Conversations with Trees
Sunday 27th October 2024, led by Deborah Colvin
Tree in context, Isle of Bute 2024
Introduction
What is it like to be in relationship with a tree? It’s over 100 years since Martin Buber published his influential book 'I and Thou' in 1923, in which he describes how all of our relationships bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the eternal Thou. In this season of ‘Conversations Under Trees’ at St James's, we bring ourselves into I-Thou relationship with the trees themselves….
Buber describes ‘encounter’ as entering into a relationship with the Other, participating in something with the Other, such that both the I and the Thou are transformed by the relation between them. The Thou is encountered in its entirety, not as a sum of its qualities. The Thou is not encountered as a point in space and time, but as if it were the entire universe, or as if the entire universe somehow existed through the Thou. We can enter into encounter with non-living beings, with plants and animals, with other humans and with God.
Readings
‘My primary orientation is not to tree as symbol, but to tree as Other, as one party in an I-Thou relationship. Trees have historically and mythologically represented many things – the Tree of Life, the axis of the earth, tribal ancestors, homes of spirits. But my effort … is to try to speak directly with trees… I have attempted to watch for the habits of language and mind that block the flow of communication between person and tree. These include stereotyping, objectifying, idealizing and oversimplifying – all of which make a tree more or less than what it actually is.’
Stephanie Kaza ‘Conversations with trees: an intimate ecology’
‘The meaning of your communication is the response you get’
Gregory Bateson
We take a moment to orientate ourselves to this way of relating.
Individual Contemplative Time (15 minutes)
An opportunity for mutual encounter with a tree or other being in the garden. If you are online, you are invited to an encounter with a plant, a view from the window, or perhaps something from the natural world held in your hand.
Regathering
If you would like to, please share any particular response that you have had.
Reading
‘One of the first clues came while I was tapping into the messages that the trees were relaying back and forth through a cryptic underground fungal network. When I followed the clandestine path of the conversations, I learned that this network is pervasive through the entire forest floor, connecting all the trees in a constellation of tree hubs and fungal links…. The forest is wired for wisdom, sentience, and healing.’
Suzanne Simard ‘Finding the Mother Tree
Blessing
Bless the gentle day, the softness of clouds, the balmy breeze, the lightest of rains.
Bless the gentle day, the softest furs, the lightest feathers, the most gentle of scales, the most vulnerable
of skins on the gentlest of the earth’s beings.
Bless the trees who shelter the gentle ones, the timid mouse, the delicate butterfly and fragile flower.
Bless the beauty that inspires humans to be gentle with Mother Nature and all her children.
The Ancient and Sacred Trees Company
‘Tree Conversations’ Exhibition by Quakers Australia 2020
Upcoming Eco-Contemplative Liturgies
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