Diana Beresford-Kroeger - To Speak for the Trees

I want to thank the host of people in my life who made this book possible. In the Valley of Lisheens in County Cork all of them have gone. But they have left behind a great warmth in my heart for what they gave me.

My main editor, Evan Rosser, somehow managed to listen to the many traumas of my early life and make some sense out of it all. I am grateful for that. Anne Collins, my publisher, maintained an editorial tapestry of words that stitched science into the sentences. Stuart Bernstein, my agent, is always on tap for advice, conversation and protectionremember that policeman?

Lynn and Nancy Wortman provided tea and typing in a haven of laughter. Tilman Lewis is an impressive copy editor; the designer of the book, Lisa Jager, has my deep gratitude.

My children, Erika and Terry, inspire me with their love and confidence. I want to especially thank my husband, Christian H. Kroeger, for support that never fades.

Also by Diana Beresford-Kroeger

A GARDEN FOR LIFE :

The Natural Approach to Designing,

Planting and Maintaining a North Temperate Garden

TIME WILL TELL :

Stories of the Rideau Valley

ARBORETUM AMERICA :

A Philosophy of the Forest

ARBORETUM BOREALIS :

A Lifeline of the Planet

THE GLOBAL FOREST :

40 Ways Trees Can Save Us

THE SWEETNESS OF A SIMPLE LIFE :

Tips for Healthier, Happier and Kinder Living

from a Visionary Natural Scientist

To my ancestors at the Castle of Ross, Killarney, who lived in Lackavane and the Valley of Lisheens.

You gave me my greatest gift, that of the mind.

DIANA BERESFORD - KROEGER is a world-recognized botanist, medical biochemist and author, whose work uniquely combines western scientific knowledge and the traditional concepts of the ancient world. Her books include The Sweetness of a Simple Life, The Global Forest, Arboretum Borealis, Arboretum Americawhich won the National Arbor Day Foundation Award for exemplary educational work on trees and forestsTime Will Tell and A Garden for Life. Among many honours, Beresford-Kroeger was inducted as a WINGS WorldQuest fellow in 2010 and elected as a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2011. More recently, in 2016, the Society named her one of 25 women explorers of Canada. Her work has inspired artists and writers, as well as leading scientists. She is the author and presenter of a feature documentary, Call of the Forest, and is also at the heart of an upcoming three-part series airing on PBS called The Truth about Trees. Currently she is advocating on behalf of an ambitious global bioplan encouraging ordinary people to develop a new relationship with nature and join together to restore the global forest.

BREHON

The countryside of ire

has been put to sleep with poetry, long ago.

Fad.

Fad.

The land is murmuring.

Soft fields of dreams move slowly

filled with hares and long tail grass,

mountains strained with purple heathers

and foxes fevered with glints of yellowed furze.

Woodland words,

ragged with rain,

between the corncrake sky

and the fishtail sounds

sucking up the sea.

The yoke of the moon will shield the Laws of Liberty,

ars agus ars,

pointing us straight to

Brehon.

DIANA BERESFORD - KROEGER

INTRODUCTION

I have always found it difficult to think about the story of my life, let alone tell it. I suffered great traumas as a child. To protect myself, I took my pain and put it down a deep well in my mind. I hid it from myself so that I could function, and I moved through my entire scientific education and decades of research with my eyes always cast ahead, looking for the next question, the next answer, the next piece of understanding and wisdom.

But the person I am today could not exist without that trauma. It led me, as a thirteen-year-old girl, on stepping stones to one of the last bastions of the Celtic culture in Ireland, a place called the Lisheens Valley in County Cork. I arrived in Lisheens in need of something to help hold me together just as the place itself was falling apart. The ancient knowledge of the Druids and the Brehon Laws, kept safe, refined and handed down from one generation to the next for millennia, was on the verge of being lost. Instead, it was given to me, an understanding of the healing powers of plants and the sacred nature of the natural world that remains the greatest gift I have ever received.

The only thing asked of me in exchange for that gift was that I not keep it to myself. And though I have shared my ideas and discoveries freely during my fifty-year career in science, I have always held pieces of my story back, keeping the complete picture obscured even from myself.

But now we find ourselves in a special time. On the one hand, climate change poses the most significant threat to our planet that humanity has ever faced. On the other, we are better equipped than ever before to take on that challenge. To do so, though, we need to understand the natural world as people once did. We need to see all that the sacred cathedral of the forest offers us, and understand that among those offerings is a way to save our world.

We are all woodland people. Like trees, we hold a genetic memory of the past because trees are parents to the child deep within us. We feel that shared history come alive every time we step into the forest, where the majesty of nature calls to us in a voice beyond our imaginations. But even in those of us who havent encountered trees in months or even years, the connection to the natural world is there, waiting to be remembered.

In telling the story of my life and the leaves, roots, trunks, bark and stems that weave all through it, I hope to stir that memory. I want to remind you that the forest is far more than a source of timber. It is our collective medicine cabinet. It is our lungs. It is the regulatory system for our climate and our oceans. It is the mantle of our planet. It is the health and well-being of our children and grandchildren. It is our sacred home. It is our salvation.

Trees offer us the solution to nearly every problem facing humanity today, from defending against drug resistance to halting global temperature rise, and they are eager to share those answers. They do so even when we cant or wont hear them. We once knew how to listen. It is a skill we must remember.

ONE

Comfort in a Stone