![\"\"](\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/tospeakforthetrees300.jpg\")
. Her second parent died when she was thirteen, and at first it seemed no one would care for her. Then Uncle Pat relented, leading to wonderful summers in the Irish countryside.<\/p>\nFor several of her teenage years in Ireland, Diana Beresford-Kroeger lived in fear of being sent by the government to one of the infamous Magdalene Laundries, where orphans like her and unwed mothers suffered abuse and maltreatment. Her second parent died when she was thirteen, and at first it seemed no one would care for her. Then Uncle Pat relented, leading to wonderful summers in the Irish countryside.<\/p>\n
Numerous aged women there chose her as a vessel to receive beliefs,\u00a0stories, and especially ways of healing, that went back to the Druids.\u00a0Much of this knowledge had been hidden from the ruling British during what the author calls the penal period. In the process, Beresford-Kroeger learned to affirm herself after her traumatic childhood, and to love and honor nature,\u00a0especially\u00a0trees.<\/p>\n
Beresford-Kroeger writes winningly about this period of her life.\u00a0Especially given that her parents had not paid much attention to her when they were alive, she makes clear how much these women\u00a0were responsible for\u00a0enabling her to develop into the respected scientist and author she became.<\/p>\n
After college in Ireland, Beresford-Kroeger came first to the U.S. for a few years, and then settled in Canada.\u00a0There she completed\u00a0at\u00a0Ph.D. but opted out of an academic career after experiencing much discrimination because she was a woman.\u00a0Instead,\u00a0she found success as an independent scholar, though she says she fears the word\u00a0\u201csuccess\u201d as associated with greed.<\/p>\n
The first 186 pages of this 284-page book tell the above story. It brings together her own amazing history, her botanist\u2019s outlook, and the\u00a0often mystical\u00a0understanding of the Druids. The\u00a0final section\u00a0is a\u00a0Celtic alphabet of trees. The Celts assigned trees\u2019 names to each letter of their Ogham alphabet.\u00a0For example, the letter H was called \u201cHuath,\u201d and the tree is the hawthorn.\u00a0A drawing of each letter is included, plus a description of the letter:\u201d H\u00a0is\u00a0designated\u00a0as a vertical line met by a single horizontal line to the left\u201d (p. 227).<\/p>\n
Along with each letter, Beresford-Kroeger gives information about the tree, the healing properties assigned to it by the Celts, and often, how modern scientists have discovered its\u00a0medicinal value \u2013 sometimes the same as the Celts\u2019,\u00a0sometimes different.\u00a0The ancients used extracts from hawthorns for \u201cunspecified weakness.\u201d\u00a0 Today medicines developed from that tree are used for hypertension associated with various heart problems.<\/p>\n
Two of Beresford-Kroeger\u2019s\u00a0previous\u00a0books \u2013\u00a0Arboretum America<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Global Forest<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u2013 are also available at the Miller Library. This one adds background and context to them. About a year after her parents died, she remembers standing outside one of those Magdalene Laundries and smelling fear. This book shows how she channeled that fear into a powerful advocacy.<\/p>\n Published in the Leaflet<\/em>, June 2022, Volume 9, Issue 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For several of her teenage years in Ireland, Diana Beresford-Kroeger lived in fear of being sent by the government to one of the infamous Magdalene Laundries, where orphans like her and unwed mothers suffered abuse and maltreatment. Her second parent died when she was thirteen, and at first it seemed no one would care for her. Then Uncle Pat relented, leading to wonderful summers in the Irish countryside. Numerous aged women there chose her as a vessel to receive beliefs,\u00a0stories,…<\/p>\n