Idealistically, Given Trees is a co-op. Altruistically and eventually a non profit co-op. That’s why we keep using the word ‘we’; gardeners, artists, horticultural therapists, and teachers may come and grow with us.

We will be a community site with different authors information and creations, perhaps sharing links, whole pages or maybe just a quote or two. We want to make a home for folks to come together to teach our children how to grow and create a more sustainable life. As the site grows, just like a garden, members will fill out the branches of ‘the given tree’. Today, here with this web site, I plant the seedling. With hope and help from a whole lot of people will watch this tree grow.

Please contact us if you would like to contribute to this site info@GivenTrees.com.

About the Name and the Logo

                                              Finding The Given Tree

In the late 1980’s our family went on a camping trip in the Colorado Rockies.  We’d moved to Colorado in ‘84, but never quite found the time to go discovering until then.  Our campsite was near the base of Mount Antero just south of Buena Vista, Colorado in a wilderness area of the Pike National Forrest. 

The drive and the sights we encountered during our sojourn were all quite spectacular; but what took me to a profound state of enlightenment was small, and to some, relatively insignificant in comparison to our awesome surroundings.  In fact, I doubt that many people would have noticed it, much less given it much thought.  I was surprised that in a “wilderness area” I came upon a tree stump, obviously cut. I was deeply disappointed to discover man’s obvious handprint in this so-called ‘wild place’.  Trying to give man the benefit of the doubt (which I didn’t often do back then), I circled the stump to see if maybe the tree was diseased.  I couldn’t see any signs of beetle or other natural forest maladies.  I knelt down to get a closer look and saw, nestled in the stump’s feet, in the raised roots at the base of what once was a mighty pine, a tiny pine seedling.  It couldn’t have been more than seven or eight inches tall.  But the green of the needles sparkled, almost as if they were wet and vibrating.  So shinny and new, with none of man’s handprints around, I knew this had to have been the Great Mother’s handy work.

I’ve always been inspired by nature and, in particular, have a fascination with trees.  Natural and wild places are holy and sacred to me; much more so than any church I have ever been in.  It is certainly not because I don’t respect churches and those who attend them.  But in a church you often hear about God in a paternal sense; in nature you see the balance, the maternal, the Goddess herself in all her divine glory; working Her miracles, reseeding Herself, taking care of the very minute details of life.  And, in that very spot, just a little piece of Her, an infinitesimal piece of new life, so shiny and bright, stood the amazing energies of life, of destiny, of the all powering energy of GREEN!

Now some may have seen a dead stump, a thing, no longer living, no longer necessary, no longer viable, but I saw the protection it offered this fragile, shiny new seeding.  I saw the dying roots below, showing the seedling the way, giving sanctuary until the seeding grew and could stand on its own.  How then, can this stump be dead?  How is it no longer viable when it serves such a spectacular purpose?  Even as it rotted and decayed it provided the nutrients of life; the ever revolving cycle.  There was no doubt in my mind that this tree had “given”.  

Call it Mother Earth, call her the Goddess of Green, call this life-giving, maternal, nurturing force of nature whatever you’d like.  But don’t dismiss this green energy as simple biology.  Make the connection.  Understand that no matter what you call your God, who you name as your savior, we are all connected on this planet.  We are all connected by the life-giving, maternal forces of nature.  Don’t misunderstand, I don’t dismiss God in any way, I don’t put God in a greater or lesser than basis, it’s just that in finding the maternal, female energies in this nurturing earth, I find balance and in balance I find peace.      Tina   ‘02

I don’t consider myself to be a working artist, maybe more like a “wanna-be” artist.  I find myself quite taken with trying to capture (doodle), on paper, the energy of ‘dead’ wood. So I thought it appropriate to make this particular doodle my logo - it reminds me repeatedly of the lessons learned on the day I discovered the seedling nestled at the base of the stump.