Breathing with Trees: We're All In This Together

by John Daniewicz

Overview

My memoir, "Breathing with Trees," describes how I have come to see my place in the world from a perspective that is different than the outlook of the civilization in which I was raised. This was brought about by my looking into and then finding supportive connections with all nature, especially trees.
My new perspective includes a way of understanding the world that has brought my heart into greater play with feelings of love, gratitude, and empathy for all living beings. Surprisingly, this also has led me to a love for all humans that is independent of their place in our civilization's hierarchies. All of these heart expansions have brought me a new, much deeper and longer-lasting happiness than my previous strivings for money and success.
Later I have learned that this greater happiness has benefited from linking up with those parts in my body and brain that came from the 99% of our 6-million-year evolution where we were either up in the trees like chimpanzees or walking under trees to find food and protection as hunter gatherers.
As a means of connecting with the mental approach that we have inherited from our ancestors, I have discovered practices that bring my brain into a state where it is both relaxed and alert in the present moment. In this state, it is better equipped to be free of my civilization training's anxieties about what has happened in the past and what will happen in the future. This widening of my perspective has resulted in empathy and compassion not only for those who are near and dear to me, but also for all beings on this earth that are in harm's way at this time.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940184927374
Publisher:	John Daniewicz
Publication date:	11/07/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	991 KB

About the Author

While many nonfiction writers have a deep expertise in a specific field, the author has interests in and experience from many different fields. This experience, combined with his wife’s experience as a social work professor, has widened his synthesis capabilities, i.e., the combining of often diverse areas of knowledge into a new, coherent whole.
His formal education includes an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering with a minor in business from Marquette University. After four years as a U.S. Marine, serving as a communications officer and a veteran of Vietnam, he completed a master’s degree in English literature at the University of Hawaii.
In his work career, he gained business experience over a 15-year period with a large industrial instrument company doing technical writing, public relations, and product management. Then, for over 20 years, he has been an entrepreneur, learning the joys and travails of being a cofounder of three start-up companies that pioneered research, development, and marketing of patented microwave technology for in-line, analytical measurements that help optimize industrial process operations.
Raised as a Catholic and educated in Catholic schools by Dominican nuns, Christian Brothers, and Jesuits, he began a wider exploration of religion and spirituality in his 50s. Since then, he has for many years studied and practiced in both Christian Centering Prayer and Zen Buddhist meditation groups. In support of these practices, he has been a volunteer with hospice patients and prisoners.
Happily, his experience also includes being married for more than 50 years and helping to raise and learn from his wonderful daughters and grandchildren.