Most of my reading in the last few years has been about nature and all of her vast and wonderous enterprises, but lately I’ve been trying to step out and diversify. So when a review copy arrived of Our Green Heart, I didn’t think it would add that much to my studies but I couldn’t help taking a peak.
I was totally wrong. Right from the first page it became immediately clear the voice of Diana Beresford-Kroeger is novel and her experience informative and deep.
This quote from her website captures the essence of the book beautifully.
“Diana is a world renowned scientist who was taught the ancient Celtic wisdom of the trees as a child. She was told that she would need to bring this forgotten knowledge to a troubled future.” These were the Brehon Laws, the ancient insights of Celtic culture.
Does this sound kind of flakey to you? Don’t discount her, as Diana also holds two PHDs – one in biochemistry and one in biology. As she matured, she grafted this ancient knowledge onto the tree of western science. This is why her understanding is so unique.
She says chemistry allowed her to understand all that a plant gives us. A favourite saying of hers is that to eat a fish you must plant a tree. Winter rain and snow dissolve acid in leaf litter which creates fulvic and humic acid. Dissolved by rainwater and gathering a load of iron salts, freshwater streams and rivers carry them to the oceans. There they are fed on by microscopic creatures which jump start protein building enzymes to feed fish and animals…and on and on.
Her Celtic knowledge gave her Ceile which is based on an observation of “how an individual’s existence related to the next person in time and how the relationships connected to the universe as a whole." The most direct translation is binding to each other. This seems akin to our own First Nations creed of Seven Generations.
Lyrical language that you wouldn’t ordinarily hear in a science text is used through out the book. Pesticides and herbicides are “neurotoxins which fly in the wind. Plants wear or share it, organs store it, breast milk pumps it. Creatures die from it.” This ear for words must surely have arisen from her Celtic heritage.
Beresford-Kroeger left academia years ago due to sexism and general toxicity. Since then, she and her husband have started their own arboretum in Ontario and are collecting trees from all over the world. You can hear her talking about her book and her life’s work at The Eden Mills Writers’ Festival Sunday September 8.
I can assure you that you will be glad that you were there!
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