A long time in the future… after events that changed our world, a silent political Party of Trees was formed. Not to rule the world or make laws for the economic profit of selected individuals but to advise, feed and protect all species of this earth.

With their heads high in the sky they stood for the rights and duties of all beings, and the natural patterns of life and death. Rights that every living creature deserves equally. Duties that many of them performed already, but were made to do even more or live in poverty or even to hide their existence by the dominant species.

The silent political Party of Trees was formed from Arboreal persons chosen to represent every aspect they stood for:

• love and beauty
• energy
• water and food
• drugs and health
• air and soil
• wisdom
• weakness
• life and death
• symbiosis…

Chosen trees understood the importance of their engagement and the responsibilities that they would have to carry on their shoulders from one age to another. Their party was formed not out of boredom, fancy, or private ambition but pure necessity for this planet and the universe.

Are we ready to allow and embrace the necessity?

If you want to join the silent political Party of Trees you have to complete this walk and listen to the stories thees trees are telling you.

[[Tree walk in Forêt de Soignes|treewalkforetdesoignes]]

* Oak
* Elder
* Hazelnut
* Hornbeam
* Alder
* Birch 
* Larch
* Beuk

[[Tree walk in the centre of Brussels]]

• Fig Prutske
• Elms the twins
• Bamboo not a tree
• Wild chestnut Leopold
• Non existing tree Dansaard
• Platanus the Court of justice

 [[Round table discussion/walk for States of the Arts]]
 
 We where invited to present the idea of Silent Political Party of Trees at the round table discussion during the event    State of the arts in Brussels http://fo.am/state-arts/   

http://www.paramoulipist.be/treeparty

I take on the talking stick Going on the road of naivity and imagination a speculative table:story a way to bypass the actual political institutions to be able to approach them in a different way, rethink them

method: we proposed some thoughts and questions, everyone could write down associations on small papers, cut them like leaves and put them on a heap in the middle of the table, the autumn metaphor

we choose trees, because - we depend upon them for our survival and by now they depend on us for their survival - we can learn from them: they are competitive and very solidary, they are generous and never destructive we want to take them into account by including them into our juridic system we invented an arboreal persona, that equals the natural persona and the legal persona every tree has a minimum of rights and duties already depending on where s/he lives the Brussels' tree 'states' are irregular and fragmented

When we look at trees, time scale becomes an obvious criteria: they have lived before us, they will live after us, the shortest life cycle of a common tree here is 80 years (larch, birch), the longest up to 500 (oak). Politicians think in terms of 4 or 6 years, forest guards think in terms of centuries. The trees we live with today in the forest have been planted by people 200 years ago. They serve us with beauty, pleasure, food and materials. The trees that are planted now will serve the future generations in 300 years time. So the choices the forest guard makes are not for himself, nor for his friends, they are for all living creatures, for the earth.

When we think about a silent political party of trees, the first thing that comes in mind is: do trees communicate? If so, how do we communicate with them? Trees are silent, but we all agree that they do communicate. They can talk. We have seem to have lost our capacity to communicate with them. Or are we deaf? Or death, like someone understood it? There have been ancient societies in which trees were part of daily social life. When a child was born it would get a tree assigned to it. In celtic culture f.ex. each tree represents a specific value. If we want to be represented by trees, we need translators. These are people who developed a specific mindset. Empathy seems to be the answer (cfr the book by Frans De Waele). And telepathic communication (cfr Rupert Sheldrake). 'As I am a lasagna of identities, could one of them be a 3?'

You cannot talk about someone without the presence of this individual, that is one of the basic rules of respect. So we went for a walk to meet some trees. One of them is Prutske, a fig tree in a pot near De Beurs. It still bears figs now. Figs are like flowers turned inside out. Therefore Prutske was collectively declared to be an artwork. But it is also a worrying proof of human genetic engineering, as Prutske normally would need wasps to reproduce herself, and these wasps cannot live in our climate. How come Prutske bears fruits in the middle of November? This thought led us to the idea that trees and artists have a lot in common: they both create fruits that others can enjoy, they have underground networks and upperground networks, and they cultivate the art of being, living in the now, connecting themselves with the past and projecting themselves in the future. We live from, for and with energy. In Belgium a lot of artists work under the status of the houthakker/woodcutter. We asked ourselves if Prutske would also need a visa?

We also thought on how such a tree party could work in a hundred years time, or fifty, or maybe already tomorrow. It seems obvious that the tree party would be part of a matririfocal society. Where Lietaer talked about the yin and yang of the money system, we could apply that to the political system. The tree party could then be the yin part next to the classical yang part and they would have to collaborate. Some obligatory aspects of this tree party would be: - the meetings would have to take place outside, in the presence of trees; that is where politics begun anyway - to have to listen beyond words, to tune into the collective wisdom and speak from there - to take time, every break there would be a mandatory tree hugging for all politicans for at least 5 minutes; those who don't like hugging, can climb a tree. - there would be one season dedicated to rest - people would have to use a talking stick that they pass on to each other (the microphone is also a talking stick ) - there could be invisible individuals influencing the decision making (story of the hazel with the mistletoe toe and the golden snake) - there would be a cyclic time representative And in the end, last thought: there is the proposal to vote for the meiboom as the new mayor of Brussels! https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157637413989015/

http://ekostories.com/2013/05/16/le-guin-direction-of-the-road/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157636253456134/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157633447132812/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157633431550085/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157633224778197/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/foam/sets/72157631828144552/