Lifestyle

Happy Arbor Day! These 20 books will change the way you think about trees

Published

2 years ago

April 28, 2024

Happy Arbor Day! These 20 books will change the way you think about trees

The trees in this photo are amazing (and not just because they happen to be growing in a very Instagrammable heart shape around Baker Lake in Quebec, Canada.) Read on for a tree appreciation reading list for Arbor Day.

Sebastien St-Jean/AFP via Getty Images

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Sebastien St-Jean/AFP via Getty Images

Trees communicate. They migrate. They protect. They heal. This year for Arbor Day this year we climbed into the NPR archives to find our favorite arboreal fiction, nonfiction and kids’ books.

Scroll down to find excerpts from interviews and reviews, plus recommendations from Books We Love — NPR’s annual, year-end books guide.

Nonfiction

Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future by Daniel Lewis, 2024

There are tens of thousands of tree species on Earth, but writer Daniel Lewis focused in on just a dozen in his book, Twelve Trees. Lewis spoke with Ari Shapiro on All Things Considered in March: “The natural world needs our attentions, plural …” he said. “I want people to understand that the salvation of trees can be our salvation.”

Lewis believes trees and people have more in common than you might think. “These 12 trees each say something about ourselves because trees are not just about trees. … We live among them, and they live among us, so I think we have an obligation to understand them better.”

Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper, 2023

Christian Cooper was birdwatching in Central Park in 2020 when a white woman falsely accused him of threatening her. His book Better Living Through Birding chronicles life as a Black birder, gay activist and Marvel comics writer and editor. In 2023 he told Terry Gross on Fresh Air: “Birds belong to no one. They are for everyone to enjoy. And it is an incredibly healing thing to be out there in whatever habitat the birds are in, to connect with the wild and to just see these feathered wonders going about their business of life.”

The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth by Ben Rawlence, 2022

Trees are on the move — in ways they shouldn’t need to be. Structured as a study of half a dozen trees from the boreal forest – the wide band of trees near the Arctic Circle – The Treeline traces the canopy around the world, noting where trees have vanished or are creeping ever northward. But this isn’t just a landscape diary; whether in Canada, Greenland, or Norway, author Ben Rawlence emphasizes portraits of people, especially Indigenous communities facing the front lines of climate change, and scientists chronicling the imminent, dramatic changes ahead of us. A sounding alarm, and a call to action.
— Genevieve Valentine, author and book critic

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard, 2021

Trees are “social creatures” that communicate with each other in cooperative ways ecologist Suzanne Simard told Dave Davies on Fresh Air in 2021. Her memoir Finding the Mother Tree describes her research on cooperation and symbiosis in the forest, and shares how her study of trees took on a new resonance when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Simard explained that trees in a forest are often linked to each other via an older tree she calls a “mother” or “hub” tree. “The seedlings will link into the network of the old trees and benefit from that huge uptake resource capacity,” Simard said. “And the old trees would also pass a little bit of carbon and nutrients and water to the little seedlings, at crucial times in their lives, that actually help them survive.”

The Journeys of Trees: A Story About Forests, People, and the Future by Zach St. George, 2020

Forests migrate: They are on the move away from danger and always have been. Now, these are not the dour-faced Ents of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, who are downright speedy compared to the agonizingly slow march of Earth’s trees and forests. But the journeys of trees, and the forces that drive that titular phrase, are an engrossing tale of nature’s survival, the increasing speed of climate change and of the people working to preserve these most ancient creatures. Author and reporter Zach St. George presents a thoroughly researched story about what we can learn from some of Earth’s oldest residents if we just stop and listen.
— Steve Mullis, former editor/producer, Morning Edition

Hanging Tree Guitars by Freeman Vines with Zoe van Buren, photography by Timothy Duffy, 2020

Part memoir, part photo essay, Hanging Tree Guitars is the story of North Carolina luthier Freeman Vines. He crafts guitars from found materials and hunks of old wood, including some from a tree once used for a lynching. Vines, 78, explains how the wood talks to him, and he reflects on growing up in a sharecropper’s family under Jim Crow. “I had learned that the white man was what controlled the code,” he says. Timothy Duffy’s tintype images of Vines and his guitars are stunning, including one where Vines is sitting in a field with his guitars strung on a frame overhead.
— Debbie Elliott, correspondent, National Desk

Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Qing Li, 2018

In 2018, Marcelo Gleiser wrote an essay for NPR about the practice of forest bathing. Gleiser wrote: “In Japan, the country that has the highest population density in the world but also vast expanses of green forests (about 3,000 miles of them), an ancient tradition tries to balance out the crush from urban living. It’s known as shinrin-yoku, or ‘forest bathing.’ It’s the practice of spending prolonged periods of time with trees in order to gain from their many health benefits. … Dr. Qing Li, the world’s foremost expert in forest medicine, introduces readers to the healing practice of forest bathing — and the art and science of how trees can enrich your life. … Dr. Li’s book is itself a tribute to forests and the magnificence of trees, featuring more than 100 color photographs of forests around the world.”

Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape by Jill Jonnes, 2016

Next time you’re outside, look up. Trees are so ubiquitous that it’s easy to take them for granted. But Urban Forests makes you stop and pay attention to the “living landmarks” standing tall in America’s cities. From Thomas Jefferson’s time to present day, Jill Jonnes explores the essential roles trees play in urban centers — filtering air, providing habitat, offering shade, calming nerves and more. I loved this book because it’s both for history lovers and for tree devotees. It’s a good read — best done under the canopy of your favorite tree.
— Jeanine Herbst, news anchor

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben, translated by Jane Billinghurst, 2016

In 2016, Alva Noë wrote an essay for NPR about Peter Wohlleben’s book The Hidden Life of Trees. Noë said: “The book is dreamy and strange; it tells about trees and their tightknit communities in the forest. The book is full of science. But it’s written from the standpoint of a person who lives and works with trees in the forest rather than someone who studies them. … The Wood Wide Web he describes is a community of trees and microbes, aphids, fungi and birds, one in which dense connectivity and mutual interdependence are the norm (and are missing in the forest-farms of the modern world). Communication, shared and competing interests, learning and adaptation, all play a critical role.”

Fiction

The Tree Doctor by Marie Mutsuki Mockett, 2024

A woman returns to her California hometown to help her ailing mother move into a care facility. Dismayed by the condition of her mother’s garden, she calls a nursery for help and meets Dean — the tree doctor. As book critic Michael Schaub wrote: “Her attempt to save the fuchsias leads her to a whirlwind relationship that confirms to her what she already, in the back of her mind, knows: Her life as a wife and mother has caused her to neglect herself, and she needs to save herself even more urgently than she needs to rescue her mother’s flowers. The Tree Doctor is an excellent novel, one that beautifully chronicles one woman’s response to a series of life-changing crises.”

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, 2021

The characters in this book are immigrants from Cyprus, the Mediterranean island where Greece and Turkey went to war in the 1970s. But the narrator? It’s a fig tree. Novelist Elif Shafak spoke with Morning Edition‘s Steve Inskeep in 2021 about her decision tell the story from a tree’s perspective. “I wanted an observer that lives longer than human beings,” Shafak said. “Trees have this longevity. They were here before us, and they will most probably be here long after we humans have disappeared. … What does it mean to be rooted, uprooted and rerooted?”

The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers, 2018

The Overstory begins with the nine characters whose lives will intersect as the novel unfolds. Each has some kind of connection with a tree. These stories, so beautifully told and intricately crafted, perfectly set the stage for this saga about a small band of radical environmentalists who are determined to save an old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest. They pay a heavy price for their determination. As Richard Powers pulls you into their lives and fills you with astonishing facts about trees, he deftly pits that price against the cost of allowing these magnificent forests to be destroyed.
— Lynn Neary, former correspondent, Culture Desk

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge, 2016

Frances Hardinge’s Gothic fantasy The Lie Tree starts in the middle of a dreary downpour and feels like it ought only to be read during one as well. It’s the story of Faith Sunderly, her naturalist father’s mysterious murder and the magical tree that grows truth-revealing fruits only when Faith whispers lies to it. This book feels destined to be read in the middle of a dark and stormy night, preferably under the covers and with a secret flashlight. However, Hardinge’s writing is so beautiful and her atmosphere so evocative that it could probably leave you shivering even if you read it on a sunny tropical beach.
— Margaret Willison, librarian and book critic

Kids’ Books

Listen to the Language of the Trees: A Story of How Forests Communicate Underground by Tera Kelley, illustrated by Marie Hermansson, 2022

If you know about the “Wood Wide Web,” then you know that trees communicate through the fungi that connect their roots. Still, did you know about how they support one another with extra food? How they can tell their offspring apart from other trees? How they can warn other trees when insects attack? Consider this the preeminent book for kids on the topic, complemented with illustrations both beautiful and clear-cut, making a tangle of a topic as easy as (forgive me) falling off a log! (For ages 4 to 8)
— Betsy Bird, book critic and author of Long Road to the Circus

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Berry Song by Michaela Goade, 2022

Radiant illustrations by Caldecott-winning illustrator Michaela Goade (We Are Water Protectors) practically leap from the pages of her latest picture book with joy and warmth. Goade’s first foray into authorship is a triumphant love song to the Tlingit people. A heartwarming story of a girl and her grandmother, and the joy they get from nature’s offerings. A rich and beautiful book meant to be shared. (For ages 4 to 8)
— Juanita Giles, executive director, Virginia Children’s Book Festival

The Tree in Me by Corinna Luyken, 2021

“The first thing you will notice about Corinna Luyken’s The Tree in Me is the pink,” wrote Juanita Giles, executive director of the Virginia Children’s Book Festival, in 2021. “Not a soft, gentle pink; not an Easter egg pink, but NEON PINK, and lots of it. Pink cheeks, pink flowers, pink trees, pink AIR. Neon pink is practically bursting from the cover like, well, like happiness.”

In spare, poetic text, the book describes how every child is like a tree, rooted in nature. “In all of my original sketches for the book, I was using shades of green,” Luyken told Giles. “But as the visual story started to develop, I realized that the green was making the book feel too literal … and I wanted it to be much more expansive and universal than that. I wanted it to be a larger, shape shifting, timeless tree.” (For ages 4 to 8)

Everything You Need for a Treehouse by Carter Higgins, illustrated by Emily Hughes, 2018

Get ready for your imagination to explode! Read this book, and pass out the crayons — or set up a library fort! Everything You Need for a Treehouse is all about seeing something that’s not there and imagining your world as you want it to be. From building treehouses to just lying on your back and telling stories about clouds — anything is possible. I wasn’t surprised to get to the end and see that it was written by a librarian, because every imagined treehouse feels like a book in itself, capturing a mood or a need. The one made of glass and filled with flowers, the one that looks like a library, they’re all cozier and more fun than the next. (For ages 3 to 6)
— Justine Kenin, editor, All Things Considered

Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, 2017

Did you know trees can talk? An impressive, more-than-200-year-old oak named Red is the narrator of Katherine Applegate’s Wishtree. For centuries, neighbors have been leaving their wishes on scraps of paper and cloth in Red’s hallows and branches. When Samar and her Muslim family move nearby, they are met with intolerance and hostility. Red is touched by Samar’s simple wish and determined to make it come true, even at the risk of being cut down. This tender story is powerful without being preachy. (For ages 8 to 12)
— Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen’s Last Chance

Frances Lincoln Children’s

The Night Gardener by Terry Fan and Eric Fan, 2016

Beautifully drawn, this evocative book is deceptively simple. When a boy discovers that the tree outside his window has been magically transformed into an owl, he seeks to find the reason why. As more and more wondrous topiaries appear all along Grimloch Lane, the mystery deepens. That’s when the boy, William, meets an enigmatic man who enlists his help. In The Night Gardener, brothers Terry and Eric Fan have created a gorgeous book about a small town that comes alive, and a young boy whose life has been irrevocably changed. (For ages 4 to 8)
— Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen’s Last Chance

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson, 2013

Who wouldn’t want the opportunity to take a tree from a bare trunk to spring blossoms, to fruitful summer, to loss in autumn, to winter snow, and back to spring beginnings again? Simple instructions in spare, rhyming text encourage readers to add and subtract elements — tap once to add a leaf, touch buds to turn them into flowers, shake the tree to make the apples kerplop to the ground. Christie Matheson offers children the opportunity to help a tree grow and change throughout a year — what a powerful feeling! (For ages 4 to 8)
— Mara Alpert, children’s librarian, Los Angeles Public Library

Lifestyle

ICICLE: Capturing Interest in Chinese Brands

Published

8 minutes ago

July 1, 2026

Press Room

ICICLE: Capturing Interest in Chinese Brands

Executive president, Louise Xu, explains in our latest report ‘Face to Face With Luxury Clients’ how the Shanghai-based quiet luxury label is tapping rising interest in Chinese brands, the differences between Chinese and Western consumers and the logic behind a novel retail concept that includes a garden, art gallery and restaurant.

Lifestyle

‘Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep’ is full of beautifully written grotesqueries

Published

10 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Press Room

‘Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep’ is full of beautifully written grotesqueries

Paul Tremblay has made a career of pushing the horror genre – and the novel format – in strange and exciting new directions.

In his latest, Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep, the author offers an amalgamation of genre elements that can be best described as psychological-dystopian-science-fiction horror. It’s a mouthful, but the narrative does all of that and more in a way that defies categorization.

Julia Flang is a former semiprofessional gamer working two mediocre jobs she dislikes and living in a modest ranch house in a San Fernando Valley suburb with her retired uncle, whom she calls Uncle Fun. Julia likes movies and gaming but there’s little else going on in her life, so when her estranged mother, the CFO of a large tech company, contacts her with a possible job offer – a “once-in-a-lifetime thing” that pays handsomely just for doing the interview – she hesitantly agrees.

The job is relatively simple and perfect for someone with gaming skills: using a controller built into a phone to get a man, who is stuck in a vegetative state, from California to the East Coast. It will require her to learn how to control his body – walking, moving, sitting, standing, using his arms – so she can maneuver him out of the facility where he is located and into cars and planes and through crowded airports. A fan of movies, Julia decides to call the man Bernie – after the movie Weekend at Bernie’s. When the ethics of the job start to bother her, Julia realizes it’s too late and she must go through with it. However, she’s soon contacted by people interested in sabotaging the whole thing, people who, like her, don’t align with the shady interests of conglomerates and those set to make “gobs of money” from this new, somewhat inhuman technology.

'The Beast You Are' is smart, self-aware, fun, creepy, and strange

As with every Tremblay novel, any synopsis barely scratches the surface. The novel’s chapters alternate between Julia and you (yes, you). Julia’s chapters are “normal” in the sense that they obey a chronological order and have action, basic descriptions of movement and places, and dialogue. The chapters in second person are like fever dreams from a shadow world; the desperate experiences of a man trapped inside his own body with no control of it, no clue what’s happening to him, and only a few fragmented memories of his life. Also, Tremblay uses a similarly fragmented style of storytelling (including words and sentences trapped in boxes and/or “moving” on the page) to keep things interesting but also confusing and creepy.

This novel operates on several different levels and – planes of existence? Bernie has a head full of AI that controls his body, but his consciousness is still there and struggling to regain control, struggling to remember things. There are monsters, leeches, mysterious rabbits, and eerie shadows in his world, but the true horror comes from the lack of control, from being moved around against his will and having no clue what comes next. Bernie is the embodiment of losing control to AI, and when taken together with the commentary of creativity and AI and the meta interludes in which the author takes a wrecking ball to the fourth wall and addresses readers, this is the best anti-Generative AI story horror has produced so far.

Despite the horror of it, this is a very funny novel. Julia is sarcastic and struggles to keep her comebacks in line, but the conversations she has and messages she writes are always entertaining. However, the humor is far from the crown jewel here. That title belongs to a plethora of big ideas Tremblay juggles. The nature of life, death, and consciousness, the evils of conglomerates, inhuman practices in the name of capitalism, and AI, and even what it means to be human are all explored here: “Is Bernie alive? Is he feeling pain? Is he experiencing everything as a prisoner looking through the bars of his body? Has his consciousness been winnowed to a metaphysical keyhole? Where does consciousness begin or end?” There are no definite answers here, but the way Tremblay infuses humanity, love, the importance of relationships, and humor throughout the narrative provides the kind of answers that can’t and don’t need to be spelled out.

A genre-bender full of big ideas that constantly switches between a world full of real or uncomfortably plausible nightmares and a bizarre hellscape in which loss of self, memory, and autonomy are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep is a horrific and terrifyingly disorienting novel that invites readers to consider a future that already started. Tremblay has always been an innovator, but this beautifully written collection of real and imagined grotesqueries cements him not only as one of the most original and exciting voices in horror but also as one of the smartest, most engaging authors in contemporary fiction.

Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer and professor living in Austin, Texas. Find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @Gabino_Iglesias.

Lifestyle

At Mindful Archery, L.A. women take aim at their exes, toxic jobs and Donald Trump

Published

10 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Press Room

At Mindful Archery, L.A. women take aim at their exes, toxic jobs and Donald Trump

Give a girl a bow and arrow, take her to the woods, and anything feels possible.

That’s what I was thinking as I positioned myself in front of bales of hay in an open field at the Woodley Park Archery Range in Van Nuys. Channeling my inner Katniss, I took a “power stance:” shoulders back, legs slightly bent, bow cradled in my upper body. I slid a small but fierce-looking arrow bearing orange feathers onto the bow “nock,” filled my lungs with air, then heaved the tense bowstrings back to my jaw, one eye closed and the other narrowed in concentration.

Then I did what often feels impossible for me: I let go.

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The arrow hurdled forward, unleashing an audible woosh followed by a distant thwack. I missed my target entirely, stabbing the hunk of hay more than a foot away from the bull’s-eye. But the feeling of release as the bowstrings were left vibrating in my arms was palpable, intensely satisfying.

This was Mindful Archery.

Angie Fadel, founder of Soulcare, leads Mindful Archery.

The seemingly militaristic act of archery and peaceful meditation may seem diametrically opposed. But at Angie Fadel Soulcare, they make perfect sense together. Fadel leads workshops in Mindful Archery that combine meditation, somatic practices such as breathwork, immersive nature therapy and archery instruction.

The idea, Fadel says, is for participants to gather in a healing nature setting while becoming mindful of something they want to either let go of (an unfulfilling job or toxic relationship, for example) or something they’re aiming for and want to bring into their lives. Fadel leads a short guided meditation at the start of the workshop for participants to relax and get grounded, followed by a nature walk so they can further sink into the moment and become clear on what, exactly, their targets will be for the day — what they’ll be shooting for, or at. Then participants draw their individual targets on paper with colored markers that Fadel provides.

Attendees hold up their targets during a Mindful Archery class.

One target might look like an abstract drawing representing a feeling, another might be a jumble of words and symbols such as “Love,” “$” and “Health.” Or an illustration of Donald Trump, as one past archer aimed for.

“I’ve seen everything,” Fadel says. “People have put their parents, their exes, people have put rapists — the most damaging things that have happened to them — on a target because if you can hit that thing, it feels better in your body. The same thing happens when you hit something good, it’s a hopeful mechanism in the body.”

Fadel’s archery instruction is as much about how the sport feels in the body as it is about technical precision. The slow and steady, intentional steps of deep breathing, taking aim and shooting at a carefully considered target is a powerful act, she says.

“Even if the arrow doesn’t go where you want, there’s this immediate thing that happens in your body that feels good,” Fadel says. “When you let go of that string, there’s an energy, there’s a movement — actual, physical energy moves. Something magical happens. It helps the things that are stuck in the body get unstuck. It’s somatic. Then it’s an extra bonus if you do hit your target, because the slap of the paper feels even better.”

Fadel, who lives in Portland, Ore., and calls herself “a soul-collaborator,” has a masters in spiritual companionship and spent a decade working as a pastor in a Portland church helping members find untraditional spiritual paths. She’s also been an archer for more than 15 years. She came to both practices — spiritual companionship and archery — separately before they organically entwined. Midway through pursuing her master’s in 2011 she discovered a friend was a master archer. She’d always wanted to learn archery, since she was a kid growing up in rural Washington, and she persuaded him to give her a lesson.

“It was just one lesson, but it changed my life,” Fadel says. “I was doing something that I’d always dreamed of doing. It unlocked something I didn’t realize could be unlocked.”

Targets pinned to a hay bale allow participants to take aim at what they want to bring into their lives.

Fadel found archery increasingly therapeutic. She was doing a lot of introspective Jungian journaling at the time. As life challenges came up in her journaling — the stress of school or a difficult roommate, “or just society as a whole,” she says — she’d put them on targets in the form of words. Shooting at them helped her process the conflict. She thought the beneficial side effects of archery were particular to her, however. Then she took a struggling friend out for her first archery lesson and the response was profound.

“I realized, you know what? This works. I can take you from never touching a bow to your leaving with your nervous system relaxed. I thought: I have to figure out how to give this to other people.”

Now with Soulcare, Fadel conducts multiple types of archery workshops in Portland and around the country, including in Colorado, Texas and throughout California. She comes to Los Angeles to lead workshops several times a year. One workshop is a Mindful Archery class, not to be confused with her other course Meditative Archery, which involves Jungian journaling; and there’s a one-on-one archery session with spiritual guidance.

Empowering women and minorities, Fadel says, is a key part of her archery workshops.

“An archery range can be a very white, male-dominated space,” she says. “And the stance, with a bow and arrow in your hand, shooting — it’s very male. And [men] don’t have any problem, most of the time, taking up space. So it is a practice to remind ourselves, as a queer woman, a trans person, nonbinary person, anybody that’s kind of othered in our society, to be able to take up space. To adopt a power stance and be, like, I’m allowed to be here.”

Inside the Mindful Archery workshop

Our workshop began with gentle stretching in an open field. It was a cool, overcast day and as the wind rustled the tree leaves, a baby coyote raced across the lawn in the distance. During introductions, attendees shared why they were here.

Archery is about "letting go" and here, a student lets her arrow fly.

“I’m actually a very anxious person,” said Rachel Clipper, 26, “so I’m always looking for something to help me feel more grounded and promote mind-body connection.”

Kati Lee, 29, said that as a “‘Hunger Games’ girlie,” she’d always thought archery was cool. “But what drew me to keep coming back was the mindful part of it,” she said. “My favorite part is that we make our own targets.”

During the nature walk, we ambled down a tangle of dirt trails as Fadel pointed out wild rose bushes, Aspen trees and elderberry, giving a recipe for syrup. When we came to a body of water in a clearing — the Woodley Park Wetlands — we watched as a majestic-looking cormorant stretched its wings in the distance.

“Think about what would feel good to either annihilate,” Fadel said as we returned to the range. “Or bring in, or let go of, or make peace with. You can put all of it on your target.”

And so we did. We hunkered down at a picnic table by the archery range for crafting and snacks that Fadel provided, every one of us falling into silent sketching and scribbling as we munched on peanuts and granola bars. It felt like summer camp.

Lee set her markers down. “Done,” she said, contemplating her target. It was adorned with words such as “Health,” “Love,” “Family” and “Friends” inside concentric hearts.

Yvonne Golomb, 70, said she’d done archery as a high school student in gym class. She was shy back then, but archery had made her feel bold. Now that she’s retired, she’s craving that feeling again and is returning to the sport for sustenance.

“It’s this nice memory, it made me feel strong, it was freeing,” she said. “Now that I’m retired I’m exploring it. I wanted to bring back those memories.”

When it was time for our archery lesson, Fadel conducted one last somatic exercise to loosen us up. She had us tap up and down our body parts, from our feet to our ears, before shaking out any remaining stress.

Then she coached us, individually, as we took aim at our targets in sets of three.

“Breathe, zero in on your target, OK, now smooth …,” she said, hovering over one attendee.

May Claire La Plante, 31, said she was doing archery today, in an “adaptive stance” Fadel had taught her, to build up her arm strength after a surgery.

Kati Lee, right, and Tristan Gonzales affix their targets during a Mindful Archery class.

“I was feeling very frustrated that I couldn’t get it at the beginning,” La Plante said. “I didn’t even finish my arrows. But getting back up and the act of trying again — despite the injury and all the baggage that comes with it — is really empowering.”

“Bull’s-eye!” Clipper cheered nearby, her anxiety seemingly dissipated. She’d hit her target, dead center. What was on it? A labyrinth-like spiral of words with “Peace,” “Love” and “Creative Control” at the epicenter.

I wasn’t having as much luck and was missing my target repeatedly.

“Try loosening your grip,” Fadel coached. She adjusted my stance. “Now breathe.”

It seemed counterintuitive to slacken my grip given such a precise goal — to land a slender arrow in the epicenter of a black dot. But I did, letting the edge of the bow sit loosely, even wobbly, between my fingers. I took aim and shot. This time the arrow flew strong and straight.

One participant hit the bull's-eye, which calls for "peace" and "love," dead center.

Another round later and it landed smack on the paper target, just above my bull’s-eye.

“See?” Fadel said, elated. “Archery isn’t about doing it right, it’s about repetition. The more you can be in your body, and relaxed with the repetition, the better you are. Rarely do I have someone not hit their target at least one time.”

She squinted at my target, then turned to me.

“It’s because they’re relaxed and it’s because they trust me,” she added. “And they learn to trust themselves more.”