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Real people share real stories of their dialogue with Nature. Hear how it feels to talk with animals, birds and landscape. Share the magic of cross species communication.
Created by award winning Nature writer and poet Estelle Phillips.
Instagram @estelle_writer44
TikTok @EstellePhillips
Philly Tree is a broadchalk villager. She was also a school chaplain in Australia for about seven years. She's a keen gardener, she plays the trumpet, and she read archaeology and ancient history at Exeter University. When I heard that Philly had a special connection with trees, I couldn't wait to do a podcast with her. You'll have as much fun listening as we did making it.
Philly Tree:It's lovely to be here. My name's Philly Tree, which is an incredible surname to be born with, but one that has developed so is so much more than a surname to me. So I have a weird affinity with trees and plants and nature. And I was the nerd at school who wrote I love nature age six or seven and and was probably bullied for it, which I didn't really care because that just was my passion and remains my passion.
Estelle Phillips:How did that first come upon you?
Philly Tree:My prep school was very hands on and very we didn't know what the word environment went was in those days. We'd go for walks in woods with our little notepads and find, you know, five things in the woods and we'd learn about everything about nature. And I remember we'd have we were saving the at the time, we were saving the hedgerows and just learning about the sort of the ecosystem in a hedgerow. I remember to this day, it just blew me away that we were digging these hedgerows up to make these bigger fields, which is, you know, is obviously now, you know, we have these enormous agricultural fields. But I remember the hedgerows, I was just sort of so upset and felt really sort of connected with them.
Philly Tree:You were young. Right? Mhmm.
Estelle Phillips:That's a pretty profound thought for such a young person. Yeah?
Philly Tree:Yes. I suppose it was. I hadn't really thought about it, but to me it was just just I felt so connected through my family as well. We were lucky enough to have a fairly big garden with a lot of in tune with all the nature in the garden. But so, this was we're talking way back in in this, you know, I went to school I think I first went to school in '75, but from '75 to 1980, I think that were the most foundational in terms of my whole outlook on nature and in the environment.
Estelle Phillips:Are you able to describe that feeling of connectedness that you had as a child?
Philly Tree:In some way I felt this burning responsibility that it was something that shouldn't be lost. I remember with the time, maybe it was later on, I can't remember when it was, there was that I think it might have been on television and e is for elephant, mommy, what's an elephant? And in those days, were thinking, wow, we can't lose elephants, you know, that would be awful. In the same way, I didn't want to lose hedges. And then, you know, just all these things all sort of morphed to become a sort of big but I felt it sort of passionately in a way that it was sort of I felt it was part of me far more than maths or anything boring like that at school.
Philly Tree:This was something which I felt absolutely connected with in a way that You I didn't feel connected
Estelle Phillips:obviously still do.
Philly Tree:Absolutely, yeah.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. You mentioned trees. Yes. When do trees come into the
Philly Tree:scene? Trees, being born with that surname, obviously you're making you're always drawing connections with it, quite apart from having to go to boarding school with my sister's trunk which had a tree written on it, which was just blew me away and I didn't even realize that was why people are laughing. Anyway, that's just a silly thing. But the tree connection, I suppose it came from a little early age when we lost a tree in the garden, and I remember actually physically crying. And sub subsequently at boarding school, remember in the nineteen eighty seven storm, a tree came down in the woods.
Philly Tree:We backed onto these woods, and I just remember bawling my eyes out and everything. But there's always been that sort of association with trees where, you know, a bit sitting under them or I I sound like I'm a tree hugger and I, you know, take it or leave it. I don't have a particular affiliation either way, but even just stroking the trunks of a tree and the moss and everything, and just looking for birds nest in them and something just grounds me and connects me in a in a rather peculiar way. I don't really know how to verbalize it, but it just feels very it feels very normal. And yet most people would say, oh, you're a tree hugger.
Philly Tree:And I say, well, whatever. I don't really I'll wear that badge if I have to, but I don't think it should be a label that's sniffed at because I think it's actually imperative that we look after what we've been given.
Estelle Phillips:Well, mean I think it's a beautiful thing. Yes. Yeah? Yeah. And to have that sensation is really joyful.
Philly Tree:Yeah. Absolutely.
Estelle Phillips:Can we go back to the tree that was felled in your garden? And you were really crying. What was it that you lost?
Philly Tree:Forgive me for mentioning it, but Avatar to me really brought to life something that I thought was real, that trees have this sense of communication and connection. And I felt connected with that tree. It felt like, you know, forgive the pun, like a limb had been chopped off. Literally, I'd like I'd lost a part of me. You know, this tree that I'd grown up with as a child was just not there anymore.
Philly Tree:And it was huge. It was an acacia tree. And I remember the thump in the night, we were like, oh my goodness. And just just all of us going out, just could not believe it had come down.
Estelle Phillips:But acacia trees are known to speak.
Philly Tree:Are they? Yeah. I don't think I was aware
Estelle Phillips:of that. So for example, when giraffes come along and eat them.
Philly Tree:Oh, that's them. Yes.
Estelle Phillips:That's Yeah.
Philly Tree:They give off yes.
Estelle Phillips:They give off scents Yes. That's to warn the other trees around them.
Philly Tree:Yes.
Estelle Phillips:And so the giraffes know this because then the other trees make themselves taste horrible and I
Philly Tree:remember reading that in your book. Yes.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yes. That's right. Yes.
Philly Tree:You've got that in New England.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. Have actually. Yeah. And then so then they go on to trees further away. So you were having a connection with a tree that is known Yes.
Estelle Phillips:To be highly communicative. Yes. Yeah? Yes. Obviously, I think you obviously were.
Philly Tree:Yes. I don't doubt I don't doubt it at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really anything people don't really talk about that.
Philly Tree:But then when when I saw Avatar, I just again, I got this overwhelming sense of not personal validation, but validation that all the thoughts I had with about trees and being connected was true because it was based on the whole the mycelium networks underground which talk. And that I just felt part of that connection. And that's what Avatar is based on fundamentally, I think.
Estelle Phillips:I'm not really familiar with the film, but but I'm familiar with what you're talking about terms of the mycelium and
Philly Tree:so on.
Estelle Phillips:I don't see why we should not be.
Philly Tree:No. There's no reason why we shouldn't be. No. Yeah. I think it's certainly such a vast network that we we I just don't I think there's so much that humans still just do not understand in nature, in in the whole natural world.
Philly Tree:And I think we, you know, we've come from that world and a part of that world and have to maintain the links or we will lose all that, the benefits of it, I think.
Estelle Phillips:I really agree with what you're saying about us not understanding it as well. Yeah. So can we so that was how old were you when you had that connection with that tree in your garden?
Philly Tree:Well, I left that house when I was 11.
Estelle Phillips:So it was a while ago. So what Yeah. What other communications with trees have you had in the intervening period that are memorable?
Philly Tree:My parents now live with an enormous oak tree.
Estelle Phillips:Oh, how old is it?
Philly Tree:I mean, you could
Estelle Phillips:Roughly? A
Philly Tree:couple of hundred years. I mean, it's got the most
Estelle Phillips:So when you put your arms around But you can't
Philly Tree:put your arms around it. Oh. It would take three of us to put our arms around it. And it's huge. Oh, how wonderful.
Philly Tree:But sadly, it's beginning to lean rather precariously, and it will eventually fall down. But we all, me and my sisters, we often, you know, quite apart from the fact that it has that central place in this field outside my parents' house, You know, it's it's just a sort of central point where we meet, where we go, where we cry, where we talk. It's got a swing on it and where we've brought the children. And all the family, all the cousins, they all sort of congregate there. It's like it's sort of well, it's like a meeting point and you know, where did I walk in the summer?
Philly Tree:Part of the the famous tree in Bilbao or somewhere, there's a famous meeting point. I digress. Anyway, trees are so significant as meeting points, aren't they? Mhmm. Throughout if you look throughout history, it's always been trees that have been the focus and, know, in a village or in society.
Philly Tree:And many a sort of law have been cast sort of under these trees. So I think that's sort of the whole of history sort of bound and connected with trees in a way if you if you and I've just scratched the surface, but there's a lot of history connected with important trees in society.
Estelle Phillips:Although witnesses in the landscape
Philly Tree:Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:They're tall and they're old. Yes. They see a lot of stuff.
Philly Tree:I think there's so much wisdom that we can tap into.
Estelle Phillips:So that Yeah. That tree in your at your parents' house now Mhmm. That you visit now
Philly Tree:Yes.
Estelle Phillips:When you go to that tree Mhmm. Do you communicate with it?
Philly Tree:I don't physically talk per se, but I will sit on the swing or
Estelle Phillips:and
Philly Tree:I will it's like sitting I suppose for some people it would be like sitting in a church, you get that sense of clarity or not, what people like to do. But for me, I I get that sense of just sort of a sense of clarity and a sense of peace And just connection with something other than all the problems you may or may not have had that day. It just tends to sort of make you realize that you're part of something bigger than that moment or that afternoon and which is not not, you know, why you haven't done what you wanted to do or you've been frustrated. It sort of elevates you into something much bigger than that, which makes you put everything into perspective.
Estelle Phillips:You see, I think that that's quite a significant communication. Because as you say, it's not a sensation that you would experience normally, but you might experience it in a church. Yes. Had you experienced it in a church, you would undoubtedly attach a spirituality context to it for obvious reasons Yeah. Which would be credible even by human standards.
Estelle Phillips:Right? But the sensation is the same.
Philly Tree:Yes.
Estelle Phillips:And I think that that what you've described being that kind of clarity, I just think we don't know how to describe it.
Philly Tree:I agree. I think because I do have a strong faith and I think it doesn't surprise me also that you see trees are personified so much, you know, they clap their hands Mhmm. In the Bible and they do all sorts of things that you wouldn't expect them to do. And if you believe, you know, there is a creator God, then it doesn't surprise me at all that we're connected because the same person that you commune with in a church is the same person that you I say commune in the loosest sense you communicate with under a tree. It's the same same deity, same connection.
Estelle Phillips:Yes. Have you ever had that feeling of it's a bit like you're super in tune with a tree Mhmm. And you're perhaps thinking about something or kind of like psychologically reaching out. Yeah. You're looking for help.
Philly Tree:Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:And then the tree this is like it's a bit like the tree leaning into you, but it's more like that clarity that you've described except with some kind of physicality to it. Have you ever had that?
Philly Tree:Not so much with a tree, but with nature.
Estelle Phillips:Okay. So how
Philly Tree:So, was sitting on the beach in Australia once and I asked a very direct question about whether I don't actually remember the question, but it was to do with I don't know whether it was to do with the person or whether it was a bigger, you know, do you love me? I think was my question. It's, you know, do you love me? And it sounds totally wacky, but I opened my eyes and the next wave that came in, it usually sounds totally bizarre, but the next wave that came in, you know, the slight froth you get on the edge of waves, it formed a perfect love heart. It was most extraordinary.
Philly Tree:And I thought, woah, that's weird. Okay. Thank you for the answer. Yeah. I mean, that was that's the most goosebumpy moment I've ever had sitting there asking a direct question, getting a direct response back.
Philly Tree:And that that's the closest I can say to having an actual physical tangible response to something I that was a connection Without I mean, you you couldn't if someone was with me, they would have also said, look at that heart. I mean, was a it was a complete jaw dropping moment. Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:How did you feel at that moment and afterwards?
Philly Tree:I think rather like I I just was in disbelief really. And I felt it's really really hard to articulate a moment like that because it's so otherworldly, I suppose. It's so again, it's it's that element of disbelief that if you actually if you weren't there next to me, people would say I was making it up. It it was just I just can't try struggling to find the right adjective. It was at the same time being brilliant.
Philly Tree:It was quite scary is wrong because there's not nothing scary about that moment. It was wonderful, but
Estelle Phillips:I can't think of the word.
Philly Tree:Wonderful and inspiring, but also quite confronting, I think. Yeah. So it was sort of every encapsulated and awful lot of emotions.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. I think you've described that brilliantly. How long did it last?
Philly Tree:What? The bubbles? I think I I think I took a photo. I'd have to try and dig it out for you. But I think emotional is a big big response.
Philly Tree:That was the word I was trying. Emotional. So every emotion under the sun I felt in that moment, you know. I was confronted, I was conflicted, I was happy, sad, everything in that in that moment. And it probably lasted for under half under half a minute, it's like thirty seconds.
Philly Tree:But I was I was convicted by the question I'd asked and felt very validated and convicted that, yes, okay, answer. I couldn't really, you know, I couldn't deny the answer was there right in front of me. Yes, I love you. Yeah.
Estelle Phillips:Yeah. That's absolutely fantastic. Thank you.
Philly Tree:Okay.
Estelle Phillips:Yes. Brilliant. Yeah.
Philly Tree:Thank you for having me.
Estelle Phillips:Subscribe to Nature Talks With Humans for more true stories of people communicating with animals, birds and landscape. Follow me on Instagram at Estelle underscore writer forty four, and TikTok at Estelle Phillips. Bye.