It’s almost a cliche that we pagans are tree-worshipers. We are characterized as wrapping ourselves around trees, talking to them, chaining ourselves to them in order to save them, and so forth. Many of us own parcels of land that are covered with trees, and we have a variety of ways of handling them. The most ecologically safe thing to do with your woodlot, of course, is to never touch it, or even enter it. Leave it completely alone, and don’t let anyone else go onto it, either. This approach is the best one if your purpose is to create an untouched sanctuary, or if you have a particularly large piece of real estate - say, several hundred acres.

However, most of us homesteaders have to walk a fine line between keeping our property sustainable and reasonably intact, and getting enough out of it to aid us in our survival. Very few of us can afford to treat our woodlot as a pure sanctuary; we may need wood for heating and lumber, and woodland plants for medicinal uses. In woodlot management, as in all things on the homestead, we balance on the knife’s edge between our survival and that of our land.

If you have a woodlot, you are in charge of a vast ecosystem with thousands of parts, and what is the absolute best thing for that ecosystem is not necessarily the best thing for you. For example, in the natural cycle of a forest, devastating fires are a regular and useful occurrence. Although it seems horrific to us that Nature would require the sacrifice of vast tracts of trees, forest fires add valuable nutrients to the soil with the ashes of the burnt wood, and old growth is cleared away, allowing sunlight to penetrate the canopy and make way for a new generation of trees. The forest is always the most vigorous in the part of the cycle just following a forest fire. To die in flames is part of the tree cycle.

We homesteaders, however, cannot afford to have even one forest fire; not only might it destroy a wood supply that we are depending on, it might spread to our house and buildings, and kill us all. Because we choose not to participate in this part of the cycle, we have to interfere in the life and arrangement of the trees. We become stewards rather than merely guardians, and our responsibility increases with our meddling. The forest spirits look out over our farmlands, and perhaps they are as close as our backyards. We must be respectful to them, or they will become vengeful; that means doing nothing that would harm their most mobile representatives, the small (and not-so-small) animals that make their home there. Damaging your woodlot will harm their chances for survival.

How does one interfere in a sacred manner with the forest? Probably the best approach is the one used by the Menominee Native Americans, whose forestry skills are well-known. Go out and look at your woodlot. There will be many varieties of trees, in many shapes and sizes. Start by getting to know what you have, and what shape it’s in.

Figure out which are your best trees. They should be tall, broad, and well-formed, with few dead limbs and no sign of disease. Mark them mentally in your mind. You will never cut them down. Unlike a commercial lumberer, who will automatically go for the best trees to make the best lumber, you’re going to take a different approach. These are your breeder trees, who will seed the next generation. Removing them will rob the ecosystem of their superior genetic material, weakening it and leaving future generations vulnerable to disease and deforestation. If you like, you can name these trees the guardians of your forest; the keepers of its health and fertility. Giving them ritual offerings of manure, compost, or mulch periodically is appropriate. So is sitting under them, speaking to their spirits, contemplating your forest. One traditional spell suggests burying three coins at their roots, to symbolize and safeguard them as the “wealth” of your forest.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are so-called “witch trees”, or short, twisted, gnarled, bent trees that look at first glance as if they would be the best candidates for culling. They might be, especially if they are dead or dying, except that such short multi-limbed monstrosities are often a harbor for wildlife, such as birds or squirrels. Inspect them carefully before cutting them; any sign of tenants, such as holes lined with nesting material or bird’s nests in the trees signal that this tree is a residence, and as such should be allowed to stay. Even seemingly old or abandoned nests should be a warning sign - just because the species that built them is not in residence right now doesn’t mean that they won’t be in a few months, or next year. Any dead tree can be a habitat, but the gnarled witch trees seem to be favorites.

The first things you should be looking at in terms of cutting, though, are the dead standing trees. If they don’t seem to be habitats for wildlife - and the taller they are, the less likely they are to have residents - cut them down. Often, the dead wood alone will support your woodburning or lumber needs, depending on how much wood heat you use or how many fence posts you need. Don’t cut a stick of living wood for fuel until you have completely exhausted the untenanted dead trees. Also, diseased trees should be culled. The idea is to encourage genetic disease resistance in your woodlot. If there are infestations of cocooned bugs such as tent caterpillars, or fungal diseases such as black knot or brown rot which affect only parts of trees, cut the limbs off and burn them, and disinfect your tools afterwards.

When you need to start on live wood, the place to begin is the weed trees. In order to figure out which are weed trees in your particular forest ecosystem, you will need to do some research. Get a guidebook and identify as many species of tree as you can. This is often best done in the fall if you’re in a climate where the leaves change; for example I have a hard time identifying the many varieties of maple in our woods until they turn color, and then the yellow of silver maple contrasts with the orange of sugar maple, and so on. Your tree demographics will vary with your area and climate, but you’ll probably find a majority of a half dozen or so species, with a sprinkling of many others. If you’re heating with wood, you’ll want to know which are hardwoods and which softwoods.

As you inventory, you’ll notice that one or two species of tree seem to have more young than others - numerous crowded saplings fighting for sunlight and space. These are your weed trees, and they need to be thinned just like you would thin beets or turnips. Pick the largest and most healthy one, and cut the rest immediately around it. If you find a stump sprouting more than one trunk, these are probably former suckers that grew up into saplings. Cut the one that is the most stunted and least healthy. If the tree died of disease, cut them all off; the sucker trees will have the same lack of resistance. Often these sucker trees will have interesting bulbous shapes at the bottom that are decorative and good for carving.

In fact, the first place that you should thin will be around your guardian trees. Make sure that they have enough rootspace and sun by removing any weed trees that might compete with them. Up here maples are weed trees, and we continually thin them for posts, pole lumber, and firewood.

When you cut trees, you’ll have to cut the branches off the trunk, which is the most useful part. Many branches will be too small to be of much use, but don’t leave them scattered in a sea of “slash”, as loggers call the discarded limbs. Pile them neatly like you would a haystack. This serves three purposes: first, you know where they are when you need them for tinder; second, as slash is a fire hazard, a single pile will burn in one place rather than creating multiple fires; and third and most important, slash piles appease the forest spirits by creating places for wildlife to hide and nest.

The wild creatures can teach you a lot about their woods. Wild animals leave tracks and droppings, and the marks of browsing. A good way for a beginner to learn about the woods is to go out after the first deep snow of winter and look for the tracks of the moving animals; find a guidebook that will help you identify distinctive tracks. Every animal has a particular way of moving and interacting with the woods. Their tracks will show you how they eat and respond to threats, where their game trails are, and they will give you an idea of animal “demographics”. Remember that healthy ecosystems are usually evidenced by the presence of top predators, uncomfortable as this may seem to you, the keeper of livestock.

Artemis/Diana, the Greco-Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon, is known as Lady of the Wild Things. She is the protector of the wild forest and all its creatures, and it might do to say the occasional prayer or make the occasional offering to her. Many other hunter gods are also associated with the forest, jungle, or wild tangle of growth - Herne/Cernunnos, Ogoun, Pan. Some folk who own woodlots make little shrines to their wilderness gods, often set into the natural hollow of a tree, or sheltered beneath the overhanging roots of a tree that has partially tipped over. If you build such as altar, simply make sure that it does not drastically alter or disturb the forest area around it.

If your land has been logged before you got it, or if there has been a fire, or if the ecosystem has been upset, you will have to reforest it. This can be done slowly, bit by bit. Reforesting doesn’t mean that you can’t thin weed trees; remember, you’re treating it like a garden. Thinning gives the best trees room to grow and reproduce. However, you may have to do the research work to find out what species aren’t there that should be. The health of a woodlot shows in its diversity. If there are species missing, it will be useful for you to replace them if possible. Even planting half a dozen trees per year will help your biodiversity. Take walks in neighboring woods with a guidebook, and note what kinds of trees are found growing that you don’t have. Ask your neighbors, especially your elderly farming neighbors. Get permission to walk through their woodlots and, if they have a species you don’t, to transplant small (under 2 feet tall) saplings to your woods. If that’s not acceptable, ask to be allowed to come back when the tree goes to seed and collect some for your own woods. Grow them in pots for a year until they are big enough to plant, using soil from your woodlot, and sink the pots in a haybale for the winter in order to keep their roots from freezing. Don’t bring them in; they have to get used to outside winters. Plant them in open areas where trees have been cut down and there is light, or on the edges of your woodlot. Sun gives an advantage to struggling saplings.

The life cycle of a forest is many, many times that of your own. Every tree that you plant is a gift to the people ahead of you who will be the eventual stewards of your land. Planting trees is an act for the future; an act of hope for the lives of people that you won’t even see, and there is a special kind of epiphany that comes from planting a tree whose maturity you know you will never see. It is a participation in greater cycles than we normally comprehend in our short-sighted human existence.

Make sure that you make a map of all the trees that you plant, because you will want to check on them over the next few years. Otherwise, you’ll lose them in the woods, which might be fun in a few years when they get big enough that you notice them, but you may also want to help struggling saplings along - perhaps with a bit of temporary chicken wire to prevent deer damage, or some extra compost tea. Making a tree map of all your major groves can be helpful as well, especially if you have volunteers helping you harvest and you want to send them out into the woods to collect those hawthorn berries or sap buckets.

Many trees are especially sacred and have special magical powers. There are the traditional Celtic Ogham trees and plants, for instance; other types of trees may be sacred to a particular area. For example, around here sycamores are referred to as “ghost trees” or “skeleton trees”, and it was considered fortunate in colonial times to have one in your yard in order to ward off unwanted spirits of the dead; they were often planted around the borders of cemeteries for this purpose. The Native Americans were especially attached to certain varieties of trees, such as the sugar maple and birch. Each tree has a special power that is related to its characteristics; for instance the birch is the first tree of the Ogham alphabet and symbolizes beginnings; this makes perfect sense when you understand that birches are the first trees to colonize burnt areas after a fire.

There are interesting and magical things that you can do with trees, as well. You may not want to cut down a dead “witch tree” that is inhabited, but you can do as the Iroquois did and slowly carve a mask into its trunk, bit by bit, with hand tools so as not to disturb indwelling species. Then the tree becomes a forest guardian of its own sort, and if it dies you can cut off the mask and keep it. Another Iroquois trick was to take a stone axe blade (not a metal one, they rust), cut a slit through a branch, jam the axehead in, and tie it in place. After a couple of years, the branch would grow into axe-handle size, growing around and firmly enclosing the blunt end of the axe to create a strong tool that wouldn’t come apart. The branch would then be cut off and used as a tool. This method can be used to make sacred tools or, by using a large semiprecious stone, a magical wand.

When you need to log in the forest, you’ll have to make the choice between hand and power tools. This choice may be made for you if you don’t have the money for power tools or the strength for hand tools, but we prefer a happy medium. We use power tools when it’s absolutely necessary, for cutting trees larger than 8" across. Chain saws are very useful and fast, but they make a terrible racket that disturbs the harmony of the forest and drives away birds and small animals, sometimes for hours or days. When we cut smaller trees, we do it with cross-cut saws, haul the logs back to the house, and use the chain saw there to cut them up. Power tools are necessary for felling big trees, as you can get a more accurate cut and it doesn’t take all day, but limit your chain saw adventures in the woods and try not to do it every day for a week. Give the forest spirits some breathing room.

Part of making domestic forestry into a sacred art is the discipline of safety. Logging is not something to be done recklessly; logging tools are dangerous and can maim or kill you. Even a hand ax can damage you if it’s planted in your leg. Know the safety rules for each logging tool and treat them like a sacred discipline. Keep tools sharp and in good condition. If you’re using a chain saw, we strongly suggest that you do not go further than yelling distance from the house alone; better yet, do it in pairs or have another person along in case of accidents; we haven’t had any yet, but we keep the “no lone chain saw” rule rigorously.

Your woodlot is more, of course, than the trees in it. It is all the plants under the trees, which you should learn to identify just like their taller cousins. Your woodlot can be a source of free medicinals, if you’re careful with them. Like your tree species, take walks in neighboring forests and look for plants that you don’t have, and see if you can carefully transplant a few. Don’t impoverish someone else’s place for the gain of your own, however, and don’t overharvest your land. The rule of thumb is that if there are less than a dozen plants in a fifty-foot radius, leave them alone. Only take samples, or harvest medicinals, from lush patches of plants that can spare a few. You can encourage more growth by watering them with compost tea, and by discovering when and how they seeds, and making sure all the seeds get planted in rich earth nearby.

You can get food from a woodlot as well as lumber; start by planting nut trees that will do well in your climate - hazel and walnut up here, pecan further south, etc. If you keep pigs, every oak tree is a source of free fodder. In medieval times, pigs were turned out in the autumn to forage for fallen nuts and got fat on that diet alone. Chickens, goats and sheep will eat acorns if you crunch them up; you can dump them on an asphalt driveway, put a tarp over them, and drive a truck back and forth several times over the tarp. You can eat the flour yourself if you soak the acorn meats in several changes of water to leach out the tannic acid. If you are impoverished and can’t grow grains, ground nut meal is a good substitute for flour in cakes, cookies, and flatbreads. In the medieval Italian Alps, where the steep, cold climate wouldn’t support wheat, peasants used ground chestnut and hazelnut flour as their staple. Nut flour is fattier and richer than grain flour, but it’s unlikely that you’ll get obese eating it, especially if you’re doing farm work.

Berries are another source of food. If you don’t have berries in your woods, plant them. Make sure to get the right varieties; blueberries do well under the trees, but raspberries prefer meadows and the edge of forests. If you have white pines, be careful with gooseberries; all varieties except one carry the white pine blister virus. Mulberry trees are amazingly prolific; even if you hate them your animals will love them, and any source of free food, for you or them, is a triumph. Around here we look forward to each part of the wild berry cycle: first wild strawberries in June in our meadow, the size of your pinky fingernail, then wild raspberries in July at the thicket between woods and meadow, then wild blackberries two weeks later amid the last raspberries, then the August blueberries amid the trees, and after everything else has faded and winter has fallen, the red berries of wintergreen still show up in their shiny ground-covering foliage. Berry-picking is a wonderful chance to thank your land for supporting you with its bounty.

Many mushrooms grow best in woodlots; shiitakes grow in woodland shade on freshly-cut hardwood logs; lion’s mane mushrooms can be drilled into stumps. Morels, the most delicious and easily recognizable of wild mushrooms, are said to flourish amid rotting mulch under old apple trees. Some edible fungi will grow wild; however, we strongly suggest that you study carefully, and perhaps consult with a mycologist, before eating strange wild mushrooms. It is said that a one-centimeter cube of a mushroom is the best test dose, but all mushrooms should be cooked (domestic and wild), as heat destroys many mushroom toxins.

Wild medicinals are another way in which your forest will nourish you and keep you healthy. A balanced and healthy forest ecosystem can support literally hundreds of medicinal plant species. Some, like lady’s slipper, cowslip, and American ginseng, have become endangered from overharvesting. Some seed and plant catalogs offer lady’s slipper and other rare woodland varieties for sale; it will be worth your while to acquire and plant a few each year, slowly building up the supply in your own woods before harvesting. It won’t harm your woods to be used as a planting ground for woodland crops, an extension of your garden for those plants that can only be grown in woodland soil. However, you should try only to plant would probably be there in the first place; don’t introduce species from other continents or across the country. Keep those as specimen plants in your garden.

In our woodlot every year, we collect uva ursi, sarsaparilla, wintergreen, squaw vine, goldthread, cramp bark, rattlesnake root, bethroot, corpse-plant, sassafras, witch hazel, chokecherry bark, cranesbill, and sweet fern. From the surrounding meadows we collect St. John’s Wort, cinquefoil, sweet goldenrod, self-heal, red and sweet clover, wild strawberry and raspberry leaves, evening primrose, jewelweed, wild rose hips, cleavers, and New England asters.

The work of wildcrafting - gathering wild plants and herbs from non-garden spaces - is part of our pagan ancestry. Even beyond the fact that it was one of the main jobs of all our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, in later times wildcrafting fell to the rural healers - the wise woman or cunning man - who eventually ended up as the hedge-witch, eking out a living on Nature’s wild gifts and living in fear of the witch-hunters. When we walk through the woods and know every plant and its uses, we walk in the footsteps of those older hedge-witches, even though we may be transplanted to other continents. We learn where the patches of certain herbs are, and we come back to them each year, being careful not to take too much.

In the Afro-Caribbean Yoruba faiths, there is a special deity, or orisha, whose domain is the wild herbs in the forest. His name is Osein, and he is crotchety and protective, lashing out at those who strip his realm or take his gifts for granted. If you own a woodlot that is also a wild herb garden, you must learn to be as protective as Osein of your resources, which are renewable with care, but not infinite.

Geologists tell us that in our planet’s history, there have been six major mass extinctions of species, caused by various things from climatic changes to meteors hitting the earth. We are now in the middle of a seventh mass extinction, and it is being caused by human beings. We lose one species a day in this planet, a rate which is unequalled since the Jurassic meteor wiped out the dinosaurs. Being the steward of a woodlot is a sacred trust in which we preserve genetic material for the future. Since we as pagans often believe in reincarnation, we are in a sense giving a gift to our own future incarnations. What kind of world do you want to live in, next time? We build tomorrow’s world with our actions today.