About the project
Women and Trees is an environmental art project, a collection of portraits and voices of women from around the world who are standing for trees and the living Earth. The project explores the age-old relationship between women and trees, the feminine and nature. It wishes to create awareness on the vital role of trees and forests in our lives, and the importance of female approaches to restoring our connection to nature.
Instead of showing destruction which we see plenty of in the media to the point of desensitisation, this project presents images and voices portraying a new way of relating to the more-than-human world, that attest to the emergence of a global movement of women standing for trees and the living Earth.
These women all share a deep love for trees and are embodying new ways of being and relating to the living world, recognising our ‘Interbeingness’ and the Earth as a sentient being. Women and Trees is a celebration of the feminine spirit and the spirit of trees.
Trees and forests are of vital importance in maintaining life on Earth as are women’s voices and perspectives in this time of great ecological crisis. At this moment in time, it is critical that we re-understand our relationship to nature and that we recognise our lives as inseparable from the lives of trees and all other species on the planet. Ancient forests and rainforests are disappearing at an unprecedented speed all over the world. Forests are of fundamental importance in maintaining the ecological balance of our planet and women all around the world have always played a crucial role in safeguarding trees and forests.
The relationship between women and trees, the feminine and nature is as old as time.
Every woman in this project is uniquely contributing to restoring the natural world and our relationship to it, inviting us to remember ourselves as nature. Numerous women are involved in nature regeneration and preservation, activism, environmental justice, and others are restoring our sense of relatedness to nature in less direct and obvious ways, yet these ways are none the less important. Restoration of the senses can happen in many ways. This collection of portraits captures change makers, activists, forest defenders, earth protectors, writers, teachers, artists, poets, musicians, dancers, midwives, healers, nurses, keepers of ancestral traditions, and of course the magnificent trees that inspire them.
These women all share a deep love for trees and are embodying new ways of being and relating to the living world, that recognise our deep interdependence, and the Earth as a sentient being.
The project wishes to raise ecological awareness, highlight the importance of female approaches to restoring our connection to nature and elevate women’s voices and presence.
Women’s voices and female approaches and perspectives are of vital importance in today’s climate discourse, that is mostly male dominated. As a culture we have been over-solarised, symbolically speaking, and it’s time for the moon, the feminine to come into more prominence. At this time in history we are being asked what it would mean to venture from vertical power structures and extend horizontally into the wider circle of life.
As humans we are as much a part of nature as any other life form. We are nature. It is time for us to recognise our ‘interbeingness’ with all living things. It is time for us to remember ourselves as being part of a larger interconnected whole and our bodies as a part of the wider body of the planet. We are called to learn to live in harmony with nature and to re-enter into a reciprocal relationship with the living world. We all belong to the same Tree of Life.
“Change will happen on a fundamental level only if we fall back in love with the planet and recognise that people and the planet are ultimately one and the same.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
About Trees
Trees of life
Trees are an age old symbol of life and permeate the mythology of many cultures. They are a reminder that all life is connected at the root. Humans and trees have a unique and special relationship and our lives are interdependent with theirs in so many ways, we are literally inter-breathing with the forests.
When we think of trees we often think of oxygen, and forests being the lungs of the Earth (which they are!), but they do much more than that. Forests around the world are key in keeping the water cycle on the planet intact – they help to regulate rainfall, draw water from the oceans to the inland and cycle water through ecosystems. And everyone knows that water is life!
Life flourishes within forests, they are the most biodiverse places on Earth and the home of countless forms of life. Trees give us food, medicine, timber, shade and shelter. They reduce ground temperature, prevent soil erosion, mitigate desertification, lock up carbon. Trees are sustainers of life on Earth in so many ways. They are the great hope for healing the wounds we have inflicted on our beautiful planet.
Trees as relational beings
In recent years there has been growing research into plant sentience and science is only just at the beginning of uncovering that the communication systems between trees are infinitely more sophisticated than previously thought.
We know now, thanks to the research of scientists like Suzanne Simard, that trees just like humans and animals, are relational and social beings. They help each other, live in community, have families, share nutrients and communicate over vast distances via underground networks of roots and fungal connections (the wood-wide web!).
Trees are much more like us humans than we used to think. Interestingly in many parts of North America, first nation people refer to trees as the “Standing People”.
Trees of knowledge
Trees are some of the oldest living beings on our planet, they have been on the Earth since 385 million years. The oldest trees on Earth today are up to 9,500 years old. They silently witnessed the passing of ages and are the carrier of memory and guardians of ancient knowledge. No wonder trees are also an archetypal symbol of knowledge and wisdom – learning from trees is learning from the book of Nature.
Trees are highly evolved and refined beings, they live in complex reciprocal relationships with all other living creatures on the planet. They are our older relatives, our ancestors. We have much to learn from them and need to re-establish a much deeper relationship with these magnificent sentient beings. Let’s respect our elders, let’s respect our roots.
Trees as mediators between earth and sky
Grounded and wise, trees are mediators between earth and sky. There is something very special about being in their presence and witnessing their peaceful beauty.
Trees are a powerful symbol that connects us all on an archetypal level. Ever since ancient times, trees were seen as a symbol of the Self, and of creation and wholeness; and as connecting the earthly dimension with the more ethereal ones. In many traditions, we find the World Tree or Axis Mundi, a universal, mythical tree that connects all spiritual worlds.
For thousands of years, trees have been entwined with divinity in many parts of the world, and seen as the dwelling place of deities and Goddesses. Sacred groves of trees often surround temples, churches and holy places. Ancient trees – especially hollow ones – were believed to hide secret entrances into otherworldly dimensions.
In many indigenous cultures across the globe, trees are still seen as sacred and it is custom to give trees offerings as a way of acknowledging our reciprocal relationship with them. Indigenous peoples still understand themselves to be part of nature and know their lives as inseparable from trees and the larger web of life. If the forests die, so do all humans. We are all indigenous to this planet, no matter where we come from, and it’s time for us to re-member what we once knew, and somehow forgot along the way.
Trees can teach us what it is to live in harmony and in a reciprocal relationship with the community of life. Now, more than ever, it is important to protect trees. Trees represent life.
“We don’t come into this world, we come out of it like leaves from trees.”
— Alan Watts
