even now, even years late. A word said, leave asked, respect paid: the letter you owed, the account settled, the apology without a lawyer's wording. If they're gone, or won't hear you, say it at her tree — an elder, or any threshold — out loud, and mean it. The Elder-Mother collects on the wrong ending. She also, fairly, marks the debt paid.
Its tree · the ogham
Ruis — the elder. Hollow-stemmed, soft-wooded, the least imposing tree in the hedge — and the most protected by custom in these islands. That is her whole teaching standing in bark: the strength of a thing lies in how it is honored, not in how hard it is.
Sit with this
Which ending did you force — and what would it honestly cost you to go back, even now, and close it right?