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To Speak for the Trees
- My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest
- Narrated by: Diana Beresford-Kroeger
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
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To Speak for the Trees
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Publisher's Summary
2019 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award
Canadian botanist, biochemist, and visionary Diana Beresford-Kroeger's startling insights into the hidden life of trees have already sparked a quiet revolution in how we understand our relationship to forests. Now, in a captivating account of how her life led her to these illuminating and crucial ideas, she shows us how forests can not only heal us but save the planet.
When Diana Beresford-Kroeger - whose father was a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and whose mother was an O'Donoghue, one of the stronghold families who carried on the ancient Celtic traditions - was orphaned as a child, she could have been sent to the Magdalene Laundries. Instead, the O'Donoghue elders, most of them scholars and freehold farmers in the Lisheens valley in County Cork, took her under their wing. Diana became the last ward under the Brehon Law. Over the course of three summers, she was taught the ways of the Celtic triad of mind, body, and soul. This included the philosophy of healing, the laws of the trees, Brehon wisdom, and the Ogham alphabet, all of it rooted in a vision of nature that saw trees and forests as fundamental to human survival and spirituality.
Already a precociously gifted scholar, Diana found that her grounding in the ancient ways led her to fresh scientific concepts. Out of that huge and holistic vision have come the observations that put her at the forefront of her field: the discovery of mother trees at the heart of a forest; the fact that trees are a living library, have a chemical language and communicate in a quantum world; the major idea that trees heal living creatures through the aerosols they release and that they carry a great wealth of natural antibiotics and other healing substances; and, perhaps most significantly, that planting trees can actively regulate the atmosphere and the oceans, and even stabilize our climate.
This book is not only the story of a remarkable scientist and her ideas, it harvests all of her powerful knowledge about why trees matter, and why trees are a viable, achievable solution to climate change. Diana eloquently shows us that if we can understand the intricate ways in which the health and welfare of every living creature is connected to the global forest, and strengthen those connections, we will still have time to mend the self-destructive ways that are leading to drastic fires, droughts, and floods.
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What the critics say
“In her youth in Ireland, Diana Beresford-Kroeger received an extraordinary and unique education in traditional Celtic plant lore. At university in Canada, she specialized in biochemistry and merged what she learned and observed into her signature studies of trees, augmented by First Nation forest wisdom. This autobiography of learning ways to heal the damaged earth and break the tightening grip of climate crisis offers a rational and inclusive way to keep our future.” (Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News)
“Diana Beresford Kroeger has given readers a rare gift: an inspiring tale about trees, trauma and the very purpose of life. Her Celtic story works on you like a good walk in a pine forest: You can’t help but feel invigorated afterwards.” (Andrew Nikiforuk, award-winning journalist)
What listeners say about To Speak for the Trees
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 2021-01-05
Inspiring
I found this book to be absolutely wonderful. I am deeply grateful to have listened to this, I found it inspiring and I took much to heart.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- me
- 2021-05-07
this is more than a book.
listen to it, then listen again.. and again. this is timely wisdom in a time of information and emotional overload
go out into the forest. any forest.
plant a tree. listen to the book again, invite others to listen.
read by the author.. an incredible inspiring woman. i highly recommend. open mind, open heart. 💚🌲
I will read or listen to this woman any time!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Heather Connell
- 2021-09-09
Add it to your list
I walked into this book without expectations or hearing anything about it other then from a Bookstagram account that had a super brief review. I really enjoyed the mix of Irish Celtic wisdom with the science aspects from a botanist and biochemist. If you are trying to get anyone to understand why trees are not only vital for our clean air but the homes of many species and how they provided nutrients into the water for sea life and how we are not only committing genocide by clear cutting forests the world over but we are actively choosing to end our lives by decimating the very place that gives us our life with cold callousness in the capitalistic game countries are trying to win. It’s shameful, terrifying and yet hopeful. We can make a difference we can stop the massacre if we do it together. I highly recommend this book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 2020-10-20
Great Listen
An amazing listen and highly recommended for anyone who cares for nature or has an interest in environmental protection and the magical necessity of nature and forests.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- tonya surman
- 2022-02-10
her message is vital, but...
her content is vital to our planet but the book couldn't really decide what it wanted to be. is it a life story or about Celtic wisdom or about saving the trees? or maybe the defense of a gilted scientist from academia, still vying to be taken seriously? anyway, I am still entirely motivated to plant my 6 trees or more. so it had the desired impact.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kristen c.
- 2023-05-24
Loved this
This book is highly recommended as both a nice autobiography and as a way of deepening an understanding of how important plants are to human existence.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Pattipow
- 2020-08-08
Almost like 3 books in one
I really enjoyed listening to this book. Firstly because the author tells the story of her growing up with intelligence and affection, and all in her Irish accent. I was very moved by her situation when she was orphaned and then taken in by her relatives in the country. So the story goes from one of tragedy to one of love and healing and growing passion and education.
What I feel to be the second part of the book is her adult life as she develops professionally into the admired botanist and researcher that she is today. I appreciated her rootedness in her Celtic traditions, which reminded me a lot of the traditions I have read about in indigenous communities, especially with the connection and reverence of other living things.
There are often fads among north Americans for all things Celtic. She’s the real deal, and proudly so, with a dry wit and a fervour for reconnecting us with our relationship with living things, particularly trees. I love trees and so I am hungry for ways that further illuminate this relationship.
The third and last part of the book is her Celtic alphabet of trees. Here she goes let her by letter of an ancient alphabet and describes various trees and their healing properties and uses both ancient and currently in our modern pharmacology. This is totally delightful.
My only criticism is that while I really enjoyed the fact that the author read this book herself, and it really is her reading her own autobiography, The wonderful lilt of her Irish accent had a way of putting me to sleep if I listened in bed! So I had to go back and re-listened to those parts during the day. Not a huge complaint. :-)
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Josh Ruberg
- 2021-04-01
Perfect to deepen your love of nature
In addition to the pleasure of listening to and Irish accent, this is a pleasure to have experienced. So much passion and knowledge is conveyed. The world is better for Diana being amongst us and for this book being part of it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- hope
- 2019-12-31
Amazing! A must read!
Is the best book I have read and listen to by far in a very long time probably ever as an Irish person it’s wonderful to hear about the lost and colonized world of the Irish if you’re interested in your own roots as an Irish person or as a Pegan I would definitely recommend this book also if you are interested in health foraging and holistic healing this book I would recommend with highest esteem. Thank you Diana for your beautiful work I hope that you continue to share more druid wisdom culture lost and still well alive and theSecrets of our ancestors
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- LR3
- 2021-07-20
Love this book!!
I really enjoyed this book, I will never look at trees the same way.
Thank you Diana Beresford-Kroeger
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