For the Love of Trees

Trees have always been a huge part of my life, mostly just my backyard trees but also the ones on our land near Wainwright, Alberta. There is something about them that really appeals to me and provides me a place to hide amongst them. I used to do that, hide under the trees in my backyard, the maple and the plum tree, to escape being around my unsafe family. I was quite little when I did this. I spent my time "playing" with the fairies of my imagination, using clay from our garden to create bowls and such for them.

Trees communicate with each other through their roots, not the way we do, but about water availability and soil nutrients, etc. I communicated with the trees through my feelings of loneliness and sorrow about being a sexually abused child. I'm afraid that fact informs my life in so many ways I can't explain them all, but the trees seemed to know, spreading their canopy of leaves over me. If I could not be seen there I felt so safe.

My love for trees led me to develop the book, Trees of the Lew The Amber Pendant. I wanted to show the spiritual aspect of life through the trees. Being a fantasy novel set in Lew forest, it was fun to develop characters who represented a variety of very human emotions - love, curiosity, hope, resentment, greed. They came together to form a community of Tree Spirits who care for one another and for their environment. It's my way of paying homage to the trees of my youth who bore my pain but also brought me love and hope.