Sleeping with Trees A Listening Journey to Transform Your Connection with Nature
Embark on this 12-part series for an embodied exploration of trees. Each episode invites you to connect with a different tree—experiencing its unique qualities, healing properties, and mythology firsthand. Step outside and let the world guide your journey in a way no book or screen ever could.
taught by Tamara Colchester
Audio 1Birch
The slender bodies of birch cover the northern world - a consistent companion in times of dark or light. As spring emerges, the birch begins to draw sap upwards from the cold earth, pulling life into its many unfurlings.
Audio 2Ivy
In this session we examine the agency and regenerative action of a plant that moves itself through many ecologies, partnering with trees with a force that can remain in equilibrium, or tip over into dominance.
Audio 3Lime
The lime is a tree whose bark belies its gentleness. A generous tree, it shares its soothing medicine in myriad ways, allowing us to cool that which burns, and providing a store of food that will nourish us throughout the coming months. As we enter a new year, we look to the naked trees, exploring their form and wondering at their hidden natures.
Audio 4Willow
This session of Sleeping with Trees will ask us to stretch ourselves. As we sit in the discomfort of humility - releasing the grip of our mind on the world, we also bend the questions we give to the trees back towards ourselves. How do we yield? How do we weave? Through the dark and through the fear… How do we learn to both bend and mourn, even as we open and praise…
Audio 5Pine
A tree of purification, transformation and fertilisation - we turn to the pine at the peak of seasonal fecundity, ready to draw on its teaching as we sit in its shade.
Audio 6Ash
Every branch of the upright ash curves up towards the heavens - leaves radiating in ceaseless, silent sound. To wonder in the presence of the ash is to dwell on precarity - the changing states of a world in flux.
Audio 7Heather
To understand heather’s presence among trees invites a change of perspective. The ecology of heather is an exploration of the maternal - the succession of a world that is always giving birth to itself.
Audio 8Elder
Elder is the very essence of summer with its fragrant flowers and soot-dark fruits. It was said that an elder planted by your house would keep the devil away.
Audio 9Oak
The mighty oak needs no introduction, this is an invitation to let yourself held by the earth as we spend time with the trees, turning our mind towards the open invitation of sleeping beneath them.
Audio 10Alder
A tree to be feared? Is there such a thing? In this session we are drawn into the swamp ecology of the alder, allowing ourselves to sink into those boggy places that store so much hidden life.
Audio 11Yew
A tree of life and a tree of death - the yew holds an effortless paradox, inviting us to relinquish easy categorisation and allow for mutability.
Audio 12Hawthorn
Our session this month takes us into the centre - the heart. Cor - Coeur - Core - we will explore a tree that allows us to feel the span of life’s beating centre.
Dive into Deep Inquiry and Connection with Nature.
Sleeping with Trees invite you into a space of curiosity and wonder, where we’ll explore the power of asking deep, meaningful questions to the trees directly. These sessions aren’t just about intellectual understanding—they’re about embodying the questions and slipping into a state of gentle contemplation and dialogue, cultivating a new relationship with life itself.
Guided by Tamara Colchester, who professionally leads retreats through Plant Listening, you’ll experience the art of sensory connection and deep listening—tools to help you rediscover what it truly means to feel "at home" in the world. Tamara, co-writer of the film Tawai: A Voice from the Forest, explores the wisdom of old-growth forests, and is currently writing her second book, Edge Dwelling: Encounters with Life on the Margins. Through her guidance, you’ll deepen your connection with the earth and engage in practices that spark transformation and healing.
Join us for this unique experience of exploration, connection, and growth. In these 60-minute audio journeys, you’ll learn about the trees and be encouraged to engage with the tree in a personal way, whether alone or with a friend, inviting you to step outside and experience the tree firsthand. Awaken a profound new way of being with the world and discover the magic that comes when you listen deeply and ask the right questions.
- Embodied investigation of trees
- Active listening
- Mindfulness
- Tree specification
- Embodied investigation of trees
- Awe-struck relationship with life
- Medicine and myth of a healing tree each month