There is a book Gary has been trying to get me to read for fifteen years. I've finally come to it and it is a delight.
The book is by W.J.C. Murray and is a scruffy little volume published in England in 1954 by The Country Book Club.
It's called A Sanctuary Planted and it recounts how, beginning while The Battle of Britain flashed and screamed overhead, Murray began turning a few acres of land in Sussex into a Sanctuary--almost as retaliation for the war. The sanctuary would be home to all of the trees, shrubs, flowers, animals, birds and insects Murray could collect or otherwise encourage to live and thrive in his hallowed place.
Trees were of great importance to him.
He writes that for him, the meaning of a tree is "permanence of place, constancy in being, the destiny to stand and serve, to rest in massive strength, to stand and wait, to endure to the end, unmoved, to abide undaunted through all frosts and storms, rains and tempest, light and darkness, year by year, century by century...."
