Trees occupy a place of enormous significance, not only in our planet's web of life but also in our psyche. A Spell in the Forest - Tongues in Trees is part love-song, part poetic guidebook, and part exploration of thirteen native sacred British tree species. Tongues in Trees is a multi-layered contribution to the current awareness of the importance and significance of trees and the resurgence of interest in their place on our planet and in our hearts.

FROM THE BOOK:

'Trees have always figured in human consciousness. I believe that when we walk among trees, or notice a particular tree, a kind of exchange happens. Trees love to be met.'

'Trees somehow mediate between ourselves and a different reality, a different order of consciousness – pre-verbal, post-verbal, trans-verbal, non-verbal – such a relief, sometimes.'

'Trees in a natural forest mirror and speak to something of the wild soul in a human. As we visit, we encounter and are supported by the elemental powers that reside in such places, and can more readily connect with our own instinctual natures and the wild soul.'

'Wildness is not to be confused with a state of chaos, being out of control, savage. It's a question of relinquishing the ego's grip to larger natural rhythms, cycles, surroundings: an essential aspect of thriving. When one does this, one is more receptive to one's environment, physical or more numinous.'

'Woodland, forest, strikes me as a perfect example of the individual and the community being gracefully, harmoniously and inextricably part of each other.' 'I walk the forest, listen for birds, rivers, cascades, stories of the wildwood rustling in the leaves... try and stay aware of the great mycorrhizal web beneath my feet connecting us all...'

'[T]he ancients knew that spending time among trees is one of the best approaches to health and healing. Recently, Japan has spent millions researching the health benefits of shinrin-yoku, forest-bathing.'

'In the forest I step into a different kind of time. It's not simply that it so clearly stretches back so far into the past, but also that it allows me what Thoreau described as a ‘broad margin' to my day.'

'‘Mother trees', we know from work by Suzanne Simard, will reduce their own root competition to make room for their own offspring. Trees will also help neighbours of their own species if necessary.'

'Forests are liminal places, thresholds into a meeting of the physical and metaphysical, where we're on the cusp of another reality...'

'In our past, our physical survival and some of our sense of meaning came from an awareness and direct experience of our connectedness with the more-than-human. We need that awareness more than ever now.'

'Our being here, our walking on this earth, is a co-creation, a mutual belonging. How to live, if not in reciprocal affinity?'