The Tree in Me: A Tender Painted Poem About Growing Our Capacity for Joy, Strength, and Love

What trees can teach us about more closely and loving ourselves, each other, and the world more deeply.

Walt Whitman, who considered trees the profoundest teachers in how to best be human, remembered the woman he loved and respected above all others as that rare person who was “entirely herself; as simple as nature; true, honest; beautiful as a tree is tall, leafy, rich, full, free — is a tree.”

At the outset of what was to become the most challenging year of my life, and the most challenging f...