So for the past few weeks I have been thinking about making a twig broom. Why? Well a twig broom can be used to purify the room it sweeps, dispelling negative energies. I am very interested in green magic but also, to be honest, I wanted something to do.
I was thinking of this as a more long term project as there are not many dead twigs to be found at this time of year but then, as Lockdown was eased, I went to visit my dad.
He seems to have spent most of his spare time cutting down and cutting back trees and bushes in his garden and in the woodpile I found a stout piece of fruitwood exactly the right size for a broom handle. I also salvaged twigs pruned from Dad’s ancient fruit bushes and most appropriately a broom tree he had cut down.
A twig broom should always be connected to a place that is special to its owner. My broom is maybe made of wood from an apple tree planted in my childhood. Or perhaps from a “Kerry” cherry tree planted to remember a lost child.
The twigs are from gooseberry bushes that, at the height of summer, were always loaded with fruit and from which my mum used to make gooseberry crumble.
Any way I got my bundle of wood home and started to think about how I would actually make my broom. I tried a few things but kept running into problems; twigs not sticking to the handle, my lack of patience and the cats running off with bits of the string I was using to hold the twigs in place. Then, unexpectedly, my husband got involved.
Endlessly patient and practical he figured out the best way to attach the twigs and suggested not trimming any longer ones before the broom was completed. The process has been a long but not laborious one. Attaching a few twigs at a time and leaving the broom out in the sun to allow the glue to fully cure has slowed time and sharpened focus.
There has been heavy rain and thunderstorms this past week. At times when the rain has got too heavy I have had to pull on wellies and rush out to rescue my broom and bring it indoors. The cats have weaved under and around the broom at these times sniffing and pawing at the twigs.
The broom was half-way finished when my son visited and accidentally knocked it over. Two of the twigs snapped. They were two of the longer ones I had wanted to trim and were now the same length as the rest.
It has taken the best part of the week to finish making my broom. Only today my husband sawed the handle down to the right length.
This broom definitely looks homemade and a bit untidy but it is surely magical.
This broom is tied to my childhood home. My mum’s fruit picking and baking. My dad’s digging, planting, pruning and cutting.
This broom holds my husband’s ingenuity, my son’s fateful act of clumsiness and the cats’ curiosity and playfulness. It has absorbed the elemental intensity of thunder, lightening and sunshine and has given me the gift of patience.
When I hold this broom in my two hands and sweep it from side to side all these natural and personal connections flowing through it will stir up and break up negative energies contained within the room and sweep them out like dust.
