Temple Tree Day
A day of nature and artistic celebration!
Whether you’re a nature enthusiast, a garden lover, or simply looking to explore the Nan Tien Temple, this event offers a range of nature inspired activities and workshops that are fun for the whole family. Lots of free events for this tree – mendous day 🌳
Highlight: Buddhist Tree Blessing ceremony | Free to attend or you may wish pay $10 to receive your Buddhist blessed bottlebrush native seedling to take home to plant.
Program Details & Timetable
Nan Tien Temple has teamed up with the Tree Veneration Society artists to bring you Temple Tree Day. Immerse yourself in a day of tree celebration. Take time out to create a day for Buddhist practice to honour trees and your creative well-being at the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere. By taking home your Buddhist blessed tree to plant, together we will create a ‘Field of Commitment’, an interconnected expanded art practice originated from Emerita Professor Shelley Sacks, UK.
Details on the day
You will love this day if you are:
- Nature lover, gardener, bee protector
- Looking to learn more about Buddhism for daily practice
- Conservation supporter
- Health and wellness enthusiast
- Families with children
“Our collective commitment ensures we are a catalyst for change”.
Louise Fowler-Smith, President & Artist, Tree Veneration Society, Sydney.
Tree Day Activities
1. Buddhist Blessing Tree Ceremony – Main Shrine | Free – $10 | 🪴
Join us for a monastic-led short ceremony. Free to attend or pay $10 to receive a Buddhist blessed native tree seedling (bottle brush) to plant at home and has a yellow band symbolic of your commitment to nurture nature. Experience the expanded art practice called ‘field of committment
2. Tree Veneration Society Temple Garden Tour | Free | 45 min 🌳
Part storytelling, part performance, join this informative guided walking tour with professional artists and committed conservationists from the Tree Veneration Society. Sharing their expertise, you’ll discover the secrets behind the symbolism and significance of the designs within a Chinese Buddhist Garden.
3. Giant Bodhi Tree Chalk Mural | Free | Drop in 9am – 4pm 🎨
Work alongside artists from the Tree Veneration Society to help draw the giant mural of a Bodhi Tree. Perfect photo opportunity and great creative fun. Soft matts provided.
4. Tree Meditation | Free | 45 min 🧘🏽10am – 10.45 am
Tree Meditation is a profound practice that involves immersing yourself in the presence of trees to cultivate a deep connection with nature, the wisdom of trees and absorb their tranquil vibrations. A very grounding experience. Join us amongst the tranquil grove of trees and bird songs
5. Tree Creature Workshop + Listen to the recorded inner sounds of a Tree| Free | Drop in 9am – 2pm 🌱
Bind, weave and twine interesting tree elements to assemble imaginative creatures with Tree Veneration Society artist Amanda Farquharson. A workshop suited to all ages (< 12’s with parents). Listen the recording of the inside of trees with headphones.
6. Backyard Beekeeping with Rachel Peedom from BeeInspired | Free | Drop in 9am – 2pm 🐝
Take another step towards sustainability and help the natural world thrive. Planting trees helps our pollinators. Why not take the next step to becoming a backyard beekeeper. Highly educational and hands on, you will see inside the hive and learn loads more about this delicious hobby.
7. Mindful drawing classes with Kathy Karas | $10 | 11am – 11:45am 🖼️
Enjoy another form of meditation and experience the temple gardens in a new way. Take your pencil for a walk. You will learn new techniques and approaches to produce several sketches of the gardens. Experience the temple gardens in new ways.
8. Tai Chi | Free | Drop in 9.30-10.00am
Start the day with the gentle movements of Tai Chi, one of the most effective exercises for a healthy mind and body. Join the group at the Nan Tien Health & Wellbeing Markets, Nan Tien Institute side.
Tree Creatures Workshop – Varna Park
TVS Member Amanda Farquharson was invited to run one of her wonderful Tree Creature-making sessions over the weekend, as part of ‘Second Nature’, a Waverley Council sustainability initiative.
Members of the public swapped between Tree Planting and Tree Creature-making sessions, resulting in a hugely enjoyable day out, celebrating community, art and nature.
Instagram: @amanda.m.farquharson
Through walking in nature, noting and gathering curious and interesting elements to selectively assemble, bind, weave and twine into sculptural works, so developing empathy & veneration for trees. Nature nurtures, as we contemplate our interconnection with nature.
Exhibition: Botanica Materia Medica, Plants and Healing
Date: 29 Jul – 13 Aug, 2023
Time: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: Lion Gate Lodge, Mrs Macquaries Road, RBG Sydney
Cost: FREE
Congratulations to the following artists for being accepted into Botanica De Materia Medica: Plants X Healing at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.
Nilavan Adams, Julia Allcorn , Beverly Allen, Ro Bancroft, Debbie Bourke, Deb Chirnside , Niki Coates, Alissa Cook, Elizabeth Cooper, Rosemary Donnelly, @amanda.m.farquharson , Kerry Ferguson, Lindsey Goff, @pat_hall_art , @a.hallan , Anne Hayes, @garth_henderson , Tanya Hoolihan, @adrienne_hunt_sydney , Kerriann Indorato, Christine Johnson, @lindajoyceartist , @by_sooka_art , Jenny Lee, @angelaloberartist , @lindalunnonillustrations , @marchantvickie , Janet Mathews, Debra Meier, @alisonmitchellartist , Christina Mucha, Clare Nicholson ,@katenolanart , @granny_attic , @johnpastoriza , Julie Patterson, Pamela Pauline, @botanicalarttv , Anne Saville, @shippisart , @lisashepherdfloralartist , @artbyavantika , @glennrsmith66 , Tina Spira , Claire Stack, Ruth Thompson, @ledaart , Bronwyn Van de Graaff, Anna Van Der Gardner , @trebouxia , Penny Walton, Peta West
Finding the divine in the natural world
RN Broadcast Thu 17 Nov 2022 at 3:00pm
With the latest round of UN climate talks wrapping up recently, it’s a good time to ask a fundamental question: Who are we, in relation to nature? What kinds of relationships bind us to other beings, like trees?
Maybe even amid climate change we can approach nature with celebration – even veneration?… Read more and Listen to the Interview here
EcoArtSpace.org
A platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999.
University of Tasmania
Study Sustainable Living online
Tree Planting with Birdlife Australia
May 2021 – Adrienne Hunt reports on tree planting for Birdlife Australia
Birdlife Australia provides opportunities for the public to participate in birdlife conservation projects, such as planting trees for specific bird species: https://www.birdlife.org.au/
I joined in with tree planting for the endangered Regent Honeyeater (April 30th – May 2nd 2021), on a pleasant autumn day in the magnificent Capertee Valley (the world’s second-widest Canyon- between Lithgow and Mudgee), on a private pastoral property. There was an enthusiastic collective of more than 140 people of all ages, including 28 young people, under the auspices of the Taronga Zoo – Youth at the Zoo (YATZ) program. We set-to with digging implements, and made light work of the planting of tubestock into prepared shallow trenches, which was completed by the early afternoon of the 1st May, including the watering in.
We planted more than 2500 baby trees of 30 different species that had been selected as the ideal habitat trees for the Regent Honeyeater, with the expert guidance of Dick Turner – Consultant Forester and bird life enthusiast.
What at first glance had presented as a daunting and potentially back-breaking task, proved to be an enjoyable and rejuvenating minor workout in an outdoor setting. A positive, cooperative, contributing experience as a counterpoint to the extractive, negative and destructive thrusts of our governmental decision makers.
Congratulations to Birdlife Australia and all who facilitated this endeavour.
Tree of Life: a testament to endurance
TVS Founder and President, Louise Fowler-Smith was selected to include work in Gavin Wilsons Curated Exhibition, TREE OF LIFE: a testament to endurance at the S.H.Ervin Gallery in Sydney.
As stated by the Curator,
As we cautiously emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, humanity is faced with a stark reckoning. The concept for TREE of LIFE is the central motif that signifies the challenges we face. What remains of the natural world is the one beacon in a perilous age of drought, fire, floods and plague, exacerbated by the constant reality of climate change. The recent horrific fire season experienced across the country will go down as the greatest extinction event for Australian wildlife and habitats since Colonisation.
To temper an already dangerous overreaction to the vexed issues of hazard reduction, tree thinning and further rampant land clearing, this major exhibition led by First Nations artists will generate a fresh, positive energy towards the reclamation of diminishing natural resources. Threads woven through TREE of LIFE will recognise the deep spiritual and physical associations that connect all forms of life: Life that must be nurtured as we chart a course of action through this perilous age of climate change, pandemics and wildfires.
Louise included two works from her ‘Tenacious Trees of the Australian Desert’ series. These artworks focus on trees found predominantly in the arid zone of far western NSW, particularly trees and bushes such as the Mulga, with its umbrella like form and isolated existence. Known to require very little water to survive, the Mulga is a testament to endurance.