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Willow – Form and Function

There are other, more tangible pointers that illustrate the gesture of the Willow state in the tree. Bach inferred that Willow people are concerned by their success in the material world. The way that the tree roots deeply into the earth shows this. It has a massive fibrous root system that searches everywhere for water; it is well known that willow roots can block a house’s drains. But this affinity for water shows how Willow people feed upon the emotional drama of complaint and blame. There is an intensity of feeling in all the water plants. Willows grow by the water, by rivers and in marshy land. It was this characteristic that gave rise to the idea that it contained help for rheumatics and the aches and pains associated with damp places. In 1763 the Rev. Edmund Stone experimented with willow bark (S. alba) thinking that the bitterness was reminiscent of Peruvian bark (cinchona), used in the preparation of quinine, a treatment for malaria. He claimed that some 50 people with rheumatic disorders were helped by willow bark. His report to the Royal Society was ignored, perhaps because ‘pious folk belief held that God planted cures where diseases originated’ – a case of an infant science dismissing the traditional Doctrine of Signatures. But later research showed that the salicin found in Willow was related to our present-day manufactured aspirin, so he was probably right.