Hello, this is Dori Robinson and I hope you are doing well. We are working on future new episodes to be released soon, but really wanted to replace a this Tree of Life. Episode that was originally released last year because we think that the things that Stephanie causes spoke of in our interview are more important than ever. As we find ways to protect and take care of our Earth and trees. Also this episode and is one of
our favorites as it features. Our mothers, we hope you are able to celebrate and take in this blossoming time of year and that you enjoy this episode in this season of tree speech. We are focusing on how we commune with trees, the conversations. We With them, as well as the spiritual mythical and personal ways people relate to them, not only in our present day, but also throughout history.
Appearing in numerous religious and sacred texts art literature science, religion, philosophy and mythology across States cultures and civilizations. We couldn't explore our relation to trees without examining the Tree of Life.
The tree of life, sometimes referred to as the world tree appears in mythology and folklore of cultures around the world and very slightly from culture, The culture, a common theme that is shared, however, is the idea that a mystical tree, connects the spiritual and physical worlds. In addition, the tree of life is foundational to supporting all life on this planet. My name is story Robinson and this is tree speech. A podcast where we practice hearing the forest through the trees.
This week's episode was written and recorded in Massachusetts on the native lands of the wabanaki Confederacy. Penacook massachusett and Pawtucket people in New York on the land of the Lenape tribes, as well as on the lands of the Confederate, tribes of the siletz, Indians and the Grande Ronde Cowlitz. Tree speech is co-written and produced by Jonathan's out. Nur, and a light theater guilt.
Swiss psychologist. Carl Jung continually notice that trees often arose in people's dreams and so began to study the commonalities of this occurrence through his research. He discovered that trees were part of the collective. Unconscious indicating growth unfolding shelter, nurturing, permanence rootedness and rebirth and concluded that the tree is an archetype, a symbol deeply ingrained, even hardwired into the human eye. Unconscious.
The fact that this ancient symbol for life is a tree is fitting after all throughout history, human beings have always paid. Homage to trees our distant ancestors. Clearly understood how important trees were for supporting life on Earth. Even before the times of scientific inquiry, the connections between trees, religion and spirituality date as far back as humankind with deep ties in every culture,
faith and civilization. Jewish, Christian, Islamic Buddhist Hindi Mayan and Celtic interpretations, just to name a few The oldest known example of the Tree of Life depicted in art was found in excavations in Turkey. Dating back to 7000 BC specifically figures of pine, trees depicted on boz's and potteries. What makes it particularly interesting is that pine trees have been used in art and ceremonies by other civilizations, including the Romans since they are Evergreen
and seem to have eternal life. There are Any references to the Tree of Life throughout ancient cultures as an Imago Mundi, meaning the image of the world. For example in Nordic mythology the tree of life was massive and grew out of The Well of word which was an endless pole that held Universal wisdom and other powerful. Cosmic forces known as the eked result re its roots and branches help the nine worlds of the
cosmos together. In fact, it was so important that the well-being of the Entire world depended on the trees own Vitality the Norse. God Odin wanted to possess the knowledge contained in the yggdrasil tree and The Well of Lord, thus to demonstrate his loyalty to this quest. After sacrificing his eye and throwing himself on his spear. He hanged himself from a branch nearly dying in the process. However, in the end, he survived gaining the knowledge of the
universe. Greek mythology has a few different stories about magical trees which closely resemble the idea of the Tree of Life. In one story, Zeus marries the goddess of the Earth Gaia and from their Union, a giant oak tree sprouts in other versions as in the story of Osiris Zeus becomes part of the tree as with other tree of life stories, the roots of the Greeks world tree were said to reach Tartarus, the Greek underworld and its branches could reach the Stars
in another myth, the Earth goddess Gaia planted. A magical Apple Tree. In Harris Garden as a wedding gift when she married Zeus like other world trees. Harris, Apple held parts of the universe together at first Hera appointed some nymphs to tend to the tree. However they proved unreliable. So Hara got a dragon named Lawson to guard the tree. What's especially compelling about this story? Is the similarity between Harrah's apple tree and the tree in the Garden of Eden.
The Bible begins with the story of the Tree of Life, as one of the two trees, in the middle of the Garden of Eden, Adam, and Eve ate not of the tree of life, but of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. Because they age of this tree humankind was expelled from the garden of paradise and separated from the Tree of Life, less. They also eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in Judaism.
The tree of life is seen as a source of life-giving representing the knowledge to live peacefully within the wider World. Thus the Torah is called the Tree of Life eats Haim and Hebrew offering a philosophy that makes life understandable and harmonious the qur'an's version of the Garden of Eden story, mentions a single tree. Tree the tree of Eternity and the kingdom that fail us.
Not because they make the mistake of eating from the tree Allah sends Adam and Eve to Earth where they must live and learn to repent from their mistakes. However, Allah Usher's them that while on Earth, they will have guidance, thus the tree of immortality in the Quran represents repenting and learning from one's mistakes, as
well as God's mercy. The early Irish believe that the tree of life was in the direct Center of Ireland, in County West Indies. In this way, the tree was viewed as an axis Mundi, the center of the world similar to the Aboriginal Australians and other ancient cultures. The Celts were animists, they believe the natural world was interconnected and that Spirits inhabit everything from trees to River Lakes, mountains and animals.
The Celts depended greatly on trees for shelter building, materials food, shade and even Weaponry Central trees in a community were where political and spiritual ceremonies were held the ancient Celts. Also believe that empty space on a piece of ceremonial jewelry, Weaponry, or drink, we're allowed evil spirits to enter the artifact. This led to the development of intricate not work, Swirls and
patterns, that echoed nature. One of the earliest and most used was the tree of life and these Artistic Styles are still seen today. Buddhism has a strong connection to the Tree of Life once Buddhist at beneath the Bodhi Tree and received Enlightenment. This tree has, now been known as the tree of wisdom in Buddhism, the Tree of Life symbolizes, personal development uniqueness, and individual Beauty, just as the branches of a tree strengthen and grow upwards to
the sky. We too May grow, stronger, striving for greater knowledge, wisdom and new experiences as we move through life. So so how do we in our present-day? Connect with trees and gain strength and wisdom from them? We cannot speak directly with them and ask for guidance. Can we today's guest dr.
Stephanie Casa has spent much time in conversation with trees and has authored a beautifully written and illustrated book to help and Inspire others to do the same and author scientist and educator dr. Casa is professor emeritus of Studies at the University of Vermont. Also, a longtime practitioner of Soto Zen, Buddhism with training at Green, Gulch Zen Center, California and further study
with tick, Naughton and others. She is the author and editor of many books including green Buddhism, practice and compassionate action in uncertain times in her book conversations with trees. Dr. Casa used her background in spirituality and ecology to write autobiographical essays about her. Encounters with trees. It was such a pleasure to speak with Stephanie, her spiritual connection to trees and life work as an educator and Advocate is awe-inspiring, and she has much wisdom to share.
Let's listen. Well, first of all, Stephanie, I just want to thank you so much for being with us today. I know, you're very busy person. Thank you for carving out the time. It's really a delight. People that love trees are my people. That means we're your people. So that's wonderful. We are very curious about the intersections of spirituality and trees and as someone whose work explores the intersection of religion and ecology, can you tell us How this journey began
for you. Well, I could say that it was through reading a book or teaching a class, but honestly, I better start with the first key tree teachers in my backyard growing up. So first in Buffalo New York, there was a generous gracious, apple tree right in the backyard and I was lucky enough to have a bedroom with a little deck off at. That was right next to the apple tree. So, I spent hours out there, just watching the light and the shadow.
Shadows. When I was like five and six and I will say, I'm extremely happy to be living on Portland Oregon with a big apple tree right outside the window where I'm sitting but then I also, as I became a teen, I was here in the Pacific Northwest and there was a big Ravine behind our house and it was filled with Douglas Firs and they're often walked the trails down by those Doug Firs.
But at the very base of them by the creek was a stand of Five, giant redwood sequoias and that became a really important place of pilgrimage through my teens because it felt like a refuge a place of stability. And again, I'm not sure that I could have told you what the trees were teaching me. I just knew that was a really good place to be, that it felt safe and that most trees meant a lot to me. So the trees were first before Buddhism. Although I did spend a good chunk of my team.
The hood also part of going to a church. So I'll give them some credit to the unitarians. And I mostly did it through music at that time. So music was a very important expression and when I went away to college, I went to Oberlin College where I could sing in the choir and also be a biology. Major was the perfect combination but that experience of Choral singing, I think developed a sense of resonance at a vibrational level for me. Is part of the way I relate to trees today, and I'm still
singing in a choir. I really feel the human voice is a marvelous counterpart to the voices, you know, of all the other beings trees and birds. And so on, now, I was lucky to be at Oberlin spiritually because it had a long theological tradition, and also a very strong activist tradition. And I was there in the 60s, very formative time demonstrations in the streets, I grew up really
fast. Fast. But what came through all this time and into my Buddhism was that spirituality and activism and engagement all go together. They're not separated. So as I went into my 20s, I know had been a biology major, I came to California, I learned all kinds of Natural History, I was birding and botanizing teaching outdoors. I had a long five years with the point raised bird Observatory and then the UC Berkeley botanic garden as their education director.
So I was Teaching teaching people about the natural world and I did go on to finish your PhD in biology but in the middle of all that my modern dance teacher said you should come to naropa? I think you'd really like it. So, I went to naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado and I thought I would just hang out and go to poetry classes with Allen Ginsberg and take dance class, with Willie Worsley. It was an amazing time. And along the way, I learned to meditate, and I really took to it.
It was just the most natural embodiment perhaps of, not just breathing, but of my understanding of Trina's. So I return to Santa Cruz. And then I went to live for a year on the land. I had to go do my hippie thing, but when I returned from making a lot of compost, I came to live at the Santa Cruz and center and there. I met my ordination teacher Cogan, she know so much Introduction to Buddhism was very filled with an experience of the Arts and of a kind of spontaneity.
So I really took to Zen which is has that kind of flavor and koban himself is quite a poet and musician. He played the flute. He was a calligrapher and he was a very affirming and accepting teacher. And you won't be surprised to hear this, but the Rural Retreat. It's Center that he was associated with Chico. G was above the hills of Palo Alto and he was just fine with us sitting on the outdoor deck outside the zendo surrounded by Bay trees.
So I often did that or did walking meditation on that outdoor deck. And in fact the very first tree piece I wrote for conversations with trees was written there by the pond at your Koji. So this is a long as story but I did go on to do a degree. Starr King school for the ministry and taught environmental ethics there and they're brought those Unitarian students out to meet my trees. Of course. And it was just my good fortune.
That is, I started teaching at University of Vermont the entire field of religion in ecology had just kind of burst open. It took a long time to arrive and I came with environmental ethics and all this Buddhist training. But suddenly people, wanted someone who could speak to Buddhist philosophy. And address environmental concerns. So I just got on the bandwagon very early on lucky for me, lucky for you, and lucky for us. What? That thank you for sharing all
that richness. It really sounds as though your journey with trees in your journey with Buddhism, really intertwined. So spontaneously, but also naturally. Now we're going to focus on your book conversations with trees within which you have a chapter called magnetic Presence in which you write some part of me is tree. Can you expand on this concept of being one with trees or a part of you being tree?
So being one with trees, an easy thing to say, but what does it really mean in Zen Buddhist philosophy. There's a very strong emphasis on non-dualism. No separation between self and other any sense of separation or or over inflation of You Me. Mine eye is seen as a kind of delusion. Another way to think about that is Tick, not Hans word, interbeing, people, really like that because it gives you a sense of connection relationship, but it's always going on.
His very famous meditation is about holding up a piece of paper and asking students to see the sky in the paper, see the water, see the soil and that piece of Paper. So we say the phrase, not one, not two, it's kind of a koan. So it's not, I am me. And there is a tree over there but there's something going on. You know, between us the way.
I'm describing it these days is that I'm feeling part of a tree tribe and in particular, the conifers of the Pacific Northwest and I'm so happy to be back among my people again, after 24 years of being in Vermont. So I see, for example, Douglas fir is a strong and Stern kind of Elder teacher. Whereas Western red cedar is a
warm and loving presence. I have visited an old-growth Grove of Sitka Spruce on the coast since I was a kid and I've been going back quite a bit since we moved back to Oregon and I've decided that I want to just offer my remains to that particular Forest so that whatever is left will indeed. Finally become part of Forest that's incredible. Thank you for sharing that you mentioned this concept of ecological sanity. Can you tell us what ecological
sanity means to you? And why it is important? Well usually, when we use the word sanity were thinking about mental and physical health, emotional health, spiritual health. So you would infer ecological sanity is then about healthy relations with the ecological Realms that Support our human lives and of course support all the other beings in the world who deserve and need our respect. And I'm sorry to say as a planetary people were mostly acting in quite ecologically.
Insane ways ignoring the wisdom of indigenous peoples of scientists and other world religions. There are different ways of describing this Insanity in kind of psychological term. Some call it an addiction to fossil fuels to Consumers, For example, or you might say it's out of kind of narcissism thinking, only of ourselves or
ourselves. First human lives is dominant on the whole planet and some religious teachings reinforce that or you could say it's a kind of forgetfulness that we were just so absorbed in our lives that we forget everything else that's going on. So all of those are ways of being kind of a little insane and when you add them all up together, the impact is of a world that is going crazy.
Crazy, it's going crazy. And it's ecological systems and the human political and economic systems are not strong enough to restore that ecological sanity in a unified way. Right now, there's very destructive things going on in our major forests of the Boreal lands, as well as the Amazon, and of course, war is never good for ecological systems.
So, why ecological sanity is Important boils down to, it's the only way we will survive on this Earth, but I will say, at the very same time, there is a deepening sense of ourselves as planetary people. And there is a deepening sense that ecological sanity is possible and necessary and that it really requires us to use our spiritual practices to focus on what I'll call out three things here as a kind of part of our closing. You to focus on healing healing
our relationships with trees. With each other, just stop cutting them. Stop burning them. Stop murdering them and with the land and and start working on the great course, correction, after these hundred years 200, 300 years of plunder and it's an extraction and genocide. So healing is one great need building community and practicing. Tootie, understanding ourselves, as part of forest, part of neighborhood, part of the
planet. And this shift I see happening more and more everywhere that is very, very encouraging. And both of these, I would say are about practice, what we do every day, how we show up, how we pay attention, how we choose to take ethical action working with others. Engaging in ritual and ceremony but always returning and this is a very important Buddhist theme. The daily practice of meditation or chanting are walking. So that Buddhist practiced, informs your path to ecological sanity.
It was really wonderful how you laid that out for us in such a connected way. In conversations with trees, it was originally released in 1993. Does the book have resonance today? That is different from when it was first released, and what is it? Like, for you to go back to the stories and chapters, in the book, with years of life experience, since it was originally published, honestly it is a thrill. When I reread those stories, I think every word is true.
That absolutely. And I can remember it in my body. They somehow have really held up and I, especially one of the best stories of the whole project is that when I decided, I really wanted an artist for the book. I thought it would just make the book, so much better. I was lucky enough to meet a person at a engaged. Buddhism Meditation Retreat,
right? Before I moved to Vermont and he and I were both, of course, have been sitting all week long, so we're on some kind of wavelength And though I never met him before and he said, well, I might have a kind of drawings you're looking for, and he sent me a package, and I fell in love right there. And that's our love-story and today, now Davis and I have been married, 23 years, and he is
still drawing trees. And I'm thrilled to have his drawings in the book and we really just decided the trees brought us together, but we can celebrate all that. So much more today because we don't we can we're not hiding. In a closet with it. When I would do reading this back then in the 90s people would sneak up to me afterwards and say, oh, I have a favorite tree. Can I tell you about my tree? They didn't want to talk too loud because they thought people would think they were crazy.
But now it's everywhere, it's in the popular lexicon now and there's so much more awareness of trees, the importance of tree planning for urban cooling, as well as Aesthetics. So, I think the book really Lee holds up well and I'm glad it's in the company of other tree books. It has some friends on the Shelf. In fact we have one whole bookshelf that's nothing but
tree books and our house. I'm thrilled that Shambhala wanted to re-release it again and I know their decision was because there's so much more receptivity and interest right now in the general population my producer and I both also have shelves of tree books, what an incredible story that love of trees brings so many people. Together. What trees are calling to you right now? Well, I'm really feeling it in Spring.
It's so exciting. It's like the tree energy is really awakened, like, there's just surging energy between everything. It's really coercing out there and I have a feeling I'm supposed to be doing some more writing about trees. And so they are talking to me. And the one that I met recently is an enormous Western red cedar. It's called The Rock.
Away Cedar. It's on the coast in Oregon just north of Tillamook Oregon. And it's a, Remnant old Cedar, a hundreds of years old enormous in scope, and it was kind of in a little Backwater behind a neighborhood, and people were just kind of creeping in on various paths here and there to see it. And it was annoying, the neighbors so much that finally, they decided to build a boardwalk through the Cedar, Swamp out to this beautiful Cedar. So when I visited this Cedar my
first meeting, oh, I was so excited. All along the way on the boardwalk, were blooming skunk cabbage, just brilliant yellow, right and left, right? And hundreds of them. So I was hitting a peak moment energetically in this spring swamp and I was already very excited by the time I got to the Cedar and looking at different Cedars along the way. Is this it is this it and then when I got to the big one I just couldn't move for a while.
While I stayed, I don't know an hour or more, and, and I knew the message was, you have to write about Cedars. I'll give you all the information you want. Just keep coming back to me. Don't ever forget that? I'm here for you and I will give you the energy. You need to complete what you're supposed to be doing. Now, it was, so I'm saying it in words, but words are not really
the way it was coming through. Obviously, trees, don't speak English, but it came kind of The heart and part of what it enabled me to do was sort of look at what else was coming to me. Like, where else am I picking up? Very faint, clues, or little seed somewhere out there in the cosmos when I can't wait to hear through you, what the trees are saying and what the trees are sharing. Thank you so much for joining us today. Stephanie.
We are so inspired by the seeds. You've planted towards action. Russian. And that is both Inward and outward towards a deeper understanding of ourselves, and towards healing and creating more sustainable lives for one another, and we look forward to all the wisdom and Beauty forthcoming from you as well. Thank you, it, really welcome. I'm thrilled that you're doing this and I wish you all the luck in the world. I hope you get a wide wide
listenership. As you said at the beginning, we're hoping to find more of our people more of our tree people. And two to share with others how their treat people, whether they realize it or not wonderful. I was struck by the clarity, Stephanie has when she speaks about and with trees, she knows them on a biological level but also views the world holistically her stories center around trees.
As living sentient, the sedentary beings and find ways to converse with them by giving those interactions space and time. It takes a lot of effort and patience to understand a human on many levels. So, too with a tree Carol Cusack, professor of religious studies at the University of Sydney wrote that the powerful and evocative place that trees. Hold in the human imagination, which is apparent in religious, and spiritual context is due to
their kinship with human beings. Their substitutability is due to there being different. Yay, continuous with humans in that they both share life. This is the work that Stephanie does to make it clear that trees are alive, worthy of large myths, and religious symbolism, and also our personal intimate relation to them in our everyday lives in her book conversations
with trees. Stephanie writes, quote trees have historically and mythologically represented many things the Tree of Life. Axis of the earth tribal ancestors, home of spirits. But my efforts here awkward as it feels at times is to try to speak directly with trees. She continues quote in these meetings of trees and person. I allow myself to see and also be seen by trees as in most good
conversations. There is the desire for more contact more time together and more depth to cultivate this tunity will require a level of Love effort and spiritual Integrity that I can only just begin to imagine. Stephanie has put in that love and effort over years to develop her own relationships with trees. What would you like to speak to a tree about what do trees mean, or symbolize to you? And how about the Tree of Life, does it hold meaning for you? At this time?
I've always loved seeing the Tree of Life in art, from Gustav Klimt to jewelry and a multitude of interpretations in between, yet I struggle to find my own unique connection with the tree of life. However, doing research for this episode has been I love learning about the many ways, the tree of life has been a part of cultures and civilizations, it all shows me that there are many access points to connecting with the Tree of Life. Maybe I simply need to broaden
my view all trees. Give life without trees. There would be no human beings. We are in a deep relationship with one another. I constantly learned from trees and receive sustenance knowledge and health. And inspiration. This week we are celebrating another powerful force of creation, love and sustenance mothers. In honor of the upcoming Mother's Day. My producer, Jonathan and I have asked our mothers to share a sapling or short tree related
story of their very own. We take this time to honor our own mothers and the mother figures around us, extending this biological definition out to cover. Anyone who has brought something to life. Or who Foster's the growth of another, to be a mother. Can take many forms even that of a mother tree and we pay tribute to you all. Now, here is Miriam and Marie. And Jackie, our apartment building was built in whole on near and already established neighborhood.
It was beautiful. It was All one stories with a big front yard and my pediatrician lived in one of these houses. And I could go to her without my parents because it was two or three streets, over no traffic, they weren't many cars back then. And I went to the pediatrician and whenever she had to give us a shot or do something that would be mildly painful. They felt so, Badly. So and she was a very practical
woman there. She spoke to the point, not spoiling you in any way, but she felt so badly. After giving her a shot that she would walk you out to the front yard on your way home and pick a mango from her mango tree and give it to you as a surprise to to break home and mango trees were very rare back then. So it was always a treat.
So actually, before I transform the on the way to school, I walk to on paved road for the most part until I got to an area where it was June's again and I had to cross the tunes to get to school and in the middle of the dunes were sycamore tree. And but it was the most wonderful tree because Tag, very strong branches low enough for us to climb on and then climb
higher and higher. It was halfway to the school and that's where we had all our meetings from second grade to eighth grade are socializing, was in this sense, sycamore tree. And then when they continued building the city around and they built on the dunes, luckily they preserve the tree, they built a little rotary for the Cars to go around it and it's still there. It's a beautiful spring morning, in San Diego, California, and I'm sitting under our enormous Pine Tree in what we call the
lower 48 and our big backyard. The lowest Branch was bedecked, with a red sleeve of ogun Bia. Perfect for the person that's Grand Tree is named for Grandma Margaret. Not truly our children's grandmother Margaret was everything. I could have hoped for kind generous and loving and was the perfect surrogate for my mother who had recently passed. She came to our home each Tuesday morning so that I could run errands and enjoy a cup of
coffee. After calling it our little bargain, this went on for several years until Grandma Margaret It's wonderful and generous Spirit fell victim to the cruelty of Alzheimer's. One of our last visits during Christmas time, her daughter gave us a small living pine tree from the supermarket. Little did we know that once the small tree chick route, it would take over an entire Corner, providing shelter and shade Grandma.
Margaret Street is a testament to her beauty tenacity, strength and Faith. You Mother's Day, Margaret. I've always had an affinity for trees, tree blossoms, in spring summer shade trees, trees and Rich fall colors and how would a fir trees by writing an essay on the apple trees in our yard and what they meant to me when I was a third grader. I won an evergreen tree from a local nursery and my class was invited to our house to see the tree planted.
It was an exciting event. Many years later, as an elementary music educator I continued to share a love for trees through song and poetry such as Kilmer's famous poem trees kindergartners saying mr. Rogers Tree song and older students learned about the Redwoods. Through Woody Guthrie's. This land is your land to name just a few of the opportunities I had for incorporating trees
into music curriculum before we built a home. 35 years ago, my husband planted hundreds of evergreen trees and hauled water for their survival prior to their being an available water source on the land, we added beloved, birch trees, and when I planted another favorite a Willow in the absence of rope to stake it, I had to use. What was on hand speaker wire, which somehow seemed apropos for a music teacher today that tree sores 40 feet in the air and the wind still sings a sweet melody
through its willowy branches. I see trees of green red. Red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you and I think to myself What a Wonderful World. Thank you for joining tree speech today.