Research Project
DNA Photo©Frederic Leyre
Renewing the link between human and forest intelligence,
I come from Europe, a continent whose history and culture have long radically separated humans from nature —unlike in Japan. To become one again, I gather 3 human minds around the world of trees: sciences, arts, and spirituality.
to get keys that trees
offer us facing issues of our times.
I aim to accommodate in a contemporary vision ancient knowledge, to combine them with the recent advances in trans-disciplinary sciences, to enlighten the benefits from the millions of years of innovations carried out by the tree world.
Fields of application are as vast as our contemporary challenges to cure the ills of our modern era, switch from our destructive system of life, support human healing, and inspire the evolution of consciousness toward a new civilization based on the Living.
Connected to Kodama Project
a community is growing gradually, building new imaginary
To develop this project, I use my artistic skills (photographer, author), my spiritual knowledge (Reiki master), and my interest in human sciences, to talk and learn from every kind of people, all linked with forests or nature: scientists, scholars, artists, engineers, architects, farmers, fishermen, artisans, writers, Shinto priest, zen monks, shamans, forest inhabitants, activists, NPO involved in ecology, …
So this research is not mine. Instead, it is a collective project welcoming all open-minded and cool people who have wished for a collab.
Creation Project
Kodama Photo©Frederic Leyre
Ten years ago, I met the soul of the forest among the millennial cedars of Yakushima
After losing my way during a journey in a primary forest in Japan, some images of fleeting encounters seized silently on the spot. Simple sensations first, then living forms, living bodies, living spirits.
Behind the roots, the rocks, the rivers, the soul of the forest was so conscious that through it, all the millennial power of this preserved environment reminded me of the deep memory of what connects us to the essential: this osmosis between Humans and Tree that we need more than ever for the future of humanity.
Since then, behind the figure of Kodama, the Spirit of the Tree, I spread a poetic call to share the message of the forest
I use my photographs, words, video, and field recording, to softly open awareness about his message. Between the visible and the invisible, I use poesy of images and texts to bring a meditative and spiritual mood. I invite people in a dialogue with the forest wisdom, questioning our connection to the Living, and to ourselves.
The next step is to invite artists from different fields to collaborate
Kodama Experience aims to open a forest residency where artists, scientists, and spiritual knowledge bearers, could work together, inspired by an immersive stay in the old forest. This part of the project is under development.
A selection of Photos Texts
from my research
Pas à pas,
en perdant le chemin,
la conscience de la forêt s’éveille
Présences guidantes
qui se dévoilent à celui qui observe
les formes visibles et invisibles
Des racines deviennent veines,
blessures, cicatrices sous les écorces
Derrière les troncs musculaires,
un bestiaire se découvre
Des ombres ouvrent des portes
vers le monde des géants
Les ancêtres enjambent les rivières,
jeunes mains ou branches s’étreignent,
la forêt prend corps et s’anime
Vie et mort se côtoient dans un équilibre serein,
ni joie ni peine,
dans sa puissance éternelle,
la forêt résiliente guérit l’âme du marcheur
L’esprit de l’arbre invite à écouter,
d’un souffle profond caressant les mousses,
les louanges d’un amour perdu.
Ce lien sacré qu’il partageait avec l’humain,
fredonnant dans un chant silencieux
l’espoir de cette osmose retrouvée.
Frédéric Leyre Le chant de Kodama
Poème écrit dans la fôret de Yakushima, 2016
Open Heart 2022, Mount Miwa's Sacred Forest, Nara Photo©Frederic Leyre
Forest, My Sanctuary Photo©Frederic Leyre
Forest, My Sanctuary
Photo from Sugi Meditation series
2020, Yakushima
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. ”
These words of Hermann Hesse (German Poet and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature) come often to my mind since I began this art project about forests. I frequently introduce this quote to people I meet during my research about our links with the trees.
Like that day in Yakushima, when I met an old man who knew a lot about the visible and invisible connections between humans and trees, so I asked him what he thought. He told me that the ancient forest is a powerful place in which to understand ourselves, a place where ancestral trees link our inner space to the whole universe in a huge motion he called “circulation”. He showed me the sun, the moon, the infinity of the universe I have in me, like everyone has. I asked him how we can share this knowledge to inspire a better world. He answered that we don’t need anything more than we already have in the forest, saying: “Just go to the woods! As an empty cup, with open heart, open conscious, to feel and be part of the great circulation.”
A few days later, during a walk in a wild part of the island, I randomly encountered a place that called me to stop. In the light of a small clearing surrounded by trees, I could feel what the old man had described. I stood there for a long time, silently enjoying the moment and taking meditative photographs, and I once again recalled the words of Hermann Hesse.
This photo is a reminder of our vital links with ancient forests—not only the climate, biodiversity, and natural resources emergencies that we face, but also about the inspiring connections and priceless knowledge that forest wisdom is waiting to share with all of us.
Photos&Words©FredericLeyre
The Mirror
Photo from Mangrove Meditation series
Night shot in the mangrove forest
2021, Ishigaki island
Mangrove trees belong to the single tree species that can live submerged in the sea. Over thousands of years of adaptations and technical developments, this species gained the ability to filter the salt water in order to survive. The excess of salt is accumulated in the leaves, which then fall back into the water once saturated, restoring nutrients to the environment. A regenerative system that keeps alive not only its own species but also others, including humans, on a larger scale the mangrove ecosystem is a key player in sustaining global life on Earth.
Mangrove forests prevent storm damage and reduce the risk of flooding for some 15 million people each year. This endangered ecosystem is the most efficient carbon capture and storage system on the planet, storing 5 times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial forests up to 4 times faster.)
This flash-shot taken in the night symbolizes the intelligence of the living lost in the darkness, enlightened literally and figuratively in the night of our consciousness, questioning our sense of innovation.
Despite the urgency of preventing the extinction of life on Earth, modern human civilization still remains blind to the purpose of technological innovations, mostly driven by financial interests, in a mad rush pushing the boundaries of a meaningless and destructive way of life.
The Mirror Photo©Frederic Leyre
To sustain the living, to improve harmony between species, to create a regenerative system—these are the goals that should be guiding the powerful imagination that we have in our hands to innovate. It is exactly as this tree has learned long before us, and he shows us that such a system works.
A mangrove forest is an ecotone, a space of ecological transition between two living communities (terrestrial and marine). What if ecotone inspired the vision for a world where forests and humankind thrive together?
In the foreground of the photo, a reflected image calls us to look at ourselves and our destiny through the image of a tree. Will we be able to go from shadow to light (from the black-blue background rising towards the midnight-blue of the horizon) and recognize the vital models that the forest offers us?
We can look in the mirror at this young tree that we ourselves could be, aware of the real purpose of the innovations we want to make, mirrors of the civilization we want to build.
Photos, Video&Words©FredericLeyre
The Mirror Video©Frederic Leyre
The Time Photo©Frederic Leyre
The Time
Photo from Sugi Meditation series
2019, Yakushima island
Among ancestral trees, time stops, and our perceptions change into a deep feeling of eternity.
The Time of the Living.
Far from our modern anthropocentric point of view, where Time means brevity and immediacy, where everything is getting as fast as possible.
The old tree invites us to change our reality toward another life scale, another sense of time. The real-time of long-term thinking, slowing down, following natural rhythms. The time to consider the meaning of the short Human life regarding the long Earth life,
...as this passing leaf, laying on the eternity of the forest.
Photos&Words©FredericLeyre
The Silence
Photos Silence #1, Silence #2
from Sugi Meditation series
2020, Yakushima island
Silence #1 Photo©Frederic Leyre
In the silent forest, the sound of nature is in full swing.
Sheltered from the noise of human activity (anthrophony), the sound of living beings (biophony) and natural elements (geophony) reigns. The forest is filled with this natural silence which reinforces the attention, the concentration, the access to absolute calm. In deep woods, meditation practitioners consider a typical silence. For them, this is not the absence of noise but the presence of something.
Some Bioacousticians identify the rare silent places in the world. But, unfortunately, they find it’s disappearing everywhere. Recently, the global expansion of noise pollution has been described as a worldwide public health problem by the World Health Organization. An invisible pollution against which the forest is a guardian of silence.
When was the last time to hear this silence?
Photos&Words©FredericLeyre
Silence #2 Photo©Frederic Leyre
The Dancer Photo©Frederic Leyre
Resilience
Photo The Dancer
from Sugi Meditation series
2020, Yakushima island
Some ancient wisdom of Yakushima tells that Yakusugi (name of ancestral cedars of the island) never die. Symbol of eternity, they have the power to live forever. They’re respected as gods. Each one has a name.
Each Yakusugi is a world of active regenerative collaborations, where death and life, young and old, strong and weak, make one. These singularities - and sometimes opposing forces - work together to keep the tree in life,
as a dancer who never stops his movement to maintain a constant balance.
We’re blind to the powerful co-living energy we belong to. In a time where humankind is divided and confused, facing many hardships, The Spirit of the tree invites us to consider that beyond appearances, strong individual contrasts combined are the key to moving collectively forward.
Photos&Words©FredericLeyre
Forest Flow Photo©Frederic Leyre
Energy flowing
Photo Forest Flow
from Sugi Meditation series
2019, Yakushima island
The power of the ancestral forest of Yakushima is in the transformation.
Human transformation in a strong permanent flow. The flow of pure water never stops running among large rocks and trees from ancient times, and from these ancient times, the power of the wild remained in the forest.
Flow, flow, flow, a continuing flow…
A big cycle is running here, full of love and beauty, in soil, rocks, moss, trees, water, sun rays, raindrops, sounds, and vibrations.
When humans enter the forest and observe in themselves… all this beauty forgives, mends, and brings harmony.
Photos&Words©FredericLeyre
Post-Fossile #1 Photo©Frederic Leyre
Post-Fossile
Photos Post-Fossile #1, Post-Fossile #2
from Mangrove Meditation series
2022, Iriomote island
Post-Fossile #2 Photo©Frederic Leyre
The forest of Iriomote was registered in 2021 on the World Heritage list for its wild forest.
In the jungle, I shot some concrete structures of an abandoned coal mine that closed in 1960, already disappearing in only a few decades under the trees.
The symbol of our short-term thinking civilization that relies on fossil economy and considers nature a simple extraction source.
Through Japan, I've met many forest inhabitants in Japan that are convinced that an unbreakable pact of balance between humans and nature has existed since the beginning of humankind.
The humans pass when this balance is broken, but the forest always returns.
The trees remind us to change to survive on Earth by quitting this Extractive economy era for a Regenerative economy era, considering natural resources as a long-term collaboration with forests.
Photos&Words©FredericLeyre
Three Heroes, Triptyque Photo©Frederic Leyre
Three Heroes
Photos The Three Heroes
A triptyque from Mangrove Meditation series
2022, Iriomote island
One day, in Iriomote Island’s mangrove, I met three silent, fragile heroes fighting for our future, struggling for the Living. Three forgotten guardians of the lands, vivid links between oceans and mountains, protectors of millions of human lives.
An invisible keystone of our future.
Mangrove forests prevent storm damage and reduce the risk of flooding for some 15 million people each year. In addition, this endangered ecosystem is the planet's most efficient carbon capture and storage system, storing five times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial forests up to four times faster.
One characteristic of the mangrove ecosystem is the direct continuity of the sea, rivers, and mountains. Observing this local ecosystem helps to understand the direct links between forests and oceans at the global scale of the planet. We can only protect oceans by protecting forests. They are one.
At a time when concrete walls and soil artificialization are everywhere along the ocean's coasts, cutting the continuity of the sea, the rivers, and the mountains, some mangrove forests heroes provide vital and regenerative support for all humans and all Living.
Photos&Words©FredericLeyre