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Gather@Grand—Befriending Trees
Join us for a set of six mid-morning sessions beginning Friday, September 12, 2025. We will learn more about trees and ways to engage with them more intimately, guided by Pope Francis’s insights about integral ecology.
When/Where
- Fridays beginning September 12, 2025
- September 12, 26; October 10, 24; November 7, 21
- 10 am — 12 pm
- The Gathering Space at 1520 Grand Ave, San Rafael, CA 94901
The Basic Plan
You are invited to a set of six discussion/action sessions to learn afresh our particular connectivity, to know about trees better than we do already, to engage some local trees in practical ways—including discovering and marking their common names (for others to appreciate).
The regular format will include an hour or so of discussion about trees, stimulated by our common reading of Peter Wohlleben’s basic but informative Can You Hear the Trees Talking? (2019) or his Hidden Life of Trees (2016). We will spend some time outdoors on the Convent campus (or perhaps you will do so in your own garden), coming to grips with our relationship with these other creatures more nearly and dearly.
This engagement will help us know and befriend trees at a deeper level. Our main quest is to better understand and more deeply inhabit the tree-filled world, the larger universe, and our human existence amid those spaces. Our practical outcome is to begin to place nametags at the base of trees on the Convent grounds.
Registration
- Please register online
- You need not attend all 6 sessions. Register for the ones you can attend.
- There is a Zoom option for the discussion portion of the session—not the field work. In-person attendance is preferable.
- Feel free to invite others—please register them or ask them to register.
Register for September 12 here