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Written by: Kamran Mofid

Published: 02 October 2021

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This posting was updated on 6 October 2023

Sycamore Gap was criminally cut down: Long LiveThe Healing Power of Trees

Photo credit: National Trust

‘Spectacular ancient trees stir deep feelings, as the felling of Sycamore Gap showed.’

‘The act of vandalism in which Northumberland’s famous Sycamore Gap tree was felled last month has produced an outpouring of love and grief. Locals and tourists have shared their memories of the 300-year-old former winner of England’s tree of the year competition, which stood in a gap in Hadrian’s Wall…’- Hannah Jane Parkinson

To celebrate the life of Sycamore Gap and to honour all the trees and their contributions to our health and wellbeing, I wish to offer the following:

“Did you know that trees talk? Well they do. They talk to each other, and they’ll talk to you if you listen. Trouble is, white people don’t listen. They never listen to the Indians so I don’t suppose they’ll listen to other voices in nature. But I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit.”~ Tatanga Mani (Walking Buffalo)

LISTENING TO TREES (2012), a painting by Dudley Via Artmajeur

‘How do you listen to a tree?

Not with your ears, only—

But with your whole being.

A tree is a presence to whom you open,

A friend with whom you sit,

A sage from whom you learn

To listen to a tree

Is to return

To original simplicity,

Basic sanity--

Old Lao Tzu's “uncarved block."

How do you listen to a tree?

With hushed expectancy—

As when a mother, awake in the dark,

Listens for her infant’s cry.

With soaring harmony--

As when a singer, losing self,

Becomes the song.

Losing self,

Become the tree.’- Donald P. St. John

'An ash surrounded by gravestones in an ancient churchyard reveals humanity’s urge to tell its own stories through trees'

'Did you know trees and nature have the power to heal us from head to toe?'

Photo:The Healing Power of Trees

Our Heritage is Arboreal and interwoven with the Life of Trees, OUR BEST ALLY FOR THE CLIMATE and GOOD HEALTH

With so much environmental degradation, deforestation, droughts, floods and global warming all around us, the pertinent question must be: Why are trees so important?

‘Trees belong to humanity’s heritage, but they are more than that. Their loss, through catastrophic fires or under business-as-usual, is devastating to many forms of life’. 

Stop, Look and Listen: Are trees telling us stories about nature, how to live, the climate crisis, and how to build a better world?

Trees Are The Living Library of Life

Read more …