Willow tree
A willow tree has stood for sorrow since the exiles of Psalm 137 hung their harps on its branches, and an Italian legend blamed its drooping boughs on weeping angels. The harps make it a tree about what we set aside in hard times.
What it may mean
Few trees have carried grief as long as the willow. In Psalm 137 the exiles by the rivers of Babylon sit down and weep, and they hang their harps upon the willows rather than sing. An Italian legend has two angels resting in a willow after Adam and Eve left Eden, weeping until the branches bent down under their tears, and a saying from Turin warned against taking a house with a weeping willow in the garden. The psalm's picture is the most practical of these. A death, a long illness or a hard year makes people hang things up: the guitar, the Sunday run, the choir, the friends from the old job. The hooks stay where they are, and the harps often hang there long after the sorrow has eased, simply because nobody decided to take them down. Taking one down is often easier than hanging it up was.
Depending on how you saw it
A willow in the backyard
A woman in Shanghai learned from a tree seller that willows should not be planted in the backyard: they bear no fruit, which stood for a family without children, and they grow in graveyards. What do you judge by whether it bears fruit, and what would that rule cost you?
Willows holding a riverbank
Willow stakes pushed into a muddy bank root quickly, and their mat of roots holds the soil when the river rises, which is why crews restoring eroded streams plant them by the hundred. Who has held the bank for you when the water ran high?
Willow roots reaching for water
Willows send their roots toward water and can find a drain or a leaking pipe from a long way off, which is why gardeners plant them well away from houses. What are you reaching toward so steadily that it shapes everything you do?
Why it happens in nature
Willows grow along rivers, ponds and wet ground, and their roots go after water, including drains and leaking pipes. The weeping willow, native to China, has long, drooping branches. Willow wood roots easily, so cut stems pushed into damp soil often grow, and branches broken off by floods can root again downstream.
What folk beliefs say
Italy
An Italian legend says that after Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, two angels rested on a willow and wept so much over man's misfortune that their tears made the branches grow down instead of up, and so it is called the weeping willow.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 863. View the page
Italy (Turin)
In Turin, people said never to take a house where there is a weeping willow in the garden, for it denotes great trouble.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 863. View the page
Ireland
The Irish say that the willow has a soul in it which speaks in music.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 862. View the page
Bohemia
In Bohemia, willow trees were believed to have a kind of soul, which dies when they are cut down.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 862. View the page
China (Shanghai)
A Chinese mother in Shanghai was told that willows should not be planted in the back yard, because a tree that bears no fruit signifies a family without offspring, and willows often grow in graveyards.
Source: Yunqian Hsu (collector), What Trees Not To Plant in Your Yard (USC Digital Folklore Archive) (2019), folklore.usc.edu. View the page
Jewish and Christian scripture
In Psalm 137, the exiles by the rivers of Babylon say: "We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof."
Source: King James Version, The King James Version of the Bible (Project Gutenberg #10) (1611), Psalm 137:2. View the page
To reflect on
What did you hang up during a hard season, and is it time to take it down?