When Alef Trust marked its tenth anniversary, the organisation chose to celebrate not with a campaign or a commemorative tagline, but through an image intended to speak directly to the heart. What emerged from this moment of reflection was the Alef Trust tree, a painting that has since become a quiet yet resonant symbol for the community. Its origins, however, reveal a far deeper story about language, creation, and the organisation’s very purpose.
At the centre of this story sits a single letter: alef. For Professor Les Lancaster and Dr Jessica Bockler, co-founders of Alef Trust, alef is not merely the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is a living symbol, one that carries within it thousands of years of meaning. Historically, its roots reach back to the earliest Western alphabet, a Proto-Sinaitic form that evolved out of Egyptian hieroglyphics. In its original pictographic state, alef represented an ox, a creature associated with strength, vitality, and creative force—the harnessing of primordial energy. With the evolution of Hebrew from these earlier alphabetical roots, the letter retained its association with raw energy, yet became something more paradoxical. It became silent.
This silence is not a quirk of linguistic evolution. Les sees it as central to the symbolic power of the letter. An alphabet’s purpose is to give sound shape, to turn breath into meaning, yet at the very beginning of the system sits a letter without sound. In the Kabbalistic tradition, this paradox points to something profound: before creation, before articulation, before sound, there is stillness. There is the unspoken source from which all expression arises. In this sense, alef represents the ground of being, the silent origin of creation. This is not only a symbolic insight, but an orientation for the organisation he helped to build.
The form of the Hebrew alef adds another dimension. The letter is composed of three strokes, each of which is another letter in itself: a small mark at the top is the letter named yod (meaning “hand”), a diagonal line in the middle is the vav (“hook” or “connection”), and the alef is completed with a second, inverted yod at the bottom. Together they can be read as an imaginal gesture: one hand reaching down, another reaching up, and a line that connects them. Les interprets this as a symbolic relationship between the divine and the human, connected through a dynamic thread of creative energy. This visual language became the conceptual seed from which the anniversary artwork grew.
To give such a dense, ancient, and layered idea a contemporary visual form, Alef Trust turned to artist Sarah Jane Richards. She approached the commission with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. How does one paint silence? How does one translate an organisation’s deepest values into a single image? Yet throughout her collaboration with Les and co-founder Dr. Jessica Bockler, a clear intention emerged: the artwork should hold the depth of the symbol without overwhelming the viewer with explicit meaning.
Crucially, neither the hands nor the alef itself were to dominate the composition. Instead, these symbols were to be discoverable through engagement, allowing viewers to find their own way into the piece. Sarah Jane developed several prototypes, experimenting with colour, texture, and compositional balance. She played with contrasts between areas of fine detail and more fluid, painterly zones, encouraging a contemplative encounter with the work, rather like gazing into a fire where pattern and imagination intermingle.
Finding the right balance between light and darkness proved essential. In an early stage, the painting felt too bright, almost airy. During a late night studio visit, Jessica helped Sarah Jane to recognise what was missing. The work of Alef Trust is concerned not only with the light of transformation, imagination, and human potential; but also with the darker pathways of crisis, uncertainty, and collective struggle. By deepening certain tones and reintroducing shadow, the artist allowed the lighter elements to shine more vividly. The result is an image that breathes: grounded and luminous, expansive yet intimate.
The introduction of the tree as the central motif was a natural step. Across cultures and centuries, the world tree symbolises the connection between earth and sky, roots and branches, matter and spirit. In the Kabbalistic system, the Tree of Life forms the core symbolic diagram for understanding creation and consciousness. For Alef Trust, the tree offered an elegant way to embody the tension between visible form and invisible source. Within its roots, Sarah Jane wove the subtle shape of the alef. Within its trunk and branches, she concealed the relationship of the hands; the tree became not merely a symbol, but a living metaphor for the organisation’s global community and its quietly transformative work.
The image was revealed during Alef Trust’s tenth anniversary gathering at Blackburn House in Liverpool. Jessica recalls sitting in circle with colleagues, the tree at the centre, holding the sense of a global organisation that is small in physical size but far reaching in its influence. The tree seemed to encompass the world, reflecting Alef Trust’s commitment to inner development, expansive consciousness, and embodied learning. Much like the silent alef, the organisation’s impact is often subtle rather than overt – unfolding through students, practitioners, and partners who carry its values into their communities.
As Alef Trust steps into a period of heightened visibility, the artwork continues to act as a grounding symbol. It invites staff, students, and alumni to remember the organisation’s origins in silence, relationship, and deep meaning. It reminds the community that their work is both practical and sacred, rooted and reaching, individual and collective.
In its quiet way, the Alef Trust tree holds a story about creation, collaboration, and the ongoing interplay between what can be spoken and what can only be felt. It stands as a testament to the Alef Trust’s belief that transformation begins not in noise, but in listening – to ourselves, to one another, and to the silent ground from which all new beginnings arise.
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