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tree of life

The Tree of Life
Project

Filwood Park
Knowle West, Bristol

The Tree of Life Project exists to help residents of Knowle West live wisely and well, sustainably and creatively through the chaos of a rapidly changing world marked by energy descent, climate change and planetary overload.

We explore how to live peaceably, justly, simply and co-operatively, learning from each other, from the wisdom of the years and from a growing network of partner groups and individuals. We look for ways to share our resources with a view to raising our level of self-sufficiency and interdependence.

At its heart, the project draws on Christian Creation spirituality to promote ways of thinking and acting differently in our lives and relationships.

The project focuses on four rich and interrelated themes and human longings:

responding to the environmental crisis – this includes the challenge of peak oil and energy descent, global warming and climate change, the extinction of species and destruction of habitats and the urgent need to re-localise and develop sustainable lifestyles
the search for our roots – ancestry – we develop ways to research and tell our personal, family and community stories.  We value and seek to tap into and pass on the wealth of knowledge of our elders and ancestors who have lived through ‘hard times’
the search for peace and justice at all levels of human existence – personal, communal and environmental
the desire to develop a personal and corporate spirituality - drawing on the riches of the Christian spiritual tradition.

Location
The Project is currently based at St Barnabas Church, Daventry Road, Knowle, Bristol.  Besides various one off events such as Earth Connect and an Arts Trail, we have a regular café one morning a week, a writer’s group and shopping bag making group.  We have just secured an allotment to develop as a community vegetable garden, which was ploughed by the beautiful shire horses pictured above. We are planning to offer a range of learning experiences related to climate change, peak oil and the energy reduction. This includes skills training such as preserving food, repairing household items rather than wasting, gardening, composting and worm farming.  Permaculture is central to our thinking. Some of the Tree of Life Project work is undertaken in the church hall and its ‘upper room’ but other elements take place in a range of venues in the community: in homes, community group meeting places and other churches and with our partner organisations.

There is a core team of volunteers and Tracey Pool, a local resident, is our part time development consultant.  Among other gifts, she is a felt-maker and story-teller.

Ethos
We seek to create and maintain a warm, friendly, inclusive and welcoming environment where ideas can be explored and dialogue can be had in a non-dogmatic, non-threatening, non-judgmental and non-proselytising way. 

We seek to create opportunities for young and old, people of faith and no faith to meet and explore the deeper questions of human existence and the longings of the human spirit, a place where spirituality can be explored and Christian faith can be nurtured.

Methodology
The project engages the creative imagination by making use of a wide range of creative arts and computer technologies, attending to the diversity of individual learning styles, and identifying, developing and using individual gifts and talents.

Categories:affiliated groups