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Ep.107 ReWilding Mythology with Wendy Wuyts
73 Plays20 days ago
Have you ever wondered what myths would sound like if the plants told the story? In this episode, I sit down with ecofeminist researcher and myth-reweaver Wendy Wuyts to explore how storytelling can reshape our relationship with plants, complexity, and ourselves.
Together, we uncover the value of deep listening, narrative intelligence, and rewilded storytelling as tools for healing, resistance, and reconnection in a fragmented world.
If you’re someone who lives between science and spirit, between research and ritual—this episode will feel like home.
Topics Covered about mythology and ecofeminism
➡️ Why myth and narrative are vital tools for healing trauma and reshaping cultural memory.
➡️ How ecofeminist retellings center plants as conscious agents in ancient stories.
➡️ What the Tree of Duality and Snake archetypes reveal about complexity, knowledge, and power.
➡️ The importance of slow hope and multidimensional storytelling in conscious evolution.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:32 Rewriting Mythology Through a Plant Lens
11:30 Wendy’s Early Connection to Nature and Story
22:09 Mythology as Emotional Anchor and Mental Health Tool
33:08 Rewilding Folk Tales with Plants as Protagonists
44:00 A New Approach to Writing with Plants
52:07 Eco-Conscious Business Partner Ad
54:00 From Forest Bathing to Writing Circles
1:03:12 Closing Words and Ways to Connect
Resources Mentioned
🌱 Music of the Plants
🌱 Learn more about Wendy HERE
🌱 Sprouts Writing & Creativity Group
🌱 Plant Wisdom Book Club
🌱 Personalized mentorship with me and the Plants
// Podcast Guest // Wendy Wuyts - Learn more about Wendy HERE
Wendy Wuyts holds a PhD in environmental science from Nagoya University, Japan, and is a writer and certified forest therapy guide.
Expanded Show Notes☝🏽
ReConnect with Plant Wisdom podcast Ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways plants help you lead a Naturally Conscious life.
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👉🏽 Join the Naturally Conscious Community to nourish human-plant relationships
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Opening and Closing music by @Cyberinga and Poinsettia.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Reconnect with Plant Wisdom'
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tigrea Gardenia. This was such a fun conversation.
Creative Writing and Scientific Thinking: A Harmony
00:00:09
Speaker
This was such a beautiful conversation to understand why bringing together the creative writing expressive side and your scientific academic mind work so well together.
00:00:25
Speaker
Wendy Wutz is really amazing who is really an amazing person who has a broad experience.
Wendy Wutz's Mythological Journey
00:00:33
Speaker
She's Belgium, but she has lived in Thailand and studied in Japan, and she's lived in Nepal. I mean, she's had just all these different experiences and is now in Norway.
00:00:45
Speaker
And we went through a greater understanding of the role of mythology, especially modern-day mythology or rewriting of our mythology with a modern lens and understanding why this is so important.
Mythology in Community Projects
00:01:01
Speaker
As you know, in the naturally conscious community, we spent about ah six to eight eight months in the plant ah plant-inspired masterclasses working on a rewrite to the Garden of Eden and really looking at it from the perspective of the tree of life and the tree of duality and the tree of conscious, which is we called TOD.
00:01:24
Speaker
We ended up calling the tree of duality Todd and understanding, you know, all the different archetypes and the roles when you look at it through the lens of the plants. And there was just so much there. There was such richness. And I ended up with such a deeper understanding of the world in which we live in.
Creative Expression in Various Sectors
00:01:41
Speaker
why the world has gone in the direction that that it's gone, and what are the archetypes that we need to re-find in our modern society. And I think Wendy is doing an amazing job of this.
00:01:53
Speaker
So I'm really excited for you to be able to hear all of the different projects that she's working on and understand a little bit more why the arts is such an important and that creative expression is such an important part of anything that we do, whether it's, like I said, technology or academic or financial or any of this, how it really helps us expand our relationship with plants and understand the world in a more complete world, in a more complete way, manner.
00:02:21
Speaker
That's the word I was looking for. So this is episode 107, Rewilding Mythology.
Nature-Inspired Mentorship
00:02:28
Speaker
I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have. Welcome to Reconnect with Plant Wisdom.
00:02:34
Speaker
I'm your host, Tigria Gardenia, nature-inspired mentor, certified life coach, and the founder of the Naturally Conscious Community. For over a decade, I've been known as a world ambassador for plant advocacy, working closely with plants to share their practical wisdom to help you consciously embody the elements of life that nourish your evolution.
00:02:52
Speaker
In this podcast, I delve into ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways of plants. Together, we'll explore how ecosystem thinking helps you overcome limiting beliefs, understand the true nature of relationships, and live an authentic, impactful life.
Wendy's Mythological Upbringing
00:03:13
Speaker
Wendy, when you and I spoke, i you were outdoors and you were just getting ready to do a session, a writing session with Cedar, if I remember correctly. And I was so excited at the end of our call that I was like, wishing we could do the recording right there.
00:03:29
Speaker
But before we jump into everything that I want to ask you, my long list of things, can you please tell the audience who is Wendy Whatts? Whatts? Yes, I got it.
00:03:40
Speaker
Whatts? Yeah, that's our woods. I think my family name actually says a lot about who I am. I think my family, they wanted like a research about the name.
00:03:53
Speaker
And it would come from from the woods. ah yeah You can say it's Wendy from the woods. And I think it actually tells a lot about who I am. Who am I? I think I might have to start a story like once upon a time.
00:04:09
Speaker
Almost 37 years ago, i was born on a misty Wednesday in Antwerp, in Belgium, in Flanders. And I had a very nice childhood with a grandfather. We told like a lot of fairy tales and folic tales.
00:04:26
Speaker
And we had like a small forest and went walking a lot and did some gardening and stuff. And at the same time, as a child, was very interested in mythology.
00:04:37
Speaker
You know, I was this nerd. who really want to learn everything about Greek and Norwegian mythology. I don't know why, um but I think I was reading a comic and that was the first time I got introduced mythology and something in me was like, I need to read this.
00:04:56
Speaker
I need to know who is Oden. I need to know who is Loki. And I started to like dig into this whole mythology. So when I studied um ancient Greek at secondary school,
00:05:09
Speaker
Even my teacher knew was this big nerd, very into like, um yeah, the gods. So sometimes had to do the introduction into middle mythology. um had this interesting childhood also where was very close in nature. i was really left up was a very privileged person.
00:05:31
Speaker
um It was quite a conservative municipality with a lot of access to forest. um And people might ask, is there forest in Flanders, Belgium, which is known as one the most industrialized countries in the world, in urbanized countries in the world.
00:05:49
Speaker
And then I say, yeah, we have like little patches of fairytale forests and a lot of legends and swamps and legends of about blackwater spirits and leprechauns and gnomes.
00:06:03
Speaker
So it's not only at the edge of Europe, in Ireland or Norway, where you could find this. um I lost my grandfather when I was 17, a forestry accident. And I actually kind of used mythology and nature connection to go through a very long mourning process.
00:06:21
Speaker
um So I think um that was very difficult for me to go through this process. I think that's also when my questions about home and homecoming also started.
00:06:34
Speaker
And I think I might explain why I studied geography first in Leuven, but then I kind of also was searching for this because, you know, when i was a teenager, I think every teenage girl goes through this period like, no, I just want to figure things out of my own.
00:06:50
Speaker
And had like less contact with my grandfather. And just weeks before his forestry accident, I really asked him at my 17th birthday, um i want to get back. I want to learn from you. You know, this knowledge.
00:07:03
Speaker
about gardening, plants, mythology, folklore. And because he died too soon, um i had to kind of look it for in other sources when I look back.
00:07:15
Speaker
So I think me living in different countries afterwards, especially my 20s and early 30s, even now, of probably explains or might be explained by the fact that I'm kind of looking for almost lost knowledge in this industrialized Flanders.
Studies and Work in Environmental Systems
00:07:33
Speaker
So I did my master in countries like Thailand on a campus where i was like living with big snakes and monitor lizards. And when was in Thailand, I got opportunity to go to Japan and I did my PhD in environmental systems.
00:07:49
Speaker
um And that's also where got to know about forest therapy, guiding and Shinrin-yoku. And also I also like learned more about Shintoism. I got my PhD during Corona time.
00:08:01
Speaker
And then back to Belgium, where also realized maybe I have the tools. Like there is something in me which is very interested to kind of kind of find the lost knowledge and lost environmental knowledge. You know, sometimes I feel, and also myself, still like reading books written by indigenous scholars from Asia or even from the Nordic of Europe or Africa or South America.
00:08:29
Speaker
But actually, Because I think there's so much knowledge lost because what happened in um Europe, especially in Flanders, where we had the Roman Empire with some patriarchal systems, you know, erasing a lot.
00:08:44
Speaker
ah And I feel like there is still some knowledge if you kind of recognize a lot of patterns in other mythology and folklore and intelligence, you start to also see there are some traces still in a country or a place like Belgium.
00:08:59
Speaker
So I started to like rewild and do some ecofemish retellings of Flemish folktales. um And these are more experimentations I can come back later to. And yeah, almost four years later, I got a new job and I moved to Norway, which was amazing for someone who studied Norwegian mythology as a child.
00:09:19
Speaker
So also have been here already for four years working in a circular timber construction. So I'm very interested in especially sustainability around timber and wood and forestry.
00:09:32
Speaker
um And yeah, I'm still like doing small projects here and there between.
Mythologies as Anchors and Healers
00:09:37
Speaker
So only work part time for the startup. So I still have time to do my little projects.
00:09:43
Speaker
So, yeah, I love it. There's what I love is that there's this this storytelling theme that i I desperately want to get deeper into. But I want to ask a question first that's a little bit more macro. And then I want to get into specifically some of the stories that you're working as you've been working on these different things.
00:10:04
Speaker
mythologies, working with them, getting into them, studying them. How do you feel like that changes? Like what is different about the way that you live compared to maybe somebody else who has to a certain extent lost these mythologies in their lives?
Emotional Awareness through Mythology
00:10:20
Speaker
I think, um I think for someone who already like coped with some traumas, you're always looking for some meaning or you want to make sense of a place don't make sense, like, why are things like this?
00:10:35
Speaker
And for me, living with mythologies, there are so many, they're like archetypes that you can work with. And I feel often different mythologies or folktales and fairy tales, they can give you some kind of anchor points or messages or archetypes to work with.
00:10:55
Speaker
So even like now in March, I was again thinking about the fairy tale of the frog prince. and which is all about transformation. And I feel like March in an Northern Hemisphere is a little about, you know, starting spring, transformation, this liminality.
00:11:11
Speaker
um And I think that's, it helps me to, yeah, to do a lot of deep psychology work, working with mythology.
00:11:22
Speaker
um So I think it sounds a bit arrogant, but I feel because of this, I'm very consciousnessful. of conscious about my emotions or how I feel.
00:11:37
Speaker
um
00:11:40
Speaker
And yeah, I think especially in process in in times of like loss and grief, working with certain stories really helps. um And I think I'm just thinking about, I mean, even now i am a,
00:12:00
Speaker
reflecting about a project that feels like a never-ending story. But then I looked lot of mythology was actually kind of reminding us that everything will always be incomplete and there's some beauty in in being incomplete.
00:12:12
Speaker
And I think just kind of like interactive stories and especially reflection and working with it or telling it can be so good for your own mental health and your own psychological work.
00:12:26
Speaker
also have friends who are mental health promoters that are like applied aco psychologists and applied psychologists who also work with a narrative psychology mythology. And what I learned from them is also that stories are so powerful.
00:12:42
Speaker
I mean, humans are narrative-wired. Like me, everything just goes so much easier if you tell a story. I mean, I can, I work in science, I work you know in academic world, and I know I can give you a table of a of data and say this is how it is, but I'm very sure. Maybe I don't know, don't know you enough, but a lot of people will not really be able to interpret that or just ah hear it or see I'm like, that's okay.
00:13:11
Speaker
But if you tell a story, then people remember it because that's just more easy. i think people can learn a lot through storytelling. And this is what I find so exciting about some of the work, the different projects that you're working on, right? Which is, especially for that reason of we are narrative beings. Stories give us archetypes. They give us hope. They give us a better understanding of the world. They give us the space to process things without the fear because,
00:13:39
Speaker
to a certain extent, they feel make believe, even though deep down inside of you, the mythology resonates in a way that always leaves you in a state of maybe like, could it be or how does this approach it? And that's why I feel like it's really interesting on two of the big projects that you're working on.
00:13:59
Speaker
One of them is the whole rewilding of folktales in general,
Plants in Folktales and Storytelling
00:14:03
Speaker
right? The idea of how is it that we can tell these stories with plants as in the foreground as agents?
00:14:12
Speaker
um Right now, as we're recording this, we just started reading our 23rd book in the plant wisdom book club that I, that I host. And I'm excited because it's the first time in a while that we're reading a novel again called the Island of Missing Trees.
00:14:25
Speaker
And one of the main characters, isn't it great? I've only started like the first, the first quarter, like quarter of it. And I'm just, I love that a fig tree is one of the main characters.
00:14:38
Speaker
And so bringing really that fig tree's experiences to the foreground so that you see that tree and you and what that tree lives in, in relation to the overall family. Can you tell us a little bit more about the, your projects? Like how is it that you're rewilding these folktales and what, what does that look like?
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah, ah first of all, retelling of fairy tales and folk tales is really happening for thousands of years. So it's not something new, even feminist retellings.
00:15:10
Speaker
Some people say, oh it's now something new with Madeleine Miller and forgot the other one was writing this. ah Yeah, there are a lot of feminist retellings, but actually that has been also done for even since Greek times.
00:15:25
Speaker
So, yeah, What I think is now happening more, I think there's this kind of emergence consciousness to actually see. I mean, I have to watch out because I think this awareness is already known in our other worldviews, but let's say in your Northwest European and American, North American worldviews. And even then we have to, I should not generalize too much.
00:15:53
Speaker
So a lot of people, who have been influenced by the patriarchal industrialized system have been seeing plans just as objects. um And I think now we start, I start to see but maybe it's still my bubble, that more and more people start to see plans like agents.
00:16:10
Speaker
It's my bubble too. I'm with you in the bubble. We're in the bubble together. Great bubble. It's a great bubble. um And I hope but I hope the the bubble expands more and more. And I really see a lot of cool things happening.
00:16:23
Speaker
I work with a architects and also experimenting a lot of this kind of post-humanism, eco-humanism, guess, to kind of work more with what they call the vegetal intelligence or plant intelligence. I see in the upcoming Venice Biennale, even the Belgian Pavilion, they will like work with plant intelligence, they give signals to the facades that they will adapt themselves.
00:16:48
Speaker
So people start to be more aware about this. And I think other technologies like academic fields, like eco-linguistics, eco-humanism, they all start to kind of criticize and have been seeing plants too much as objects.
00:17:05
Speaker
Well, it actually should also be agents. so um And we have been experimenting, not only me, but with all ah different people, especially my little own tribe in Europe, that we call ourselves like,
00:17:20
Speaker
We don't actually have a tribe name, but we have a practice writing with plants. I really start to like shape shift into a certain plant. So when we had to need this last call, I was indeed going to fa facilitate this two hour long writing plan session.
00:17:36
Speaker
um Where we kind of like, first we do a lot of like storytelling, like people like, yeah, first I do the introduction and blah, blah, blah. Like in many online sessions, you would observe.
00:17:49
Speaker
But then we have a sharing circle practice where we like give people also a chance to share memories or folklore, scientific fact about a plant. And we started to get to know the plants a bit better through the different knowledges or rhythms.
00:18:05
Speaker
And then we do this creative exercise where we like it might let people imagine to shape shift into a plant and we give certain prompts where we like kind of nudge them to start thinking from the plant as an agent and a subject.
00:18:22
Speaker
and we also have a couple of slides about the methodology. we really say to watch out for anthropomorphism. I'm not English speaker, so some words are very difficult for the pronoun. pronoun um So we try to also like watch out that people um don't project too much human intelligence on the plants because it could be good because people need familiarity to connect, to love some someone.
00:18:51
Speaker
um
Creative Exercises with Plant Communication
00:18:53
Speaker
But if you anthropomorphize a plant because you think human intelligence is higher than plant intelligence, that might be coming from the wrong intention.
00:19:04
Speaker
So i was like trying to reflect a bit on that in um the first part. And then we just also love different media. I'm like, obviously I can choose which language It can be a prayer, poem, a sitcom scenario, a comic or a short story.
00:19:23
Speaker
And you see like often participants afterwards i can share, always like telling them you don't have to share before I give the creative writing exercise. um But there'll be a sharing circle at the end where you can share what you want to share, which could be something you learned, but also you could read or show what you have been writing.
00:19:41
Speaker
And um after you see like, Always people have a dialogue with the plant and certain themes, which I think are connected to the seasonality often emerge or they try to indeed imagine to be the plants, which is very, in many cases, it's really very cool. And it's what I always see because I was sharing circles before, but also people share memories and associations.
00:20:09
Speaker
Sometimes, especially in the poems, certain words, that sometimes other people told come back in a poem or a short story. So I think, yeah, that's something we try to do.
00:20:25
Speaker
And I think it actually goes much more easier for a lot of people, but maybe we also track people already kind of are aware that plants have intelligence. So I think it's again the bubble that indeed when I want to do this retellings so stories or writing fan sessions we plan where plants are in the foreground and their own agents.
00:20:49
Speaker
I think certain people are ready for this. I've always been ready for this. Of course, um it might still be a challenge how to like make more people aware about this. Yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:21:53
Speaker
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00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, i I understand that challenge because I i have a ah book club ah an not a book club, excuse me, a writing group. It's ah actually a writing and creativity group. It's called the Sprouts Writing and Creativity Group that I have inside the naturally conscious community that I that I founded. And we do a lot of those similar activities. In other words, we meet every week.
00:22:27
Speaker
So we meet every Wednesday for an hour and a half. And in that time, we try different pieces. So um we do mostly writing, but we also have one ah the second Tuesday, for example, we call our budding artist artistry. And there we do um any kind of anything else, anything that's kind of not writing. So people mostly draw.
00:22:49
Speaker
and We've had movement. We've had poetry, you know, not just poetry, but like song we do. And then even now in our writing, we're we're pushing ourselves even more. So we'll do song lyrics.
00:23:00
Speaker
And we'll do, ah like you said, haikus and we'll do different kinds of writing, blackout poetry, for example. And um in many of the instances, we'll include the plants. I think what if there if I've learned something, we're we're experimenting with more ah different modalities now because it used to be that we just did prompts and it was great.
00:23:23
Speaker
always inviting the plants in. But it's interesting, like, do you, we've had a few where we've invited in one plant that we all kind of work with, or each person
Reimagining the Garden of Eden
00:23:33
Speaker
invites in ah a plant that they want to work with, where then we have certain prompts, for example, deep time ah coming into the plant. And it is true that We try not to anthropomorphize. I think that as as you do this more often and you sort of break beyond the barriers of the limitations of language and you're and and you're in a group that you feel really comfortable with, so therefore you're not afraid of maybe this doesn't make sense because when a plant speaks, it's not a given that it will immediately make sense to the human being.
00:24:07
Speaker
Because the plant speaks with an entirely different vocabulary, an entirely different perspective, an entirely different scope of time, for example. And I love that because I love seeing what comes out the other day. For example, we were doing an activity and i at some point I i couldn't find words.
00:24:27
Speaker
i got I got to a place where I was writing. And I was so deep into the plant mind at that moment that I could not i could not find words. So i like luckily I have all my drawing materials next to me and I just grabbed my notebook and like pulled out the first thing that came, which was actually ah charcoals.
00:24:49
Speaker
And I was just drawing. and again, to like you look at it and it makes perfect sense when I look at it in the sense of I feel it. I have no idea. logically what it means.
00:25:01
Speaker
But I can tell like from the way that it makes me feel, it's, it just, it is what it is. Like it's supposed to say something and this is the thing that it's supposed to say.
00:25:12
Speaker
And I love that. And I feel like it's so important for us to do because the more we do this with other kin, the more we kind of step out of our human limitations in every which way. And,
00:25:26
Speaker
You get to feel the experience that the plant is having or any other being that you choose to do this with. you you're not You're no longer intellectualizing it, which we tried to do some retelling of stories, but we got so much into our head we were trying to do a rewrite of the Garden of Eden.
00:25:47
Speaker
And we just kept going into the way that the story is told today. And we wanted to make a feminist statement, you know, and all these things. And I just found for myself that it was just hard for us to keep the core essence of the story in the sense of the overarching moral and archetypes of while like breaking the story down into what is it that, the especially the plants in our case, you know, similar to the work that you're doing, we were looking to bring in, you know, the tree of duality and the tree of life into the story as protagonists and,
00:26:29
Speaker
But man, it was just so easy to get caught up in the mental constructs of Adam and Eve. And what about Lilith? And what about this? And it's like, no, no, we need to talk about like the plan. We need to get in to what they're observing.
00:26:46
Speaker
and And that was one of the things we talked about, because you're actually working on a retelling, an ecofeminist retelling, which, by the way, for my audience, I'd love for you to like define ecofeminism.
Retelling Baltic Myths with Ecofeminism
00:26:57
Speaker
But you're telling you're doing a, re you know, a retelling also of a specific myth, which is the the myth of Eglé. Yeah. Okay. Which is the the queen of serpents. So I'd love to hear kind of like, what does that mean? What are you trying to do? Where have you gotten with it?
00:27:14
Speaker
Like, tell me everything. I'm so just so curious. Okay. So um let me see where to start. um Maybe i have to remind, so I come from this practice of Shinron Yoko from Japan and forest bathing and also social science,
00:27:34
Speaker
There's a lot of talks about art of noticing by Anna Singh. And I think um also even in writing plant sessions, we always remind that deep listening is very important. so And sometimes I even make jokes about this, like we're so good in talking and interrupting during meetings and circles, but not really listening.
00:27:59
Speaker
And I think that's the same with plants or other non-human nature that really have to be open, like receive, and if they are indeed like visuals, or it's just a feeling, or some words, I think that's really a very good start.
00:28:18
Speaker
say on So I think what we do in this project, we also do a lot of this kind of observing and sensing through the human body, and of course bathing, and be very aware.
00:28:34
Speaker
and forest bathing can be seen like a practice but it's not like yoga where you often go inward no forest bathing is really about going outward and i think especially in world where people really isolated wearing a lot of headphones me too often and i feel it's too much i need to wear my headphones and listen to lana del rey music or something yeah the real music a lot this weekend for some reason um I think it's because I have this diva plant in my and my house. I was like sitting next to this plant and I felt like Lana Del Rey.
00:29:10
Speaker
um But um yeah, I think that's a very important um attitude to be open to receive, and to be open for imagination, to do this, you know, a lot of thought experiments, but the same time kind of be open for a lot of like,
00:29:31
Speaker
information or data coming from different sources and directions. This kind of tentacular thinking like tentacles from like octopus, where you feel like your antenna are very sharp. um So you don't know where it is coming from some information or some dreams.
00:29:49
Speaker
And I really believe it's I think I sometimes I think I saw it once in academic book or article like this was revealed by me to me in a dream. It's true. So having established that, some maybe two or three years ago, i have this one friend and she's from Lithuania.
00:30:10
Speaker
And she's already also very interested in eco-psychology, nature held by diversity for many years. And she moved to Belgium. And I've already talked with her for a long time. She's also the one before I also started this kind of writing with plant circles.
00:30:27
Speaker
And at some point you start talking about this Baltic myth of Egla. And um I think when I hear the story, it's really, yeah, struck me.
00:30:42
Speaker
Because it has so many powerful archetypes. And I will tell you very short what the story is about. it's not my ecophamous retelling yet.
00:30:53
Speaker
But I'll just say one of the versions I hear it. So once there was like this young woman living somewhere the Baltic Sea region. So this could be Lithuania, this could be Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Kaliningrad, Sweden, we don't know.
00:31:13
Speaker
And she was ready to go into the water of the Baltic Sea. And when she came back, she had to take it off her clothes. And when she came back, there were some snakes or one snake on her clothes.
00:31:29
Speaker
And the snake, the grass snake said, you can only get back your clothing if you marry the snake king. And she was like, okay, let's do it. And that wow maybe there's some other things, ah but she was not that, I mean, resistant.
00:31:48
Speaker
and But her family was quite not okay with it. Like, you cannot marry ah snake, which I think is interesting because there's so many stories about women marrying animals.
00:32:01
Speaker
Like, you have in Norway also the story about Falemond, the polar bear king, which is a very powerful story. Psyche and Eros is also kind of like similar trends. And there, I mean, there's so many stories. Belle and the beauty, the same. Right.
00:32:17
Speaker
um And after some, yeah, they tried to deceive, the family tried to deceive the snakes always trying, yeah, they came and I tried to say, it's time for you to come to the palace.
00:32:29
Speaker
And the family tried to trick them, but it didn't happen. And then she met her husband, which was apparently a very hot snake king who took her under the water to live in Amber Castle.
00:32:43
Speaker
And there's not so much details, but apparently it wasn't nice. marriage because she got four kids. And that's like the interesting thing is Egle, when you speak Lithuanian or Latvian, it means spruce.
00:33:03
Speaker
So, and even today, a lot of girls are called Egle, which is really spruce. It's like a very interesting name. And the four kids are three boys and one daughter.
00:33:16
Speaker
And they're called Oak. well, are the Lithuanian names, Wok, oh Ash, Birch, and then the daughter is Little Aspen.
00:33:28
Speaker
the I love it. And that's very important because then I go back. At some point, I think it was Ok who asked, I want to see our family on the land, get to know a bit about my roots, which I think is interesting. Ok is saying that.
00:33:45
Speaker
um And then, Eglman to her husband was like, maybe it's time to introduce the kids to my family. And he was a bit like, I'm not that sure. She had to do some trials.
00:33:57
Speaker
and But then she got the permission to yeah to visit her family. um To make it very short, her 12 brothers, and remember 12 is a number of you know order Apollo,
00:34:14
Speaker
the number of patriarchal structure, they killed the husband. So um it's a really sad story actually, because um it ended with grief, a loss, also betrayal, because it was actually also because the 12 brothers had been beating the different kids to know how to reach the husband. And it was little Aspen, a girl who broke,
00:34:43
Speaker
that it happened that they could kill him and of course a lot of remarks about the fact it had to be again a girl with the trees talking about your bible story you earlier mentioned it's always like this that the girl is a betrayer um and um in all her mourning and grief and loss she transforms herself in a tree and also her four kids so it's kind of the origin story of um of how this, yeah, five people became trees, which are very common in the Baltic States and other countries around the Baltic Sea.
00:35:23
Speaker
So when I hear this story, i was like, wow, this is so powerful. I mean, this is like one of the many stories which are really about for me, about the emergence of patriarchal society.
00:35:36
Speaker
oh Like how everything, the woman loses, often seen as betrayer, For me, the snake is in a lot of cultures connected with chaos, the female, the nature, this intelligence of the modern human world.
00:35:56
Speaker
And then the fact that our brothers killed it with actually a weapon that's used in agricultural use. it tells me a lot that this is actually maybe some of this big cultural trauma where man became more powerful, who especially in Europe. And then of course in other places we see this.
00:36:19
Speaker
and And that's like, I want to work with this. So if some people were like indeed ah doing different experimentations, we're also also writing an academic book chapter about this, but I'm also myself writing a book where combine retelling with also some essays, like kind of dissecting, deconstructing um what this myth is about and how to make it more powerful.
00:36:50
Speaker
In the same time, the Baltic Sea is one of the most contaminated seas in the world. I mean, they're really like, the pirates of the sea are just dead. It's contaminated, a lot of algae,
00:37:03
Speaker
um and a lot of, not so much research also. And it's very political if, you know, European countries, Russia, were also like connected through the Baltic Sea. um So working with this very contaminated water body and trying to find some hopeful stories, um that's actually the the goal of this retelling.
00:37:27
Speaker
So the idea is like, first we will ever tell the part And we're going to like add much more elements. like um A lot of women, they are don't have a lot of agency in their telling. So also it give them more agency.
00:37:42
Speaker
We'll reflect a bit or change a bit that Aspen is up a betrayer. And we also will like bring in more of the natural world in this like conversations with the swans, the whales, and other beings that we observe in the Baltic Sea and on the land and edges.
00:37:59
Speaker
And also kind of playing with themes like transhumanism, posthumanism, fact that humans are both water, trees are both partly water, and often conduits with underworld thinking because the palace from the snake king is under the water, like in an underworld. So we also can play with this.
00:38:22
Speaker
And at the same time, we also want to then tell what happened after they killed the snake husband and also Egle, the queen is also transformed. so I could really tell about how the Baltic Sea the past hundred years really became a bad place.
Baltic Sea Environmental Themes in Myths
00:38:41
Speaker
And then we want to work with a resurrection of little Aspen. Was coming back in this world in some way and kind of like start to plant seeds of slow hope.
00:38:53
Speaker
We also want to like really work with slow hope because often people, especially in Instagram, i'm I'm also Instagram person, We want to have this gratification, everything has to go fast, but for growth and transformation, it takes a lot of time.
00:39:08
Speaker
That's something we can learn from the plants. that um Growth and regenerating the land, it takes time. So we really want to like work with that in our experience.
00:39:21
Speaker
As I was listening to you, I was thinking about a few different things because I was thinking about those elements that are that we hear in so many different tales, right? The snake, as you mentioned, which I think is in a really important element.
00:39:33
Speaker
We had in our conversations, in our re retelling and rewilding of the Garden of Eden, we had lots of conversations on really who is the snake? like What does the snake represent? Because in our under As we started to really get into it, we had to realize that if we have a tree of life and we have a tree of duality, that means that the understanding of everything has always existed.
00:39:57
Speaker
And it was a part of the garden and the garden didn't have boundaries. The garden was not this... um was not this restricted location that I think the Christian myth tries to tell you, but instead it was everything, right? The garden is the representation of the bounty that the the knowledge of unity, which was the tree of life and the tree of duality, which brings it into the physical world, doesn't mean it restricts it. It just shows you every aspect of it.
00:40:27
Speaker
And the snake's ability to intertwine and to be a a conduit to help you see both sides of it, where you know the tree of duality or Todd, as we were calling Ki, we were calling Ki Todd.
00:40:42
Speaker
And as Todd is there and Todd says, I give you everything. But then you know God comes in and says, no, no, no, you only can see some parts of this.
00:40:53
Speaker
And the snake that comes in and says, no, Todd has everything for you. You can see light and dark. You can see all aspects, not divided as in good and evil, which is what God is trying to tell you, but but more of.
00:41:09
Speaker
the spectrum from, you know, one side of it to the opposite side of it. So like a like a magnet, nobody says that the North Pole of a magnet and the South Pole of a magnet is good or bad.
00:41:21
Speaker
They're just different poles. And I think that the Tree of Life, you know, gave everything and put it into a form for Todd to be able to understand it. And the snake was like, hey, you don't have to limit yourself to only seeing the North Pole.
00:41:36
Speaker
You can see everything if you really want it. But I do think that that aspect of the fear of knowing of really having access to knowledge without that judgment, without that restriction that is coming is a very scary thought for so many people. And hence why so many of our tales, um, kind of restrict that and look at the snake in that negative
Symbolic Role of Trees in Mythology
00:42:01
Speaker
light. And on the other side, as you were talking, I was really listening and thinking about also how many tales end with woman,
00:42:12
Speaker
either because she has been betrayed, most likely, or has been constrained to betray, rooting herself into a tree and becoming that moral compass. Like ah even in Caribbean ah mythologies, there is also, you know, that that that Timon who roots herself in to the ground there is where she turns into a beautiful tree to in her sorrow, but more than anything is to be that beacon to show like not just a tree, but usually a long living tree.
00:42:49
Speaker
A tree that says, do not forget what I just went through. Do not let this happen to you either. And I think that that last part of I am going to be here to watch over because you, my dear brothers in this case, should never forget what you did.
00:43:05
Speaker
Like you actually did something bad and wrong. And I'm not going to go off and kill you on worse. I'm going to stand here and I'm going to stand here rooted for all of our generations to come and that they know what you did.
00:43:22
Speaker
I'm going to be that example of why, what you did and the consequences of what you did. And I think those are really important messages that are, you know, that that have gotten lost through the time. And they are the true telling of many of these tales. I think that they get, like you said, the patriarchy steps in,
00:43:44
Speaker
they start to create this through restrictions, they try to put moral constraints on it, they try to make it about good and evil. So many of our fairy tales are about good and evil.
00:43:54
Speaker
And it's like, maybe, but what if we looked at it instead of like spectrums and free will and the ability for you to move in this world with more autonomy. And I think that that's where the plant's are trying to teach us because they you know they've been there, they've observed this, they've seen it time and time again.
00:44:17
Speaker
They have taken that that um hit for us, they've been that witness, and how do we tap into their ability to tell their story in ah in a more complete way, looking at it more like an ecosystem, and how do I tell the story of how this ecosystem has evolved and grown and shown?
00:44:39
Speaker
I think that there's just so much there if we allow ourselves to step out of not just an anthropomorphization, but also, which that word was impossible. i don't even know if I pronounced it right. But more in the, if we allow ourselves, it's I discovered through this process just how hard, either because of the constraints that we've been given to look at things in a certain way, or even by our we're blinded by our desire to tell the story in another way without letting the story itself unfold in whatever way the story needs to tell.
00:45:17
Speaker
What is the story that Todd, in our case, the tree of duality, right the tree of conscience? What is the story that Todd actually wants to tell? Why did Todd team up with the serpent?
00:45:29
Speaker
What was there? What is it that Todd wanted us? What did he want? What did he want Eve to have by having that fruit in my case? And the same is what what was You know, Eglet trying to say by naming her children, you know, the Oak, Aspen, like where, what is the the actual story that each one of these characters themselves as tree protagonists want to tell? I think that that's just so powerful. And I think it's also...
00:46:00
Speaker
um It helps us take back are it helps us takeback our history, even if we're talking about it through mythology. It helps us repattern the conditioning into completely different ways so that we are not conditioned by these um myopic, to a certain extent, stories that pass on and pass on and pass on and become the norm in our minds for But instead, we give them a broader opportunity for you to infer what you want out of the story, for you to get the message from little Aspen directly. Like, what was Aspen living in that? I'm not going to just tell your story, because oftentimes as's a narrator that tells the story of little Aspen or tells the story of a glare, tells the story of the king. But it's more of what is the story that the king wants to tell?
00:46:49
Speaker
What is the what is the story that each one of these characters want to tell on their own? Yeah, well, also so much to act. First of all, i I like how you interpret.
00:47:01
Speaker
Ekelo was like, witness me. Witness the mistakes you made. I think that's very powerful. I love a good consequence. Like for me, it doesn't end.
00:47:12
Speaker
um I'm actually off referring and looking to the work by Sharon Blackie, which is also ecofeminist, ecopsychologist. And she also loves this kind of mythology and stories. Yep. It's just a good consequence.
00:47:26
Speaker
And it is like this. Like you you you guys, you killed the snake, the complexity. So, of course, things are going wrong in the Baltic Sea.
00:47:39
Speaker
And it's really cool that they also will be reminded. Because even today, you see all the trees, the reminders of the mistakes of our 12 brothers.
00:47:50
Speaker
um For me, the snake, I mean, I can't even disconnect the snake from the tree. It always is so entangled. I think even when you look to so many mythologies, Norwegian mythology, same, Iggdrasil and the snake.
00:48:06
Speaker
In Mexican culture, mythology is everywhere. I followed this amazing course by Advaya, but also after referring to the tree, sacred trees,
00:48:17
Speaker
And how often there's a snake, I'm like, here we go. There is a snake. For me, the snake is really representing the highest complexity. And I'm also in a startup actually working with people who are modeling, like doing semantic modeling and making knowledge graphs. And all this big data has to be connected.
00:48:38
Speaker
And you really have to dig into this complexity. And for a lot of people, indeed, the complexity, his the the connections, understanding all the relationships is big, it's scary.
00:48:53
Speaker
And I think um certain scientists in the past century tried to like reduce it, so the reductionism and all look to isolated parts. But then that's when I make so many mistakes because to health, other contexts like economy, if you don't have this holistic view and you don't see the relationships, that's when people are really wrong.
00:49:16
Speaker
So for me, killing the snake is killing complexity. um Killing the chaos. So me chaos and complexity, it is kind of similar, like going around and do the dreaming work and the imagination work.
00:49:32
Speaker
That's also the snake. So for me, the snake is very present. Ecofeminism, I have not really defined how I see this. ah So ecofeminism,
00:49:44
Speaker
I got to know about this when I actually was in Nepal at some point. When was in my teenage time, also worked as a waitress and I had a good relationship with some Nepali family which took me to Nepal when I was 18.
00:49:57
Speaker
And it also changed, of course, a lot of my views on the world. I think it really helps when people, how young or how better, but you can do it at any age. We're exposed to different worldviews.
00:50:09
Speaker
And um in Nepal, I got a lot of and learning. And then at some point ended up in a permaculture farm where it was also eco-feminist startup where like rural women making menstrual pads from cotton.
00:50:30
Speaker
And that's when they introduced me to eco-feminism as this kind of reaction to oppression of women and non-human nature. And they see whatever you do from practices or theory,
00:50:42
Speaker
which is trying to like take care that women and non-human nature are not exploited, you can see as ecofeminism. It also, of course, means celebrating the different ways of being a woman, the different ways of being nature.
00:50:59
Speaker
So for me, that's all like, even forest bathing is for me like ecofeminist activity, especially because you don't get money for forest bathing or just listening and noticing.
00:51:12
Speaker
But when you think it's so good for world, when people are just standing still, observing, listening, reflecting about themselves, reflecting about environment, relationships with themselves and other nature beings.
00:51:28
Speaker
So that's for me also ecofeminist. And ecofeminist retellings are really about, yeah, like analyzing indeed this patriarchal constraints we often see in retellings.
00:51:40
Speaker
Because what happened a lot of mythology and fairy tales and folk tales is they also often went through quite some retellings where maybe certain things are erased or characters are erased.
00:51:57
Speaker
um And um sometimes I feel it's also about rebirth and reconstruction. of others erased or almost lost.
00:52:08
Speaker
So for example, I was like talking with the other people we're working in the midst is, who is the missing mother? Why don't we hear that much? Or it's a story about grief and mourning. Where is Babel, the goddess?
00:52:23
Speaker
Will it? Was like, you know, using female humor to help the other woman, which you see in Japanese mythology and Greek mythology. So you just start to like, especially look to the spaces between the safe plans to you. and like, you look to the relationships, you can see the plan, but you're more interested, like this communication or what's, I don't know how to explain it.
00:52:51
Speaker
I think you're explaining it just fine. I mean, I think that that's, that's the beauty of it. And what I love is that for you, you're, you're putting, how do I say this? The fact that you're doing the work you do and the projects that you do. So you have this, you know, somewhat ah you this ecologically focused circular timber, like you're in the real world, quote unquote.
00:53:15
Speaker
And at the same time, these tellings, which to me is another further proof of how important these two pieces are.
Synergy of Creative and Scientific Work
00:53:26
Speaker
Like we tend to think of people as either artists or scientists, but I think that the most going back to the systems thinking or the ecosystems thinking, as I i often call it, I feel like it's it is that intersection that helps us rethink the way we're doing business.
00:53:44
Speaker
the way we're doing science, the way we're doing technology, when you have this other side of you that allows you to take what's there, like all of this mythology, all of these folktales, and rethink of them with, you know, it's almost like you're taking the ingredients that are there and you're looking at them and you're like, is this really the complete picture?
00:54:04
Speaker
Is there more that I could do with this? Is there a wider story? i think it makes it easier. It's almost like a playground for the mind and for our our own sense of being to be able to see that in our quote unquote life.
00:54:20
Speaker
more job-like type things, which I don't even think of them as jobs because I think that when you're in that world, it all becomes another form of passion, another form of expression, another form of creativity.
00:54:31
Speaker
And I feel like that's what it does. The more you do this piece here, the more you do all of that part of for you, it's the narrative and the playing with the mythologies and everything.
00:54:42
Speaker
It makes you, it helps you see the possibilities in the work you're doing. It helps you break from the conditioning of, well, wood is used this way. And this is the way we're supposed to do things with timber. And this is the way these things are supposed to go. And it's like, wait a minute.
00:54:57
Speaker
That's what they've been telling us with these myths too. But by it expanding and looking at these myths from these different beings perspective and bringing up you know, the ah other kin, right, all of the more than human world that's in there and bringing them into the spotlight.
00:55:12
Speaker
Well, what if I bring in the case of timber, what if I bring, you know, into the spotlight, the plants that are being, you know, that we're working with? What if I bring into the spotlight, you know, and other environmental causes? What if I bring up to the spotlight who are the the more than human And bring them up to the same level to the table that we're discussing.
00:55:34
Speaker
And so i really see how all of this gives us, um and ah ah it it it enhances our flexibility to be able to see the possibilities beyond the limitations of freedom.
00:55:47
Speaker
the human centric approach that we have done this. And I think, like you said, that's probably a big part of what that ecofeminism is, is rethink who are your protagonists so that you can start to see that in every single aspect of life, every single thing that you do.
Blending Disciplines to Challenge Binaries
00:56:04
Speaker
I agree. It's really about challenging also binaries. And it's true. It's really cross fertilizing by different projects in ah even a company. I am actually giving science fiction prototyping workshops with students and other people.
00:56:19
Speaker
And we work with robots. So they are even imagining about robots and digital technologies, the materials like hemp and timber, but they also have non-human characters.
00:56:31
Speaker
And a lot of amazing little prototype stories. um I already have my collected like 50, 60 of them. And then also, then we also open this debate of all is possible or likely futures or by futures, where a digital artificial intelligence has a place, plant intelligence, collective intelligence.
00:56:52
Speaker
And I kind of like to, yeah I see a lot of, um I think that's also the role ecofeminist indeed expand our knowledge and indeed remove these constraints as you mentioned earlier. Yeah.
00:57:08
Speaker
I love it so much. Look, I have a feeling that I could ask you a billion and one questions because i i love all these different projects that you're working on. And I love the... The 360 degree view, which is I think the part that, um like we said like I was saying before, is what we need in the future, right? We need that when when we as scientists, and as as you know ah futurists, as all these different sort of more technical roles go in to our quote unquote workspaces, we bring with us
00:57:41
Speaker
all of that creativity, we bring with us everything that was our passion, whether that's in, in whatever form of the arts, because I, I really do think that that's what keeps our mind malleable where the technology is always looking to, for the process, the system, the constraints, which is what it's meant to do.
00:57:59
Speaker
The creativity allows me to not get stuck in that. And that part helps me in my creativity, give it bounds and give it a shape and put it into something greater.
00:58:10
Speaker
So I just I love that combination, which is why in the naturally conscious community we do have all these different spaces, you know, the Plant Wisdom Book Club to help us see with all these different ways people are doing it.
00:58:22
Speaker
the writing and creativity group to practice all of these pieces that youre similar to your kind of wood wide web stories that you're working on and such, because I feel like those really challenge our our own limitations and help us push beyond those boundaries between you know the human and the more than human world. Because even though we might mentally accept it,
00:58:49
Speaker
telling it into or weaving it into our stories is almost like living it in in that fantasy world and helping us really think how could this be right what what does it look like when we're co-creating what does it look like when the plants in my house even though they are in pots are still a part of my family like this is not i don't live alone i live with all these others in here and they have a say in what it is that I do in the decisions that I make.
00:59:20
Speaker
But to get there, I think we need those safe spaces to tell these stories, to play, to expand, to bring in emotions and feelings and sensations and words and thought processes that we can't do necessarily in other spaces that don't allow for that, that way of exploration to be.
00:59:42
Speaker
And so I love that you're doing all this work.
Accessing Wendy's Projects Online
00:59:45
Speaker
Please, please tell everybody as we wrap things up, where, where do they find all of this work that you're doing? Um, well, as a system thinker, I have many things.
00:59:56
Speaker
andum Well, I think the main websites where we have already since, since 2018, I'm creating after all inviting guest bloggers is woodwidewebstories.com. Okay.
01:00:08
Speaker
okay Um, so woodwideweb.com. but Yeah, I'll put it all into the show notes, so don't worry about it. And Instagram. um I have a couple of Instagram accounts because I feel um often the different projects have different call to actions.
01:00:25
Speaker
And I think something I learned in communication is to just have one call to action. So it's like, oh, join our writing plan session. So we really have Instagram just about this.
01:00:36
Speaker
ah The Egla has our own Instagram account now. And people can really join us. Like, You're even like doing symposiums of the Nordic Summer University every half year. People can just join, propose their practice, experiments and want to do with us.
01:00:53
Speaker
And LinkedIn, if you want to learn more about my technology and science fiction stuff. Yeah. Perfect. Well, I will make sure i include all of those into the show notes so that people can find you and they can follow you. And I'm looking forward. I wasn't able the the day that we spoke, unfortunately, i wasn't able to join the session that you were in. But I do hope that one day I'll get to join your sessions. And you are also more than welcome to join our writing group anytime. It's just drop And so you're welcome to come and write with us and and design with us and draw and create as we do. Like I said, we're there every single Wednesday.
01:01:30
Speaker
So, and I'll also include that in the show notes for those of you that are listening to be able to do this. Thank you for the invitation. And yeah, I would just want to say may the forest be always with you. Yay.
01:01:42
Speaker
That was just going ask you for final words, but I think you just gave everybody their final words. So thank you. Thank you so much for this conversation. And for all of you that are listening, if you want to continue on with these types of stories as both a writer as well as somebody who bits gets to be able to enrich their lives with this, please check out Wendy's work. I'll put all the links in the show
Joining the Naturally Conscious Community
01:02:06
Speaker
notes. And also remember that that's what the Naturally Conscious Community is for.
01:02:09
Speaker
It is an entire ecosystem, an entire online platform dedicated to human plant relationships, a place where you're safe, where you can experiment, where you can play and where you have many different, as Wendy was saying too, many different ways of inputs from plant communication and plant music, but also going into the creative arts and deep, deep conversations in our plant-inspired masterclasses. So, and also learnings. I mean, there are classes there too. So it's just an entire world for you to experiment with.
01:02:40
Speaker
So please head over there, all the links, everything that you need is in the show notes. And Remember to do all of the good stuff, like and share, because we want to be able to tell more of these stories across the interwebs for everybody to be able to experience and start their own plant reawakening.
01:02:58
Speaker
Until then, until our next our next moment together, remember to resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. So that's it for us. Bye, everyone. bye thanks for tuning in to this episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom.
01:03:14
Speaker
To continue these conversations, join us in the Naturally Conscious Community, your premier online ecosystem for plant reawakening and accelerated evolution and co-creation with other kin.
01:03:25
Speaker
Here you'll find expansive discussions, interactive courses, live events, and supportive group programs like the Plant Wisdom Book Club and the Sprouts Writing and Creativity Group. Connect with like-minded individuals collaborating with plants to integrate these insights into life. Intro and outro music by Steve Shuley and Poinsettia from the singing Life of Plants.
01:03:45
Speaker
That's it for me, Tigria Gardenia, and my plant collaborators. Until next time, remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. I'm out. Bye.