What’s with all the olive branches?

The olive branch has carried meaning for thousands of years. In ancient Greece, olive branches were sacred to Athena and given to Olympic victors as a symbol of honor and peace. In Rome, suppliants seeking the end of a conflict carried olive branches as their offering. And in the story of Noah’s ark, the dove returns with an olive branch in its beak — the sign that the floodwaters had receded, that life was returning, that something new could begin.

Part of why the symbol stuck is the tree itself. Olive trees live for centuries — some for more than two thousand years. They take years to bear fruit, grow strongest in hard ground, and outlast almost everything around them. It’s one of the oldest symbols of the kind of resolution I work toward: slow, sturdy, and deeply rooted.

There’s a personal piece, too. My husband and I once spent a month harvesting olives in Italy — long days in the groves, evenings at shared tables, the smell of fresh oil coming out of the press. When it came time to choose a logo for this work, the olive branch just made sense.