Pine is one of the old winter allies. Scott Cunningham writes that pine needles are burned during the winter months to purify and cleanse the house, scattered on the floor to drive away evil, and added to cleansing baths. Its cones have long been carried as tokens of fertility and vigorous old age, and its sawdust forms the base of many traditional incenses.

Pines are resinous evergreen conifers of the genus Pinus, family Pinaceae, comprising roughly 120 species across the Northern Hemisphere. Needles grow in bound clusters called fascicles, usually of two to five. The clean forest scent comes from monoterpenes, chiefly alpha-pinene, carried in resin canals that run through needle, bark, and wood.

Scott Cunningham lists pine among the trees of Cybele, Pan, Dionysus, and Attis, gods of wild places and returning life., In Japan, a pine branch was traditionally placed over the door so that joy, evergreen like the leaves, would dwell continually within., and Folk tradition recorded by Cunningham holds that a cross of pine needles set before the fireplace keeps evil from entering through the chimney.

Like the pine that keeps its color through the cold, I keep my center through every season of my life. I sweep out what is stale and stand tall in what remains.