is for tree of life
I feel such kinship with trees and I’m always looking for ways to connect and deepen my relationship. This summer I took an online course facilitated by Whitney Freya entitled Tree of Life and for weeks we created art and journaled about trees. Then the other day I came across my little pile of Thame & Hudson books, the publishers of beautifully illustrated art books. I couldn’t resist pulling out the volume entitled The Tree of Life: Symbol of the Center by Roger Cook.
So many gorgeous pieces of art to pore over and so many explorations of the symbolic meanings of the tree of life.
I’m starting to percolate and distill ideas of what I want to explore and share through my work next year, and something about this topic is begging for attention. Can’t wait to see what unfolds. And in the meantime, I have a number of things to share in this miscellany.
I am over-the-treetops in love with Tara Books Publishing, a commune of artists, writers and designers who produce handmade books in India. The very first book I purchased from them years ago was The Night Life of Trees and I still swoon over it. The art, done by members of Gond Tribe, is silk screened onto black handmade paper, and each tree is accompanied by a short folk tale. A book with so many things I love – folk tales, trees, gorgeous art, and handmade paper! They also sell sets of cards made with a number of the drawings of the trees in the book and I’ve taken a shot of four of them. Aren’t they wonderful?
Next up is the Tree of Life card from the Triple Goddess Tarot deck. I like this deck which consists of the 22 major arcana cards reinterpreted, plus four additional cards, plus 7 chakra cards.
This card is traditionally interpreted as Justice. Isha Lerner, the creator of the deck, offers a wonderful explanation of why she chose this image, along with a connected goddess, a flower essence suggestion, and a soul message for this, and each card in the deck.
And finally, here’s a peek at a page in one of my journals.
The quote listed is by Brian Andreas:
“When I die, she said, I’m coming back as a tree with deep roots and I’ll wave my leaves at the children every morning on their way to school and whisper tree songs at night in their dreams. Trees with deep roots know about the things that children need.”
Isn’t that a fabulous intention? I want to whisper tree songs at night in dreams and wave my leaf hands.
What about you? In love with trees? Any one in particular? Are you deeply rooted? Or feeling top heavy? Have a favorite book about trees? Or a song? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
Oh my! I share your love of trees. All of them…I have no particular favorites. I look at them in a different way and you may know I do something called Tree Readings where someone draws a tree and how and what they draw reveals information about them…it is truly fascinating. I wish I’d seen that course you took…I think I would have enjoyed it 🙂
I remember how delighted I was when I first learned you did tree readings Michele – I’d never heard of such a thing. But how fabulous! Next time I hear of some wonderful tree-related art class, I’ll remember to give you a hedz up.