Speak For The Trees

January 27, 2010

I’m excited to tell you about a wonderful new venture by Andria Friesen, an American author who visited the Findhorn Community last summer and was inspired by the work of the Foundation. Her project, a mighty 200 page hardback tome called Speak For The Trees, is a visual and prose feast of her love and care for the trees of our planet.

The book is a beautiful celebration of artistic relationship with these gentle giants, featuring contributions from 76 sculptural, paint, photographic, glass and conceptual artists from around the world who have used tree imagery in their work. The voices speaking up for our arboreal friends vary from the young and emerging saplings of the art world to the mighty redwoods represented by David Hockney, Yoko Ono, Mark Ryden and Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Each artist contributed their artwork along with thoughts on their creative relationship to trees and included in among these wonderful contributors there are even some folk from our very own Findhorn Community – Angus Marland, Lisa Shaw and Brian Nobbs along with the Foundation’s co-founder Dorothy Maclean.

Andria has blessed the community with some wonderful abundance through this project. She has generously donated a half share of any profit from Speak For The Trees to the Findhorn Foundation, the other half being donated to the Esalen Institute in California. She has also gifted 100 copies for the Foundation to sell as a further donation to our work.

With Beauty as our overlighting community angel for 2010, Speak For The Trees is a gentle reminder to open our eyes and acknowledge the beauty of our leafy neighbours. More information, including the fascinating story behind the book, is available at www.speakforthetreesbook.com.

Rosie Jefferis