The tree listener? Amherst woman hears messages from the fallen -- trees, that is

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on November 14, 2008

In 2002, Helen Fortier went for a walk on the Robert Frost Trail in Lawrence Swamp near her childhood home, and was shocked to find that many of the century-old pines and oaks she so fondly recalled had been felled.

"How long will these forests take to recover?" Fortier, a pulmonary nurse at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, asked in a letter to the Amherst Bulletin that year. "These magnificent pines took 10 minutes to fell but began growing before there were cars. The loss of these massive pines is truly a loss to us all."

Since then, Fortier has reached some understanding about this and other questions, by sitting near the fallen trees, counting their rings, and listening to the messages she heard in her mind, imparted, she believes, by the trees.

"As I spent time in the forest and grew to know it, I came to feel that it was a magical place," Fortier writes in an introduction to "Whispers Beneath the Wind," 58 meditations inspired by her experience in the South Amherst conservation area.

Each is paired with a photograph, most of which are of trees, taken either by Fortier or several of her friends. So many people have told her that they love them that she has printed 100 sets of the cards and has begun to sell them.

"In the middle of a very hectic day, studying the photos gave me a sense of peace," said Diane Dubuque, Fortier's coworker in the respiratory care unit.

Fortier's photographs and words don't feel "commercialized," Dubuque said. Looking at them at lunch one day last week, "I felt like I as right there with Helen looking up into the trees, gazing at a flower or looking carefully at the leaves for a message."

"Each card can present a different perspective no matter how often that card is read," said Cara Kenny, clinical nurse educator for the unit, another admirer of them.

Fortier, who is also a songwriter and singer with the group One Journey, was born into a nature-loving family.

As she wrote in her letter to the editor, Claire Fortier, her late mother, was chairwoman of the Amherst Conservation Commission in the 1970s and 1980s and donated 20 acres of land on Long Mountain to be protected by the commission in perpetuity.

By spending time among the trees, Fortier hoped to "help heal a broke forest," but over time she began hearing messages that helped her.

"I was going through stuff in my own life at the time," she said.

She no longer felt hurt that all the trees had come down.

"I started angry and heartbroken, writing letters to the editor about logging, very distressed at the careless human-generated devastation - and the gentle wisdom of the trees prevailed."

A journey

From her experience in the forest to committing the meditations to the cards was a journey that began and ended in Amherst but included a trip to New Zealand two years ago to celebrate her 50th birthday.

Convinced that tree cards would be well-received by the positive reception she received at an Arbor Day concert, reading and slideshow she gave at the Hitchcock Center the year before, she initially asked a young friend to illustrate the meditations. But the project stalled, and the next thing Fortier knew she was taking nature photographs with a borrowed camera in New Zealand.

"Everywhere I turned was an amazing photo possibility," Fortier said. "I was truly following my bliss."

It was as though one of the messages she had heard foretold it: "If you start on a path that does not work out, return to your peaceful place and from there decide on a new course of action," one of the cards says.

Fortier suggests that people who buy her cards, display them one-by-one, since that is how she received the messages.

As she writes in her introduction to the cards, "You know, trees are slow, calm and deep, and so is their age old wisdom."

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.