This newly available flute has emerged from my shop as an extraordinary expression of natural magic! The four qualities that comprise the synergy of this magic are:

Tobacco
Nicotiana glauca is the only tobacco species that grows to tree size, making it large enough to be crafted into a flute. As a tobacco, this plant embodies a sacred quality recognized by many traditional cultures—the ability to carry human thought and prayer into the spirit world. When this sacred plant is used with reverence, tobacco can open the door of communication to those finer dimensions of life.

Crystals
Eleven blue aura quartz crystals are embedded into the spiraling nodes of this tree tobacco, like buds on a branch. For many spiritual and metaphysical traditions handed down through the ages, quartz crystals have the ability to store, amplify, and transmit energy and information. They are seen as being alive! Mainstream science has demonstrated that quartz crystals exhibit the piezoelectric effect, a property utilized in thousands of electronic technologies. They also contribute their special properties to this very special magic flute! When the column of air within the flute's sound chamber, energized by the player's breath, vibrates, creating the sound, it also vibrates, through conductive resonance the flute's wooden walls, exerting a gentle force on the embedded crystals. Due to the piezoelectric effect, this causes a very slight electrical charge which energetically activates the crystals to amplify the healing intention of the vibration. And so, through a fusion of physics and metaphysics the player is not only playing the flute, they are also playing the crystals!

Respect
Tree tobacco, native to South America, has naturalized all around the Southwestern United States. This particular plant, along with others like her, were growing on a nature preserve managed by a conservancy with which I volunteer. Due to Nicotiana glauca being non-native to the plant community of the preserve, the conservancy was planning on removing them as part of their restoration efforts. And so I was given permission to cut and take home several tree tobacco plants. Before cutting them, though, I asked their permission as well, offering them a second life as a flute. It was an honorable harvest, from a beautiful nature preserve, gathered in a respectful way.

Listening
This flute embodies the culmination of nineteen years crafting flutes from tree branches.
Over those years, I have learned to listen for guidance from the wood, from the bark, and from the spirit of the tree within the branch. A tree that had already grown most of the flute, so why not allow her creation to continue? This perspective is what prompted the brand name Dryad, as a way to honor the real maker of these flutes. When I started working with tree tobacco, wondering what approach to take with an especially beautiful branch of this species, an image appeard to me. Crystals. And if that's what the tree wanted, that's what I was going to give her. For I am only an apprentice to the trees. There is balance in that, I think. And a bit of magic.

It has always gone against my grain to put any price on a flute created in collaboration with the trees. Too much of the natural world is valued only for its monitization. However, since I cannot photosynthesize as trees do, I must trade the relatively few flutes that make it out of my shop each year for monetary income. But what to ask for a magic flute? Something that feels priceless to me? I might consider what other makers of magic flutes are charging—except I can't find anyone else making them. Or any other version of a magic flute. So, as I've done many times over the years when crafting flutes from tree branches, I consulted the spirit of the tree. Holding this amazing flute in my hands I posed the question: "How much do I ask for you?" And the response from Nicotiana glauca? Ask what you need, so you may continue to live your life in service to the natural world. So that's what I'm asking. And in doing so, I trust that Life will find a good home for this one-of-a-kind, enchanting, high quality instrument of healing art.

May enchantment find you!

Jon Sherman

Additional Flute Details

As with all Dryad flutes:

● Both the air and sound chambers were bored out intact, maintaining the natural strength and beauty of the branch, with no glue seam to ever fail.

● A drain hole has been drilled down through the wall of the air chamber allowing any excess moisture that may pool inside (especially on a cold day) somewhere else to go other than up into the windway. The lacing covering the hole will absorb this moisture. As further wetout protection, the bird has been fitted with a rot-resistant cedar shoe, to absorb some of the moisture that condenses in the windway.

● This flute is well sealed and finely finished with non-toxic products so as to insure many years of protection for the outside of the flute. Inside, Bioshield's food safe Wood Counter Finish 54 has been used to seal the air and sound chambers, as well as where the player's mouth comes into contact with the flute. Over time, if a fresh application of oil is need for these bore chambers, please consider using this product.

Unique to this flute:

Lapis lazuli has been inlaid into the small surface checks at each end of the flute and in the bird. Blue-dyed buckskin lacing holds the bird securely to the nest, complimenting the blue aura crystals and lapis lazuli. Along with the tree tobacco branch itself, this flute represents a harmony and synergy of the plant, animal and mineral realms.

© 2025 Jon Sherman
All Natural Rights Reserved