The willow, and where this story begins…..
Weeping Willow / Salix Babylonica
I am pictured above with my cello (made in England of spruce and maple wood in c.1820, and the musical voice of many cellists before myself) underneath the willow tree in our garden. I’m not sure that it’s to be recommended to move house on the basis of the garden, but it was hard not to fall in love with this tree on arrival. Weeping its branches generously over much of our outdoor space, the willow provides shade on sunny days and rain shelter on all the others. She is home to a vast array of other life including beautiful and tiny ferns, delicate funghi that emerge after wet spells in autumn, and she provides plentiful food to birds and pollinators alike. The coal tits love her, and they bob swiftly from branch to branch, obligingly low in the canopy for bird watching. The willow also makes me feel perfectly at home, having grown up with a much loved curly willow in the garden and another huge weeping willow in view out of my bedroom window.
For me, and for many others I know, there is a comfort that comes from being in the presence of trees. Perhaps this project will help me to articulate more clearly the source of this comfort and how it is communicated and experienced. As a musician, I connect this feeling of kinship with trees to the similarly intangible power that music has to bring us to experience comfort, joy and a whole range of other emotions in a very direct way. Both are akin to a well told story in having the power to transport us elsewhere.
With each story that is generously shared with me, I feel slightly more connected to a wider whole - in which the human and more-than-human worlds are knitted together along with our ancestry and future generations to come. My hope is that Stories of People and Trees will be read not just as a collection of individual stories but also as one entangled narrative that draws us all together with the trees living beside us.
The origins of Stories of People and Trees
My recent story begins with a confluence of many different circumstances, conversations and trains of thought.
Recognising the climate emergency and starting to consider system change and how this might involve the arts.
Spending time with the inspirational women of the Kichwa Amazonia in Ecuador, who we hosted in our home whilst they attended COP26 as indigenous leaders. This experience was a real influence and driver of change.
Participating in the Haumea Ecoliteracy for Arts Professionals course, gaining confidence through learning, and making new connections with ecologically and community focused artists from the UK and around the world.
Trying to channel my activities to address the increasing sense that the children of today need both our leadership on climate issues but also our support to interpret and live peacefully within the current unfolding climatic context.
All these elements have come together in the creation of Stories of People and Trees. Crucially, there’s the love of being in forests and woodlands that has always been a background to my outdoor adventures. The calming silence of a pine forest, the fascinating variety of life to be found living on and among trees, the vibrant green mosses that carpet damp UK woodlands, and the child-like sense of adventure at exploring an environment so intensely different to my day to day suburban surroundings.