I used to think my relationship with you was something private, something only I could understand. But the more I write, the more I realise how many people have their own tree - their own anchor, witness, companion. And instead of making our bond feel smaller, it makes it feel bigger.

Perhaps you have always known this. You are not threatened by my friendships with other trees and you know that many come and go beneath your boughs.

There is something special in sharing, as well as secrecy. I love to hear stories of other people’s trees and they love hearing about you.

We are all part of this tree community.

I feel happy that you have settled fully into your summer rhythm and will remain in it for a long time - I know how you hang onto your leaves once they are formed. Slow and deliberate. This is something I have learned from you, that it does not matter if decision or actions take time, as long as they are well thought through.

Like you, I am loving the summertime, everything blooms and glows with life. It seems like all nature is going at full pelt, but you are calm as always. It is hard to believe, when I am so surrounded with activity, that the UK has lost 97% of it’s wildflower meadows. We must do more to restore them, so there can be more moments like these.

I feel so lucky to be able to sit with you. I wonder what tree stories I will hear from you this season.

Behind the Letter:

This week I wanted to reflect on the sense of community around trees that writing has brought. I am so grateful to hear the stories my readers share of trees and would like to platform them, as it’s easy to feel alone in our love for these majestic beings.

Trees are one part of a much wider ecosystem, sharing pollinators and supporting wildlife across habitats, so I also wanted to highlight the importance of our meadows, especially floodplain meadows which are becoming vanishingly rare. Cuckoo Flower, Meadow Buttercup and Red Clover are just some of the special species found here.

Tree of the Week

Tree: American Beech

Location: Ontario

Contributor: Gavin Mousney (Gavin's Newsletter here)

I met her two years ago.

She whispered to me and drew my attention when I went hiking off the beaten path in a small patch of Carolinian old growth forest here in southern Ontario and I was guided by the forest spirits to cross paths with her.

She had a very resonant presence as a being and reached out to me in some capacity drawing my attention to her trunk. I saw her in the distance and climbed through a pawpaw grove to see her powerful and unique trunk revealed.

I remember this line in Richard Powers’ “The Overstory” that spoke to the relationship between colonial peoples arriving in these eastern woodlands where I live and the elder beech trees. I think it may have been in the section about pawpaws in fact. He wrote something like “the beech trees told the farmers where to plow” (as they grow big like that only in rich amazing soil).

This patient rooted being was providing a home for multiple birds to nest inside cavities where she had sacrificed her lower branches to redirect her energy upward for gathering starlight. Check out the multiple entry points into the healed over missing branch cavities part way up the tree. I saw little birds zooming in and out of those! It was some sort of bird commune village I tell you! :)

I brought back American Ginseng, Pawpaw and hickory seeds as an offering and planted the ginseng at the base of her trunk and the others further out around her in the forest.

I always feel blessed to meet elder American beech trees with no trivial, ego based, carvings in their bark from disrespectful humans (which is rare here with roads and trails cross crossing 99.9999% of the landscape here )… seeing these graceful beings achieve their true potential in the old woods and provide a home for other beings provides a much needed medicine for my heart.

I love how expressive and graceful their branching is, geometry that flows like a meandering river.. starkly contrasting the more linear maple and tulip tree trunks nearby.

Beech are indicator species for rich living soils and medicinal and edible rhizomatous plants that also like the same soils. This particular elder beech showed me how to find a large patch of hidden ramps (wild leeks) off the beaten path when she invited me to visit her with her arms outstretched in the distance.

I am grateful to be able to connect with and learn from wise and beautiful beings such as these.

If you enjoyed reading about Gavin’s Tree, check out his newsletter here: Gavin’s Newsletter

A Small Note About Paid Subscriptions

I quietly turned on paid subscriptions this week. Nothing is changing for free readers -- everything you already receive will stay just as it is.

Paid subscribers will get a few slower, more seasonal pieces across the year, written in the same spirit as this space: attentive, grounded, unhurried.

If you feel called to support this work, or simply want to help me keep tending this grove, you can now do that here. And if not, I’m genuinely glad you’re here all the same.

Live Conversation with Olivia Sprinkel — 21st May at 6pm

I’m delighted to share that I’ll be hosting a live conversation with writer and Olivia Sprinkel, author of To Hear the Trees Speak, on 21st May at 6pm.

Olivia is the author of To Hear the Trees Speak (2025), a book rooted in deep listening and relationship with the natural world. Her travel writing has appeared in The Guardian, and she runs nature‑connection and creative writing workshops shaped by her training in ecotherapy.

Our conversation will explore our connection and the sense of community around trees and what it means to write in relationship with the living world. I’m really looking forward to it.

Click here to Join the Live

I’d love to have you there.

What’s Happening in The Listening Grove

A few small updates from here:

• I’m working on some new seasonal pieces that will unfold over the next few weeks.

• I’m experimenting with a gentler posting rhythm that follows the pace of the landscape rather than the internet

• I have introduced a new ‘Tree of the Week’ section for you to share stories of your favourite tree.

• And as always, thank you for reading, sharing, and being part of this small grove of people who care about trees, attention, and the quieter ways of being in the world.

Closing

As we move deeper into May, I hope you find a moment to stand beside a tree - any tree -and let it steady you a little. They’re good at that.

And if you have a special tree, you’d like to share a story about, let me know and you may be featured in ‘Tree of the Week’. I’d also love to hear your reflections and stories in the comments.

See you under the branches.

From the BanyanTree to the Beech, listen to this discussion on what it means to be still with the forest.

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Dear Yggdrasil,

What does work mean to you? Is there such thing in your ecosystem?

As I site beneath your glowing, fresh canopy, I can only wonder at the differences between your ecosystem and mine. Your roots are becoming more exposed, eroded by last year’s harsh winter rains. I wonder whether they reach all the way down the valley to the River E

venlode below, bringing water into your community. We have seen more extreme weather this year than ever before and I fear worse is yet to come. You give shade, habitat and provide so many services for those around you, including me. Services that support our survival as a whole and individually.

In the human world of work too, everyone has a role, but whether these roles are connected to the survival of our communities is another matter.

We have so many managers, who manage our systems. Who manages the forest system? Is it you? I am not sure any individual does. There is less absolute need for control of outcomes in the forest, and the web regulates itself without a designated hierarchy.

As my friend, the blackbird, loudly looks for snails, I wonder if our systems have gone too far. The actions we take at work often seem unrelated to our survival, and resemble the role of worker ants in a colony more than that of the colony itself within the ecosystem. Worse still, it is sometimes unclear whether our contribution is promoting the greater good of our biggest community, the Earth, or eroding it, like the extreme weather erodes the soil on these banks.

Humans are the only species whose contribution to the whole is not necessarily positive. Even when a species preys on another, it usually leads to balance overall, at least for a time. Over centuries species evolve and some die out, and this is normal. But our impact is changing things on a geological timescale. The Earth will survive. There was not always complex life here and it is not inconceivable that this is just a tiny period of unusual balance and fertility in her history before returning to something much more archaic.

It seems sad to me though, that we should end this magical, almost unbelievable creation of the universe simply by being careless.

Behind the Letter: How do you think work exists within the forest ecosystem and non-human communities? Is the impact clearer than it is for us, and do you think our human work systems have become too far removed from our survival?

It is midday and the sun is baking the rolling hills around. I escape into the cooler shade of your forest, and turn the corner to your bank, full of wonder. You are in full leaf now, and your green is like no green I have ever seen. Everything around glows in an otherworldly light, which seems to shine from within you. It is finally warm enough for me to sit at your feet and really think again.

I do not know in which order your leaves emerged. Was there a plan, or did each unfurl on its own timeline? A few days ago, only a single leaf had burst forth and yet, today, all are out.

In my life everything seems to move much less evenly. I have hundreds of possible futures before me and trying to live in them all equally is exhausting. My mind tries to construct each scenario and predict all outcomes. It is not helpful but I do not know how to stop it. Only time will tell which paths lead on and which do not, and even the dead ends can be beautiful. They may lead to a rushing river that cannot be crossed at this time, or an emerald glade full of birdsong. Some paths are less interesting and just peter out. Each brings its own information.

It is easy to be philosophical with you. But away from here, I find it much more difficult. It is one thing to know there is no point in worrying, and another to stop doing it. Sitting with you is one of the few moments I truly find peace. Beneath your branches, I find a new perspective. I often feel slow or behind in life, but to a tree like you, I am the opposite. What seems like overthinking to me, is perhaps not enough pondering for you.

I imagine you to be the definition of a bigger picture thinker. Why worry about a year even a decade when you are a tree? Roots take time to form, rings are added slowly, there is no need to control everything. The outcomes will show themselves, in time.

Behind the Letter

What decision do you feel yourself rushing? Do you have a particular tree that brings you wisdom in these moments? Let me know if you too imagine outcomes before possibilities become certain.

Early in the morning, as I waked down the path from your valley, I came to a fork. On the left, the track bent away towards the river and sunlight, while the right hand path turned deeper into the darker woods. Perhaps it seemed obvious which I should take, but I was unsure, and remained there, questioning, for a long time. In the end I came back and sat with you again before deciding.

And as I sat with you, I noticed, for the first time, a tiny, lime green leaf, protruding from one of your branches. I have let go of trying to predict when you will leaf but it was a beautiful site to see. The leaf was so soft and delicate. I am so glad, because I know that the winter has been harsh. Sometimes we don’t know if we will come into leaf again until we do. Did you have plans all along, or were you as unsure as I was?

Ultimately I decided to sit by the river for a while as well, before turning deeper into the forest. It felt uncertain at first but as I continued away into the dark shadows of that place, never knowing what would be around the bend. Eventually, I found myself rising onto a hill. At the top of the hill, I finally found myself in a chestnut glade, touched by the first rays of sun.

The forest floor was carpeted in wood anemone and bluebells and I knew myself to be the first person to behold it that day. I was silent for a long time.

I suppose that when entering the deep woods, we do not know what we will find or how long we will be lost there. We may reach high points, in the sunlight, before succumbing back into the cool, damp shade. Once we have started down that path, there is no turning back. And when we do return, no one will believe what we have experienced.

I do not think that it is a reason not to go.

Eventually I returned to my tea, and the world of screens and books. But part of me will always be dancing in the quiet shadows, beneath the trees.

Behind the Letter

Which dark forest, real or metaphorical, have you walked in lately, and were you changed by the experience? Did you take the path that was clearly lit or search for yourself in the shadows?

There is a unique joy found only in a glowing spring woodland. You must know it well, since you are part of its making. Everything seems to come together at once. How is the message that the moment has come transmitted? Does it burst like a pulse through your mycelial networks, announcing itself to all the trees of your community? Or is it carried on the wings of a bee as she pollinates each early flower? The bluebells make their announcement most clearly, rising together like the sea.

I have always loved your ecosystem, but only recently have I realised the true interconnectedness of your realm. How each has their role to play to contribute to the whole, and yet can be truly themselves. As humans we only have poor imitations of such systems and are often forced to play roles we are not suited to at all.

Are we surprised that this leads to burnout? The definition of sustainability surely, is each playing their part in the way that is natural so that together we can form a beautiful whole, almost like an orchestra. In your forest each plays their part beautifully.

Asking the blackbird to pollinate the primrose would be fruitless. But we would not blame either of them for the lack of success.

Throughout my career, I have often needed to do things which I am not naturally drawn to. Sometimes I inevitably failed despite my best efforts, and I blamed myself for my inefficiency, my lack of so called ‘attention to detail’.

But perhaps my attention simply tends in another direction. I notice each shade of green, each heartbeat of the robin, each leaf as it unfurls. I notice how those around me feel even when they do not say anything. In your ecosystem perhaps, this would be a role in itself: the art of being present. The art of bringing peace.

Behind the Letter:

Let me know, have you ever been stuck in a job or environment where you seemed to always grow in the wrong direction. And did you ultimately change the environment, or yourself?

I was walking in your woods a few days ago, when I saw a mirror, clear as a portal, leaning against a tree.

I do not know how it got there but as I approached it reflected the bluebells like stars.

It felt slightly eerie so I left, deciding not to explore further. Yet once I had gone, I felt a call back to that place and could not resist it. I returned the next day but the mirror was nowhere to be seen. After I had sat with my thoughts and wandered long in the forest, there it was again, appearing in a distant glade. This time I moved a little closer, but though I reflected, the mirror did not see me and the image blurred as I approached.

On the third day the mirror was lying flat like a pool and I sat by it. I saw scenes flash by; some close and some far. But always, the mirror returned to the enchanted forest, similar to mine, but clearer: a deeper green, a softer light – a place even more alive. I wanted to visit the world on the other side of this mirror and dance in those woods.

I do not know how long I sat there. You too appeared in the mirror in many seasons. I did not like all the things I saw, but nothing stayed long. Again and again the reflection returned to the woods. But I was never in them. I saw destruction and beauty I saw the forest I fear and the forest I long for. The scenes changed faster and faster as my thoughts raced and I found myself getting closer and closer to them.

Today I came to the mirror without expectation. For the first time, the woods on the other side were like my own, and there I was, sitting in the quiet, reflected as the trees see me. I looked peaceful as the breeze stroked my hair and whispered in the beech leaves.

I really enjoyed connecting with Rose Wollf last week via Substack Live. We touch on our stories that led us to our love and connection with trees, the work we do with them, and why they are so important to all of us.

To help support Old Growth Forests through my work with Ancient Woodlands UK, a campaign for the legal protection of ancient woodland, the link below will direct you to our donation page.

Support UK Old Growth Forest Protection

If you’re interested in learning more about tree magic, ancient traditions and tree connection with Rose, she haa a “pay what you can” by-donation workshop coming up on Saturday, May 2nd.

You’ll take your first steps into the practice of tree magic: learning to sense a tree’s presence, recognize when a tree is calling to you, and begin building a relationship with a tree as a living spiritual ally. No prior experience is required, only an open heart and a willingness to be received by the green world.

This workshop stands alone as a meaningful and complete experience, and also serves as a natural doorway into the deeper work of my “Awaken the Druid” two year deep dive for those who feel the call.

Listen to the Trees

Thank you so much for your big beautiful courageous and wild hearts, and for sharing our love for trees. May the work we do together help steer the world towards tender care and a regeneration of the animate, green world.

With all our love,

Rose & Lucy

Thank you , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

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I was wondering if you have learned everything you will know about yourself already or whether it is an ongoing process. How will you adapt to the changing environment around you, and are you already preparing? I hope you are, because the storms have been harsh this year and I am afraid that there is much more to come. It feels strange to think of on such a beautiful spring day.

I do not understand why, as humans, we do not act in response to a known threat, like the climate emergency we are creating.

Once, I was walking down a lane near you, when I noticed a huge group of pheasants in front of me. There were at least 100, of all ages, some old, some hatched only this year. Since humans unfortunately breed them for shooting, I was not surprised that they were afraid of me. Instead of escaping into the bushes to the left and right however, they continued rushing down the lane, and yet still moved at a snail’s pace, with no hope of outpacing me. Their behavior was similar to our own response to the climate crisis. I often see politicians and decision makers rushing about, flying to conferences on the environment, and yet moving forward very little. Of course I was not going to harm the pheasants, so I slowed down; but the climate will not do the same for us. The pheasants were just a tool in a man’s hands with little control of their own, while we cut the trees and burn the carbon ourselves.

And yet we did not expect the Earth to pursue us? Perhaps we are not truly surprised when she does. Deception and lies have kept us partially in the dark, and yet we could always have acted if we had chosen to. Fear and apathy have mingled in a toxic fertilizer, as we focus on unsustainable growth.

I am sure, that as a tree, you will not wait for us to protect you; you will act in your own way to adapt as you can and protect your networks. I think it is we who should learn from you. I am so happy to see that you are budding and getting ready to unfurl your leaves in hope for another season.

This week I will be going Live twice and I’d love you to join us. These are opportunities to dive deeper into the forest world and also hear about my work protecting woodlands. Tomorrow evening at 7pm GMT I will be going Live with to talk about our connection to trees, traditions around them, and what they mean to us.

On Sunday 28th March a 12 Noon BST (4.30 IST) I will be a joining for The Art of Attention - A Substack Live Conversation with Lucy Grabe-Watson on poetry, trees, and the practice of noticing.

In our live session on Sunday, we’ll touch upon:

• the art of paying attention - to trees, places, people, emotions, and the small details that often become the beginning of a poem and any form of art really

• writing rituals, and what happens between the first draft and the final line

• how nature shapes our inner landscape

• a rapid-fire game

• Q&A and whatever else comes up while we engage

  Link to live stream here: The art of paying attention

I hope you enjoy these - There will be a new letter again on Thursday… Yggdrasil has been busy preparing for spring.

Lucy 🍃

I’ve noticed that just as you took your time in dropping your leaves, you are preparing carefully to bring the new ones out. Your buds are still a tight verdant green and the old beech nuts are still gathered around your feet. Just because others are ready, it does not mean you have to be. I learn a lot about myself from you.

I have been recovering from surgery, and immediately afterwards I expected to be better. I thought that it would be like magic, and that I would be a new person. But it didn’t work out that way. As the weeks pass my body has had many different reactions, and is much more sensitive to outside stressors, much like you after last night’s storm. Suddenly I react to food, to light, to exertion, much more sensitively. I do not like it. I am like you yet; I am not patient. You have understood the pace of the seasons and take time tending to yourself within them. The more I push, the more stressed my body is. I do not have all the time in the world though.

I can hear you asking why I do not take the time…

I guess you think all the systems we have built as humans to busy ourselves are nonsense. And I would agree. But escaping them is not easy. I am coming to see what you are saying though, and I know that perhaps time is something I have to take now.

Your feet are still damp from all the rain and it is making my trousers wet too. You are also dripping water on my head. It is not how I would normally take it in, but thank you for the thought, it is true that I am a bit dehydrated.

After the rain, everything in the forest glows more brightly. The hawthorn is in leaf and the celandine has shown her face. I am glad that spring is on the way.

I have been thinking about friendships a lot lately. Spring is truly underway now, and the wild garlic is springing up around your feet. Soon everything will be carpeted in green and purple. We have been friends for a little over a year now, and have seen each other in many different seasons. I was worried about you in the winter storms and you were perhaps thinking of me in my illness. Now we are both enjoying the relief.

Today, only a calm breeze strokes your branches. Each friend has held me differently, and known different parts. And I have seen unique parts of them, which are invisible to another.

Some of my tree friends are the oldest of the old. I first began visiting the Queen Beech at Wytham Woods in my teens. I was very anxious, and would find comfort in her great trunk. I listen to her whisperings, but there is still so much I do not know. So many people have passed under her bows and she learned their secrets - and she keeps them. She is never surprised to see me, and it is always as though no time has passed, even when I return after years apart. But I do not like doing that. I would prefer to visit her regularly, as I visit you. I think you would like her; perhaps you are even related.

Earlier, there was Lórien, who knew me when I was small. A weeping willow on the corner of my playground, who I began visiting when I was 7. We were not supposed to climb her, but I did. Her canopy felt like a glowing green veil, sheltering me from the outside world. I sat there for hours, daydreaming or reading. Every year the authorities came and would give her a ‘haircut’ and cut the lower branches to stop people like me from climbing her. I would apologise to Lorien. I lived in fear that someone would cut her down completely, why couldn’t they just leave her be. I recently walked past the playground, and she is still there. She has aged compare to the ageless Beech, but then, so have I. She still knows me.

And I know her.

Perhaps the best people are like trees. Unwavering and peaceful. They may be affected by storms and changed by grief, but something remains steady. The connection to another being, which cannot be shaken. The trees are not surprised when I return, because they knew I would.

Behind the letter

Do you have a tree who is a friend to you? I would love to hear their story in the comments and find more people who feel like I do.

Are the snowdrops beginning to bloom at your feet as you watch the rise and fall of the Evenlode in the winter floods? Today I heard the robin sing for the first time outside my window. I have been ill long and spring has crept up on me. I haven’t moved forwards as much as I would have liked to, always measuring myself against some invisible timeline. And yet, you do not move forward at all. You are always still, changing with grace through the seasons. You’ve lost some branches since I last visited, but it does not matter. You simply shed what you no longer need and it becomes part of the intricate ecosystem around you.

I remember another year and another robin. I was working as a forest school leader and he would watch me from the understory as I poured hot chocolate. I began bringing seeds to our session as the children wanted to give him biscuits. Biscuits are not for robins. As the weeks passed, the robin began eating from my hand. After a month, he would fly high over the children’s heads to alight perfectly on my palm. By December he was eating out of the tiny hands of a four year old girl in reception class – and she had learned to be still.

Your ecosystem supports all of us, robins, children, flowers. That was a time of magic and connection but we must remember what is at stake. Woodlands cannot heal us if we destroy them first. We must protect them, and in doing so, ourselves.

I hope that we will always live in a world where a robin can land on the hand of a child.

Behind the letter

Dear Friends,

This letter was inspired by my time working as a forest school leader and my recent TEDx Oxford talk, Love, listen, protect: The human - connection. I’d like to thank you for staying with me over the past few weeks as I took time away to look after my health. Your presence here means more than you know.

If you’d like to find out more about my work protecting ancient woodlands, please follow Ancient Woodlands UK on Instagram or check out our website. And if you’ve ever connected with one, I’d love to hear the story. Robins are such special beings, it feels like they can see straight into our souls.

Dear Yggdrasil,

Today it finally snowed. I went outside to feel the intricate flocks on my face and thought of them cloaking your branches. Although I cannot reach you across the dark ice that coats the roads around me, I am sure you will be enjoying this reminder that not all seasonal cues are lost yet as much as I am.

Temperatures may rise tomorrow, and the snow’s visit may be short, but for today let us enjoy it. I will walk as far as I can manage, watching it coat the rooves around me, before returning to hot chocolate in bed.

***
A few days have passed and the snow has melted to a damp fog. I have been thinking a lot about the dwindling visits of this gentle companion. Even in the Alps, where I spent so much time as a child, the glaciers are retreating and the seasons dissolving. Soon the familiar ice planes will have retreated beyond the horizon. It is said that over 40% of Europe’s glacier mass has been lost since I walked there as a child 20 years ago. I do not wish to go back and see it.

All I wish is for the urgency of this situation to be finally understood.

Hello Friends!

There will be a pause in Letters to a Tree until February, while I focus on my health. In the meantime, if you have been affected by what I have shared about the retreat of glaciers due to the climate crisis, I recommend watching Alpine Quest to learn more from women who live and work there. Yggdrasil will be ready for us when we return…

The new year is upon us, a fresh breath of renewal in every branch and leaf. This year I decided to sleep through it, as you do! I think this is progress. Of course, there are those who like to party and that works for their kind, but I am perhaps more like you, and benefit from the quiet and depth sleep can bring.

I was considering what your new year’s resolutions are likely to be. A greater harvest of beechnuts perhaps, or especially vivid green leaves in early spring. Or just to repeat the cycle of another year, adding another ring and becoming even more yourself. The older I get, the closer I come to realizing that this should be my true goal. Achievements may bring superficial pleasure, but only in knowing myself and the world around me more deeply, do I find true fulfilment.

I need to slow down, and yet as I do, I berate myself for my lack of progress. Attachment to outcomes has only ever prevented me from finding deeper meaning in my work and discovering new truths through it. When I come to visit you, I have no outcome in mind; it is just a chance to be together. I find the same to be true when spending time with my loved ones. Perhaps, then, the most rewarding moments are the ones where we are just present, whether alone or with each other.

I will not make this my resolution, but will think on it. I hope you slept well into 2026 and wish you the deepest, most beautiful year yet.

The solstice approaches. The equinox seems only moments ago, and the window I have to visit you shrinks each day. I am already looking ahead to the new year, eager to leave behind this darkness.

I know you are asleep, but I will keep talking to you.

I haven’t learned to hibernate yet, but I am trying. I have slowed down, at least a little.

Your roots are cold and wet beneath my fingers, and the sun is already setting at three o clock. I used to panic at this time of year, feeling grief for the life and energy of summer, willing others to stay awake through the colder months as I do. As I grow older though, with each passing year, my energy is shifting, and I am learning the joy and privilege of a warm home, good book and mug of hot chocolate. In my illness, I am also beginning to allow myself to rest. The ticking of the eternal clock has finally quieted a little.

Another year, another ring added, for both of us. That’s all it is, just another ring in your trunk. Does each ring show the challenges of the time it represents? If you zoom in, can you see each detail, each event as it happened? How do you record those memories?

I will never know perhaps, and that is your secret. But I know that it is in there. I wish I could go to sleep next to you, but maybe I can sit here in silence, at least for a while, and let my thoughts disappear in the rhythm of your breathing.

Lucy 🍃

Dear Yggdrasil,

The weeks have flown by. You hung on for so long, until suddenly, one day, you let go.

With one shake, your remaining leaves have fallen and become a new layer in the depths of soil beneath you. A living archive beneath your toes.

I have heard a saying that there is a time for everything. A time for holding on and a time for letting go. What I admire about you is that you always know the time, the season, and do not let others’ perception dictate it. You remind me that it’s ok to cling tightly and also to release when the moment comes. And most of all that it is normal to have long, dormant seasons.

So much is going on in the world, so much that needs presence, action, urgency. But in failing to stay still for too long, I have reduced my capacity to respond rather than increasing it. Meanwhile, you continue in your steadfast rhythm.

Sustainable.

A word humans throw about without care. But you do not need to; it is not something you think about, it is simple part of being, of not rushing, of standing still. That is what I hope to learn from you this winter. How to stop running everywhere, worrying, burning up with anxiety to little result. Perhaps it is my nature to do so. But I am coming to believe that if humans were more tree, there would be more peace on this earth.

I am thinking again, while you are just being. Do you think if I grew a deep root like you do, things would be better? Maybe that’s the trouble, that I don’t sit long enough for roots to grow. You have found your place, your contribution and do not concern yourself with those of others.

You help the worm and the fungi and the blackbird; and they help you. You help us too, perhaps unawares. You role is fulfilled, always.

And you do not get cold in Winter, like me, but are prepared. I must go inside now, because my fragile body cannot survive the night here like you can, and it is already getting dark.

What does home mean to you? Is it this beautiful valley where you have set root, or do those roots remember the tree from which you fell, the place where you landed and the wings of the bird that carried you? Do your leaves ever long for another place, to feel a different wind?

Somehow I believe that you embody your past, present and future, always, as one. I do not see urgency to change in you, yet you are always changing. Perhaps home is the blackbird that carries away your beechnut, and the squirrel that scuttles up your trunk.

Would you still be Yggdrasil, if you stood in a different valley? I think you would.

I want to be more like you in this. It takes me so long to get used to a new place, as though it changes my very essence. And yet, I am learning from you that this need not be the case, even though you never move. The valley is your vessel, but your sap, your bark, your strength, are your own. You change with condition, but in essence stay the same.

Perhaps home for you is truly your own being. I have no idea how you achieve this, but maybe one day you will share it with me? I am getting better at listening to you, although I know my visits must seem short.

I want to learn to be how you are, changing without rushing, moving forward without pursuit and staying still when the world around me is still.

It’s so lovely to see you again and sit beneath your boughs, your leaves all around me in differing shades of glimmering gold, clementine and rust. You are still taking your time in turning, but your autumn has begun; it could not be more beautiful. It is early morning and the air is cold on my face, so I will not linger long, but it was high time for a visit.

I keep anticipating you. Yesterday I wrote you a long letter, imagining that you had turned. Today, I finally visited, only to find that, mid-October, you are still enjoying your Chlorophyll. Your change seems slow to me, but I know that it has begun. It is a matter of perspective Leaves are starting to twirl all around, yet many are still green. Like, me, you are hanging on. I know that your colours, when they come, will be all the more beautiful for it.

What have you seen in my absence? I’m sorry that I could not be there for the process, too caught up in my own cycle. Perhaps we were meant to come together, now that we are both ready. The leaves crackle and crunch beneath every one of my movements and those drifting down feel like gifts landing on my arms and hair. Let’s sit together, just for ten minutes and absorb this season. Ten minutes of my time, just a few seconds of yours. The air is so still that I hear each leaf falling.

The sun will not part the clouds today, but you are unbothered by this, enjoying each weather as it comes and goes. How do you keep warm? I do not understand it but I will do some research so that I might understand you better.

I will go now and take a single one of the gifts you offered and press it in an old book, to look at this winter in my candlelit flat, when the days have been engulfed by darkness.

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Dear Yggdrasil,

The nights are stretching now. I am still coming to terms with the turn of the season and I know I should come to see you. It has been so long. I don’t know what keeps me away now that we are so close, but I do not feel ready to visit. I am sure that you have begun to change. Perhaps I am clinging to the image of your summer mantle, and unready to receive the autumnal one. We are both changing, you and I, slowly and relentlessly, like the quiet tick of an ancient clock.

Time used to scare me. One day I tore the batteries from the clock in my room. Perhaps it was not the minutes and hours, but the pressure of always measuring, always comparing to another day which frightened me. I felt as though I was on a train, hurtling towards an unknown destination, not of my choosing.

Years later, I still don’t wear a watch but I know now, that I have time. Time for today and time to visit you.

Time to watch the leaves fall.

***

I am finally here. A golden leaf silently twirls through the still air, before dropping beside me with a whisper. Only the blackbird shuffles the carpet of leaves, looking for snails and other seasonal snacks. There’s a deep chill in the air and your roots feel cold to the touch for the first time. My fingers curl around their mossy bark. I’m glad I came.

We are ready now.

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