“No one is surprised to hear about close and loving relationships between a human being and an animal such as a dog or cat. But a person and a tree? Surely that is a stretch of the imagination? Or perhaps not. I have described the closeness I felt with Beech when I was a child—it was something over and above my love for other trees. It was up Beech that I climbed when I was sad, and in the long hours I spent among his branches I came to think of him almost as a person with whom I shared my most-secret thoughts. And I listened to his voice in the wind, and even if I could not understand his actual words, who knows what I may have learned?”—Jane Goodall with Gail Hudson, Grand Central Publishing New York, 2013
For the Trees
An anthology of tree communicators
“Tree on the in breath to human on the out breath, we are one, the breath of the earth.” —Joan Sutherland, nurse clinician and expressive arts therapist.
For the Trees invites readers into the next great paradigm shift: recognizing the intelligence, sensitivity and presence of the plant kingdom, just as we have recognized the sentience of animals.
This groundbreaking anthology opens a doorway into the hidden world of trees—beings that communicate, collaborate and sustain life in ways we are only beginning to comprehend.
Featuring insights from Jane Goodall alongside 35 visionary contributors from around the world, this collection weaves together lived experience, art, and science. The voices include artists, musicians, an instrument maker, a landscape architect, forest therapy guides, authors, an organic fruit-tree master grower, a cloner of ancient champion trees, teachers and healers, each offering unique perspectives shaped by decades of deep connection with trees.
Readers are invited not only to witness these relationships, but to cultivate their own, learning new ways to listen, respond to and co-create with the natural world. In doing so, they may rediscover a sense of aliveness, harmony and belonging with Nature.
For the Trees is more than a book; it is a call to renew our bond with the natural world and to take part in restoring balance and wholeness on Earth.
Praise for the anthology “For the Trees”
FOR THE TREES has had a profound effect on me. … The writers—artists, musicians, healers, shamans, gardeners, and orchardists—invite us to join the global wave of folk who are reclaiming their true nature. Though we are in fact inseparable from nature, many of us have been swept up in the death culture that currently dominates the Earth.
This book can be a first step in bringing us back to awareness of our own tree selves; to grieve, and to repent the time wasted in our estrangement from the life force.”—Amanda Hale, writer
“Our future now depends upon us reconnecting with the Earth through the trees.”—Gordon Field, artist, tree dowser
“We have forgotten the power of our own wildness, and For the Trees teaches us about the reclamation of love and respect for our eldest kin, the standing ones.”— Mary Reynolds Thompson, teacher and eco-coach