We’ve stumbled on a few things recently that mightily deepened our view of the Christmas trees that are everywhere now, including a remarkable video of the birth of a pine tree and haiku written hundreds of years ago: Our improvised holiday card to you…
Read MoreMy friend Anthony Giglio, in Italy decompressing from a packed year of teaching people about wine, food, joy, living (read about him here), sent an astonishing series of texts from Sicily where he was visiting family. He managed to bring the feeling of its ancient trees right into my Harlem space.
Read MorePsychologist, yogi, spiritual teacher Ram Dass’ devised a simple method for softening judgments of the people around us.
Read MoreA snippet of a Hermann Hesse quote about trees sent us hunting for the whole thing. We stumbled on “Trees: An Anthology of Writings and Paintings”, a little gem of a book: thirty of Hesse’s watercolors with his essays and poetry about trees, for him, a symbol of transcendence and rebirth.
Read MoreSan Francisco ceramicist Nina Saltman created an inspired riff on the Little Free Libraries that have popped up across the nation. Nina’s Little Pott Shoppe is a tiny outdoor vitrine that offers her handmade cups and bowls for free. It’s a way she can give away “seconds”— work with minor flaws— and bring joy and serendipity to passersby. She never imagined how much her little offerings would affect people.
Read MoreDesigner Russel Wright had the habit of shaping parts of the land around Manitoga, his home and studio in upstate New York, into “rooms”. Rather than making a room, I love the idea of an outdoor room coming into being simply by finding it or naming it, as happened when I stumbled on some ancient Beeches. Their branches arch down to the ground to define the space around them, making quiet leafy rooms. The feeling of hanging out in them is extraordinary. Wendell Berry nailed it.
Read MoreThe image of a Serbian Orthodox church inside an oak tree got us thinking about trees being used as churches. What are the qualities of trees that make them a place for sanctuary, reflection, rest, prayer. We found the answer in Jo Shapcott’s glorious poem “I Go Inside the Tree”…
Read MoreLately Mary Oliver has been coming again into our field of vision. This perfect evocation of being among trees is a balm in this ferocious time.
Read MoreWe have marveled at Susan Simard since we realized she was the model for the fearless, hermetic tree botanist in Richard Price’s wondrous tree-centric novel The Overstory. Her new book Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Ancient Wisdom of the Forest about the intricate underground communication network trees create and depend upon got us thinking about the perfect gift, for Mother’s day or otherwise.
Read MoreThe past week working at our desk, we listened to soundscapes of forests in Malaysia, Estonia, Portugal, China and France… Through a remarkable website, we found ourselves transported into tranquil environments AND quickly able to gift trees to friends…
Read MoreSome remarkable writings and images describing intimate encounters with trees got us thinking about what really happens when we sit inside one, climb one, sit in its embrace…
Read MoreRecently, the actual living trees that were the subject of van Gogh’s last painting in 1890 were discovered near the small French town where he lived. A photograph of the trees superimposed with the painting brings to life Gary Snyder’s idea of “tree intensity of mind”, and amplifies our own experience mightily.
Read MoreGiuseppe’s Penone’s moving sculpture in an empty square in Rome during lockdown brought to mind Hermann Hesse’s remarkable prose poem…
Read MoreOver our transom came this moving piece from Underland: a Deep Time Journey by British naturalist Robert Macfarlane. We’ve written before about his remarkable ability to connect us to nature, landscape, heart…
Read MoreSylvia Plimack Mangold’s trees are amazingly wonderful depictions of the treeness. As we looked, we thought of this haiku by W.S. Merwin…
Read MoreAt first, we only visited the New York Times “Lessons in Stillness from One of the Quiestest Places on Earth” because we wanted to see Mitch Epstein’s remarkable photographs of trees. But then, the story called us…
Read MoreIn “Call of the Forest, the Forgotten Wisdom of Trees”, botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger guides us into “the essentials of what a tree is all about”, something she says most people have missed, and that will change our view of the planet we inhabit.
Read MoreThrough charming animated drawings, forestry experts Camille Defrenne and Suzanne Simard explain how trees communicate with one another. Novelist Richard Powers tells it another way in The Overstory.
Read MoreArtist Jean Shin transformed Storm King Art Center’s dying Maple trees into a sculpture that embodies the trees inner life and energy…
Read MoreThis astonishing tree is one of a group of photographs of ancient trees in the South East of England made by artist Tacita Dean. It is the product of Dean’s unique approach, which is as wonderful as the work itself.
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