Yesterday I went to the Botanic Garden to visit trees and stories. I like to go there often, is the perfect refugee for birds, nature friends and silence lovers. I stopped under the shadow of the trees where last April, during the Botanic Garden spring festival Planta’t (“Plant yourself”), I told some of the folktales and myths related with trees I have been collecting, and it is as if the stories were still there, among the whisper of the leaves, or the light playing between the branches. And it is as if the garden is transforming in a sort of mind palace, or better said, an oral map, inspired in Australian aboriginal songlines, that allows me to remember every story linked to a tree. Because if I had to choose a palace, I will rather choose one like this, with a roof from leaves so that anyone can come and go free, whether a sunbeam, a raindrop, or a leafy breeze.
Next 8th October the autumn festival Planta’t is back, and me too, with more folktales and myths. And with questions, many questions: What have to do pine trees with Pleiades stars? And croaking frogs on trees with rain? Have you ever seen an elephant’s foot in Australian forests, or in Barcelona streets? Is the wind moving the leaves or are leaves moving the wind? Do walking trees exist? What is a spirit of the forest? Where are the trees from Greenland hidden?
I love to see the huge diversity of answers offered by different myths from all over the world to the same question, and to wonder to all the answers we can still imagine. And also to see how diverse and brilliant are the answers of the trees to rain, wind or lighting, as diverse as their shapes and details in each leaf, fruit, branch, tree fork… This playful creativity fills me with joy, reminds me that there are thousand ways of being and seeing the world, and if it was not so, that would be very boring.
Planta’t al botànic!
Saturday 8th October, from 11:30h
Stories about trees and spirits of the forest
Come to discover some of the secrets of the trees and their protectors, the spirits of the forest.
Format: 4 mini workshops of 20 minutes, in 4 points of the garden and in the following times: 11:30h, 12:15, 13h and 13:45h
Audience: families with children up to 5 years
Capacity: 25 people
Barcelona Botanical Garden
C/ Dr. Font i Quer, 2,
Parc de Montjuïc, Barcelona
Metro: Plaça Espanya (L1), Parc de Montjuïc (Funicular, access from metro Paral·lel, L2 & L3)
Bus: 55
We don’t know if we will get answers or will just gather more questions. Anything can happen, and maybe this is the most exciting: maybe the mere fact of taking the risk of sharing, experiencing and imagining together is worthwhile enough.
