Connecting in a Fragmented Landscape - Gallery

August 2026 Yearly Meeting: invitation to contribute Hoop Pine art and poetry

Connection in a fragmented landscape

QRM is excited to share more with you about our hosting of the upcoming online August Yearly Meeting. We shared our theme with you in Streamlines and now invite you to engage with our selected image, a Hoop Pine.

Hoop Pines (Toonbul) are much-loved by anyone spending time at the Kelvin Grove Meeting House and the surrounding Arboretum. Brisbane (Mangandjin) is located on Yagara and Turrbal Country and we acknowledge their custodianship and traditional ownership, which was never ceded. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

We invite you to engage with this image before and during our online Yearly Meeting. You are welcome to print or digitally enhance the image by adding lines, text or colour as you explore this Yearly Meeting’s theme, Connection in a fragmented landscape. To get started, you can use the Hoop Pine image as a PDF, a high-resolution PNG, or customise it using this Canva template.

If you wish to add a brief description, quote or poem, please include it directly on the image page so it is all-inclusive.

To contribute to this gallery, send your image to Holly Dhynes at communications@quakersaustralia.info.

Images, quotes and poems will also be shared as part of a collective online Epilogue during Yearly Meeting on Saturday, 1 August 2026.

"Hoop Pine" by Marian James (QRM)

Hoop Pine image for August Yearly Meeting 2026 creative responses

Hoop Pine story

The Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) is a tall tree that can grow up to 60 metres and live for over 400 years. It occurs along the coast and mountains from Cooktown to Coffs Harbour and was a dominant species growing down to the Brisbane River in pre-colonial times.

The tree has a rough, dark, sometimes shiny bark that can exfoliate in fine circular bands. Hoop Pines have a long narrow trunk with branches like twigs and tufty leaves at the ends. It is slow growing and produces a beautiful light-coloured softwood timber that has been used extensively and is also grown in plantations.

The Hoop Pine produces seed in woody cones, with usually both male and female cones on the same tree. This species is a conifer that coexisted with dinosaurs and is sometimes described as a living fossil, having evolved long before flowering plants. It has a strong, straight trunk and a deep primary taproot with extensive but narrow lateral roots that allow the trees to grow close to each other and survive cyclonic winds.

Photo: Hoop Pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) trunk, Kelvin Grove Meeting House, Brisbane. A close view from the “native forest” at the Meeting House premises.

Gallery submissions

Image by M. McKenzie Hocking, words by William Wordsworth.

The image of the hoop pine has stuck with me. I'd like to submit the following as my submission, including a selected quotation from William Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" (Emphasis added).

Hoop Pine response by Naomi from QRM

Hoop Pine response by Naomi (QRM)

Hoop Pine response by Naomi from QRM

As Above, So Below by Naomi (QRM)

“We are incarnated on this Earth with a unique yet beautiful design. We come from Spirit, and there we will return, but while here we have the opportunity to foster a strong connection with our Mother Earth. To access her gifts of grounding: the connection of our feet to the Earth, the deep physical awareness of being incarnate: right here, right now. With a deepening of our grounded connectedness, our ability to connect to Spirit through our crown, to Father Sky, grows. And through our hearts, we can connect with the universal love central to our souls. As above, so below.” — Naomi

As Above, So Below Hoop Pine artwork by Naomi