Tall Tree Tales

Tales of Tall Trees

or maybe tall tales of trees

~ the Stronger Roots Project ~

The shadow of a tree falls over the path, over your path, over your shoulder. The shadow of a tree falls over your heart with joy and delight. Or wariness, perhaps, as the branches sway while the wind is still, as the trunks creaks and leaves sigh.

Turning, we see the whisper of a tree-promise, floating away down the path, a leaf of opportunity to chase, to catch, to treasure….

We were talking about trees. Telling stories about trees. Listening to personal tales of trees: the best woods for den-building, the best trees for rope swings, the places where you would be disturbed (by interrupting adults), the places where you wouldn’t. Glades for picnics. Where there were rabbits. A stream to splash in. Children whose year of interrupted education had given them time to really get to know the woods of their town

During Buxton Wild Week, I was telling stories in two of our local schools: Buxton Juniors and Burbage Primary. I was there as part of Buxton Civic Association’s Stronger Roots project. Coordinating the Arts Engagement Programme within the wider project, we’re holding all sorts of events through the town over the next few months. 

We have made books among the bluebells. This weekend we made puppets inspired by the woods around us. We’ll be using tree identification to inspire printing and personal tree-books in early July (Buxton Wild Week, 2). There will be a sketching workshop and a film-story-be-inspired session as part of Buxton Festival Fringe later in July. 

Through August there will be Woodland Tuesday workshops: free, small, creative, and possibly quite frivolous, activities every Tuesday through the holidays. I’ll post details as plans finalise, or you can find more here

At Burbage, as well as stories, we had time to draw. They didn’t set out to be tree shadow pictures: we were looking at scribbling techniques and using that process to draw quickly and confidently, but when I came to look at the results, they felt like the shadows of trees falling over our lives.

All of this makes me think of workshops  our local community group Stone and Water ran last summer. Out of these sessions came various collective poems….one of which ends:

We are the people 

Who made the swings,

Who built tree houses,

Who fought with sticks,

Who made the bows,

Who fired the arrows,

Who fought the dragons,

Who camped in the shade,

And toasted marshmallows (on an ashwood fire.)

with many thanks to the pupils, teachers and attentive ears 

of Buxton Juniors and Burbage Primary Schools