Thrown into turmoil by the end of his long-term relationship, James Canton spent two years meditating beneath a massive 800-year-old Honywood Oak tree in North Essex, England, which would have been a sapling when the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. In this beautiful, eloquently written book, Canton tells the story of this tree in its ecological, spiritual, literary, and historical contexts, using it as a prism to better understand his own life and human history. "Canton knows so much, writes so well and understands so deeply about the true forest magic and the important place these trees have in it."—Sara Maitland