Transcript
Speaker: Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tigria Gartenia. Oh, this episode is so much fun, especially if you are a parent or you you're a child care or a librarian or a community center person, anybody who has children around, an auntie,
Speaker: I'm a professional aunt so i and and a great aunt. So if you have children around you, you're going to enjoy this so much. But even if you don't, really, there is so much that we talk about here. So I talked to Laurel Collis where we're talking about her book series, which is a series of fantasy fiction books. I have i have three out of the four here with me today. I'm super excited about that we talk about and go into detail. And these are environmental we call She says, The Magic of Environmental Awareness. It's a fantasy fiction series that is really connected for kids to um explore the idea of climate change in a safe environment, you know battle a few monsters, you know all that good stuff.
Speaker: And um I just want to warn you that during the time of this recording, there was a massive storm that came over Laurel's house. So there is a period of time...
Speaker: Even at the end, she discovered that water had been kind of seeping in through the windows and she hadn't noticed because we were in the middle of recording. So there is going to be a little period of time where there's this extra sound in the background.
Speaker: Please just plug through it. it's It doesn't last that long. And the whole conversation is so... engaging that I'm sure it's going to make it worth your wilds. So I'm not going to hold you here any any longer.
Speaker: Please go check out episode 125, Nature Spirits Gone Rogue with Laurel Collis. Enjoy. Welcome to Reconnect with Plant Wisdom.
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.
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.
Speaker: Hello, Laurel. Hello, hello. I am so happy to finally have you in front of me. And i have this feeling, i already have a few notes after just our pre-discussion. So I am really looking forward to getting into this conversation. There's so much for us to talk about.
Speaker: But before we start, can you tell everybody who is Laurel Collis?
Speaker: Oh, hi, Tagurla. that is a leading question. i think that um I want to give... I want to give you you just the very short answer so that we can get into our discussion.
Speaker: The first thing I have to say, though, is also based on our pre-discussion, is that I feel a little bit like an imposter here on this show because, you know, Tigrilla is the real plant. You're the real deal. You're a plant whisperer.
Speaker: you um You're sort of a sensitive who can go deep into nature and communicating with nature. And I'm definitely not... that person. However, in the books that I've been writing, so in the last 10 years, I've been developing a book series for middle grade kids, ah which draws attention to nature and pollution and problems like big intractable, big, big intractable problems like the climate crisis.
Speaker: oh i've I've got developed characters that have these abilities. So I'm looking forward to chatting with you today um and maybe even getting a lesson on how I can develop these characters. Oh, I love it that's so That's so great. I'm actually really excited to talk about these books.
Speaker: So for those of you that are on video, look, look, there's, I have three of them. There's actually four. But I have I have three. oh and i maybe I was so excited when they arrived. um ah This has been one of the highlights of doing these podcasts is like people are sending me their books and they're just so great. I was like, I wanted books like this when I was that age, you know, so I'm enjoying reading them. And, you know, I'm not even your demographic.
Speaker: um So let's. Yeah. In fact, actually, I do try and channel my 11-year-old self when i'm when i'm in the during the creative process. I'm trying to write books that my 11-year-old self would have loved to have read. And I think that that's what we need right now, because I think that there are so many people out there that are writing kind of in the doom and gloom sort of perspective when we're talking about climate change and such.
Speaker: And it was delightful. I had recently Bridget Sherville on the podcast, and we were talking about parenting for climate change. But, you know, she took a very literal approach. You know, she's working with her daughter and trying to get her daughter to be educated and to be curious and to be solutions driven.
Speaker: and so her book really is about showing parents how to help your children navigate these really confusing conversations without just telling them, hey, we screwed up the planet and ah you guys have to fix it, but which would be horrible to do.
Speaker: So let's say- Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think, can I just say, I think what she's doing is very important as well. And that is kind of how I started because I began with this sort of eco club.
Speaker: I started volunteering at my own children's schools and my own children then were the target age group, nine and 12. They're now 19 and 21. So that's how long I've been doing this.
Speaker: But I began by going, I thought I've got to do something ah with the younger generation. I'd been working in the, in corporate and the corporate world with the grownups on climate change and things were moving way too slowly.
Speaker: So I went into schools and I started trying to teach things like global warming and we were doing things like putting blankets over trees and trying to explain what was happening with the greenhouse effect and talking about deforestation. And my own daughter was crying at bedtime worrying about the trees in the Amazon. So I saw all that. And I also remember a parent coming to talk to me, a dad actually,
Speaker: and saying, you know do do you really think we should be telling the kids this kind of, I mean, should we be telling them about the climate crisis? so and And it was a good question. I still don't have a good answer for it.
Speaker: But what I started to find, to your point, is that the storytelling that we did in the clubs, in these kind of school ah modules that we made, that we took into classrooms, ah the storytelling was what resonated the most which made me start to think, you know, I'm going to go back into my, of i don't know, just retreat back and rethink this and start to think about stories. And that's how I started developing the characters. Oh, I like that. Yeah. And I think that, you know, storytelling is the best way into somebody. I always say, you know, that ah it's in the reason I talk to artists and I love talking to all kinds of different artists, musicians and writers and, and painters and everything, because it's,
Speaker: it's so much easier for us to allow an artist into our home than it is a scientist. Like we're just going to, you know, that comes into the heart. You you start to feel into it. You start to understand. But you picked a very specific genre because you went down the idea of ah fantasy fiction, which I am appreciative of because I like fantasy fiction a lot.
Speaker: So why fantasy fiction of all the different sort of fiction? go that direction? Right. First all, to your point, I talk about storytelling as kind of putting down the drawbridge to let the kids into the castle. And, you know, I'm asked this a lot and I get a lot of pushback because people say, okay, you're drawing attention or you're trying to, your goal, your purpose of the books is to raise awareness of the climate crisis, which is a very real, tangible, dangerous thing, which is happening in today's world. Why would you...
Speaker: why would you sort of close it in this fantasy with these fantasy elements? And actually, ah wasn't a it wasn't and did it took me a while, let's just say. It took me a while to figure out that I was going to go with this genre.
Speaker: But think about it, Tigrilla. What would you do if you sat down and said, I want to make a story for kids, 9 to 11-year-olds, and I want climate change or extreme weather to be my villains?
Speaker: Because that was sort of the starting point. And it's like, ah and finally, you know, i did I thought long and hard and I experimented. And ultimately, I'm like, I've got to create a monster.
Speaker: I've got to hit hit them through the imagination. It's not going to work. Anything literal is not going to work. However, when people ask me about my world building, I say, no, no, no, no we're not world building here. So,
Speaker: The stories take place, admittedly, in a kind of magical setting. It's an eco-school, it shrouded in mist, a kind of um avalon off the north coast of England, very secretive, and it's the the world's top eco-students, so kids from everywhere who who get invited to this. i love that. I want to be an eco-student. But the point i I need to make is that the school and the action and the characters are all a version of today's world.
Speaker: So it's not like I'm giving the reader a free pass and saying, no, this is some world that I created, which is over there with all these problems that, by the way, you're going to have to fix. ah ah it's some It's definitely realism, but I wanted to go then with this fantastical overlay.
Speaker: So I don't know if you've read any Salman Rushdie, but I mean, he is a master. have a long time i haven't read all his books, but I did his masterclass, ah books like Midnight's Children, where he's talking about, he's really dealing with something very literal, like India's independence, but then he puts all these magical elements in, which I think invite the reader to go to another level. And and maybe, so in Salman Rushdie's masterclass, he,
Speaker: he said something that has stayed with me throughout the writing, and that is, put it this way, he said, if you find that your carpet needs to fly, then you have to let it fly.
Speaker: so i i've I've been looking at um ways to reach my reader um in a way that would hit them through their imagination and would maybe draw them in, but at the same time ah would – and maybe bring them closer to nature and make them love nature more, but at the same time, ah raise awareness that, you know, we're in crisis.
Speaker: So I guess the short answer is sometimes fiction or fantasy fiction can be a more powerful way to tell the truth, to tell the truth about who we are as people and how we're treating our environment and, you know, what it is we're going to be dealing with. And so I've created these monsters.
Speaker: And I'd love to talk more about the monsters. and That was a fun process, but I think I've maybe answered your question for now. No, you did. And we are going to get to the monsters. I just wanted to stay, you know, in in the sense that you were talking about relating to fantasy fiction.
Speaker: I've read, you know, I'm not one of those like super, super, my my nephew, for example, reads like everything. And you can mention just about any book of fantasy fiction. he's How old is your nephew?
Speaker: I've had a few series. My nephew's actually, believe it or not, 38. He's not going to be my target reader. He's not going to be your target reader anymore. And as a of fact, he wasn't a big reader when he was younger. he wasn't a reader at all. And it was just an amazing thing that has happened in his thirty s that's just bloomed into his late 20s to early 30s and bloomed into it, which was interesting because I also had a period around that time in my age.
Speaker: And I find it interesting because going to what you were saying relating to fantasy fiction, I think about the series that I probably the biggest series that I ever read, which was the sort of truth series that I can't even remember how many books it is right now.
Speaker: And I remember that there's one book, I think it's like book four or five, that talks about this area that that does have a kind of world building sort of, and the area that it talks about is basically communism.
Speaker: And, but, you know, done in this very fantasy fiction sort of way. And I remember thinking to myself about halfway through the book going, you know, I'm Cuban. I grew up listening to things around communism.
Speaker: And I've always had lots of different ideas about communism. But this was probably the best, like, practical implications in both its beauty and the horrors of communism that you could ever have written.
Speaker: Like if I would have written some kind of, if I would have read a regular book that talked about communism, this, this, and this, or even the conversations that we had about things happening in our home country, it's not still as powerful or didn't impact me as much as reading that one book. That one book helped me see a series of scenarios that I would have never given myself the chance to see had I not been in this sort of fictionalized world. And while he never talked, while the author never talks about it as if communism,
Speaker: And no character talks about it. But by the behaviors, you're like, oh, my goodness, this is communism. And it was wonderful to help you see it. So I I can understand how, especially in a topic a little bit as delicate as, you know, climate change.
Speaker: for children, which can be very traumatizing in another way. I could see why fantasy fiction it is probably a good genre to have. But I do want to get into the monsters because the monsters i have a few questions about.
Speaker: um But tell me, you know, you you you created these monsters that come from probably what most of us fear relating to the climate. Can you just help us better understand, like, what is the genesis? created something.
Speaker: um yeah Sorry, we've got a thunderstorm going ah on here. um oh we can't hear it, so we're fine. I don't know if you can hear the lightning. yeah Oh, now I heard it. That's cool. The the weather is fighting back or joining the conversation.
Speaker: but um so what I did was, ah so so I was living in Greece and I i was learning the language and I came across the word anthropos, which is the word for humankind, and I thought, what if I take the stem of that, which we see in words like anthropology and anthropogenic climate change, things like that.
Speaker: I took anthrop, and I joined it together with the English word hog, which, and again, i would not like, I always clarify, no offense to pigs at all, but hog is a kind of term that we use to denote or to connotate our overconsumption or taking more than we need. So I developed these anthrogs and built a whole compendium of them.
Speaker: And in a way, i think you would probably relate. I see them as nature spirits gone rogue. They birth out of garbage dumps, landfill, polluted areas, in places where oil or gold or important things have been taken out of earth and empty spaces have been left.
Speaker: they can grow up as these kind of, well, basically scary monsters. And under the sea bed, plastic pollution, in the most recent book, Knights Unite, the ah these monsters show up in the action as extreme weather events.
Speaker: So they're very dangerous. And of course, you know, they have their own personalities. There's a little bit of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein because in many ways they didn't ask to be born and quite often they're quite sort of junior monsters and there are ways that the children can reach reach out to the monsters and frogs and communicate with them and it's not all just you know humans fighting monsters. There's an element of need for mutual understanding as well. So you know I can play around with a lot of different things.
Speaker: to do with that. But yeah, basically in book two, Renegade Tales, which you tell them, these are wind monsters, so they can destroy a whole town, these large renegades, they call them. So it's play with renegade and veils.
Speaker: These are renegades, but you know there's also this the action begins with these three baby renegades that are needing to be destroyed because they're going to grow up into large, sort of oh destructive forces that humans are going to have to contend with So, you know, I play with sympathy as well. as ah was just going to ask you, like going into this, because I know that, for example, you were telling me that your main character, right, is a tree speaker, right, has this gift of being able to communicate with plants.
Speaker: And obviously, when we look at climate change and we look at what's happening, you know, there's so many aspects of this that, of course, affect the plant world directly, right? But at the same time, yes, plants kill without any doubt. Plants definitely kill.
Speaker: But plants also attempt to adapt, to help adapt to the environment, to move things around. So I'm just curious as to as you were thinking about, OK, we have OK, we always have the we have this monster. We have, you know, the the kids who are learning and are dealing with ah these monsters.
Speaker: Is the answer, is there a way for them to unravel the, man the you know, the the nature spirit within, let's just say it that way? Or is it always kind of like, what was your thinking there of, how do I do this? Do I want them to just kill the monster? Or do I need them to figure out how to unravel into climate human situation that makes sense?
Speaker: Like that that feels, you know, like a like a mutualism. Like where were you when you're thinking about writing these? Where are you trying to go? What is the lesson you're trying to give relating to these climate pieces that in so many cases are being exasperated by humans themselves? So the idea that humans have to go off and kill these creatures that have been created by humans to begin with feels like this.
Speaker: can see the moral dilemma in it. Yeah, I'm very sensitive to that. And of course I have actual... sort of pure and nature spirits who are also given a voice. And in, in book one, i have the storm Lord where they end up, they do end up fighting a storm Lord who's fairly ruthless.
Speaker: Uh, but they turn him also in a certain way. But in that, in that story, there are also, these no earth gnomes who are very knowledgeable and quite rude to the children.
Speaker: And, uh, one of the main characters who's very, I would say square and very scientific and doesn't believe in anything he can't see. So he's in a way like ah the antithesis of Peter, who's my main protagonist, who's training to be a tree speaker.
Speaker: So this character actually ends up meeting and he loves science and excels at science, but he ends up meeting after falling into a hole. It's a long story. He meets an earth gnome who's extremely rude to him and tells him that human beings are a waste of time and that all they do is put waste into earth and they spend all their time cleaning it up. And when they're not putting things into earth, they're busy taking things out of earth and destroying it that way.
Speaker: And, you know, so they have an altercation and nature a gets a voice. of But he sort of says, I shouldn't even be able to see you because it's not science. It's not scientifically possible.
Speaker: and then And this gnome who's got a great personality and he stays in in the action through to the end. ah he says, you know, maybe your science hasn't caught up with ours yet. So I'm very mindful that in the framework of the books, everything's able to be explained within the science that, well, I mean, for example, the school, obviously, the school is run by a big organization called Gaia.
Speaker: That's the acronym, the Global Advanced Intelligence Agency. And this is a this is maybe I'm getting closer to answering your question because this is a kind of Pentagon style, masculine, military, high tech, uh, global, uh, but it's also, they take their intelligence from everywhere.
Speaker: So they can take their intelligence from, human, human science, but also from, For example, there's one stone called Livingstone who is actually like a very important spokesperson for nature with these kind of macho guys.
Speaker: So I've got these cowboy scientist-type mentors for the children who will also talk to a passing frog or, you know, want to hear um from want to hear what the trees think and include in the Council of Twelve, include nature spirits from the four elements but also from the trees.
Speaker: So i'm I'm trying to show that we're all one and that that the children in solving problems are not working against nature, they're working with nature and that we're all part of the solution. And and then to make it fun.
Speaker: So there's got to be, so first and foremost, I'm trying to write you know a page turning thriller for kids. So we need, we've got a story that's ripping along ah But at the same time, i want to pay a lot of attention to to these broader themes.
Speaker: So in the book, which actually Knights Unite, which is the one that has recently been published and which won the, if I can have a little shout out for myself, it was recognized on Earth Day by the U.S. s Green Earth Book Awards a recommended reading for elementary schools.
Speaker: So in Knights Unite, yeah, I was really thrilled because it was a kind of bomb. I don't know, a verification for me that I'm on the right track. um So in that book, one of the characters who actually has eco-anxiety and has been suffering from eco-anxiety and is very sensitive, she ends up saving the day at the end with this large sea beast that ends up getting into the assembly hall.
Speaker: And she proposes that they will, and there's 100 kids there, she proposes that when they're getting ready to kill this monster after, you can imagine a lot of them, a lot of false conclusions and dark nights of the soul and all the things that go into the adventure series.
Speaker: ah She proposes they give the monster a hug and they put their hands on shoulders and they connect with the sea beast who after all, you know, is still part of the biosphere and part of everything you know, we've collectively made.
Speaker: i and I'm at risk of sort of starting to ramble because there are so many different stories and different elements. But, you as you can hear, I'm passionate about them. but And also the nature of voice is very, very important. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think that this is kind of – so I have this this overall struggle that the more especially I work, you know, creating ecosystems, the the the more the struggle begins – excuse me, the more the struggle gets bigger because – When you work with an ecosystem, when you think about things at an ecosystem level, it doesn't matter what kind of ecosystem, big, small, like planetary versus, you know, just one little habitat around you, whether I'm talking about my house as an ecosystem or, you know, the the beautiful river and all the plants around the river system that I'm seeing. But when you start to think in those terms, you realize that um to a certain extent, everything has a place.
Speaker: You know, when there are invasives or there are certain kinds of, for example, plants that come into and can then invade an area because there is no natural antithesis or like natural antagonist that comes in and that can control. And so it really is about an imbalance that gets created and that creates all the different things. But When the ecosystem then refines its balance, which usually over time an ecosystem does find that there is an equilibrium that gets created. And, you know, there's moments of like, you know, some some species that gets high, that takes, starts to take up too much space. And then it takes a while for the overall ecosystem to adapt and all these different elements.
Speaker: And yet our storytelling tends to be understandably so very focused on you know the Disney myth, the the good versus evil type of perspective.
Speaker: The idea that there are these people people
Speaker: beings of any sort that are inherently good and those that are inherently bad. We're starting to see the ti the tide change on that. We are starting to see much, much more, so many more storylines that shows that sometimes it's about a choice and the choice can have its elements and It depends on who the perceiver is of the choice as to whether or not that choice is good versus bad.
Speaker: But how you, for example, as you're trying to think about it, a story that is based and rooted in nature, that is based and rooted in helping children look at the big picture and start to understand that our world is good is made up of all of these different types of beings and all these different kind of ecosystems that are all interacting with one another and that some are going to take precedence and some are not.
Speaker: um And and i think this goes back to the question you were you know that I had asked you in our first, first conversation about kind of anthropomorphizing too much and making it seem as if there was like this absolute evil in these monsters.
Speaker: How do you reconcile that? Like, what is your thought process? Not so much of like, what did you write about? But like, what is your thought process in How do i explain and how, what what do is the message? Is the message that there is absolute good and evil or that there are absolute weather systems that, or or systems of the of the ecology that are inherently just 100% bad and therefore should just be 86, anytime we see them, or is there more of a nuance to it? And how do you reconcile that? Because I can just imagine that that must be difficult to write, especially in a story, in a fantasy where you have the ability to do just about whatever you want.
Speaker: Okay. So that's a big question. I guess it's, yeah. Well, the way I would start is by repeating what I told you earlier about the name of the, this kind of overarching group,
Speaker: that is basically running the school at this secret island. oh And they're a kind of Camelot in a way, a kind of a utopian group. They're called Gaia.
Speaker: So just by calling them Gaia and having an effective acronym, um and then militaristic, but as I said, they're also extremely sensitive and taking all their intelligence from all available sources.
Speaker: So by giving them the name Gaia, it's already a nod to Gaia. you know, the goddess Gaia, the Greek goddess who we can see as, you know, representing Mother Earth or the biosphere and the interconnectedness of all life.
Speaker: So I'm already giving a nod to that just with, you know, my nomenclature. And it's very, very important to me. I did a lot of research before I started um talking to people like you and also reading books oh by a by s sensitives is maybe the right word, ah people who are engaged in communicating with nature spirits and talking to or going deeper into oh the elemental kingdom.
Speaker: so I've read right through a lot of material. So I mentioned Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, one of the novels that had a Gothic novel from a long time ago, but which is still relevant today.
Speaker: oh You know, I think a lot about Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created and what a terrible life this monster ended up having, you know, unable to connect with but humans and his own creator.
Speaker: And if we think about mythology, say the Greek mythology, you also have – I've drawn a lot from biblical mythology the the current book which has just come out, that beast is a kind of biblical Leviathan-style monster, but at the same time it's very close to the Greek, the Charybnis that chases Odysseus and the sailors and, yeah know, swallows up seawater and spews it out on the ships.
Speaker: So this ah sea beast that comes into assembly brings the seawater, which is plastic-laden, and swallows that up and spews it out onto the children. So I'm very sympathetic and I'm, you know, on the one hand I'm applauding this monster and one of my characters who's a very kind of correct Reva, she says, you know, it's just giving, the monster's just giving us back our junk and our, you know, our waste.
Speaker: So I'm always trying to look out for this bigger picture and, you know, in Greek mythology usually these monsters just somehow exist as punishment for things is that, if you think of, say, like the Minotaur in the Greek mythology in Knossos, the King Minos, the King Minos.
Speaker: pi Poor Aria. This poor Minotaur who didn't do anything wrong other than his mom fell in love with one of the bulls. Like, seriously, so unfair.
Speaker: And then the other angle, Tigrella, is that the king is just happily sacrificing, I don't know, seven seven maidens and seven small boys from Athens or from wherever he brings them. I don't remember the details, but...
Speaker: He brings them to be sacrificed. And then finally, you have um you have this... Who is it who comes? Theseus.
Speaker: Theseus comes. ah Theseus, and who, like, woos Ariadne, who then lets him... Thread. But it was... Theseus didn't create the problem. You know, just like the kids... Nope....and in our upcoming generation, who I'm writing to, it's not...
Speaker: them, as you said earlier, who created the problem, but they're going to come in and have to it was King Minus to kill. So these monsters and things that we've ah we've created are very much of our own making, and I'm really keen to make that clear as I prepare the plots.
Speaker: I still feel like I haven't really answered the question, but the anthropomorphizing, mean, I have to argue for that because I'm writing for kids, and, you know, I thought about it for before we this afternoon I was thinking about before we had our conversation, you know, what would happen if I got a tree to sort of co-author one of these novels with me?
Speaker: I mean, i I'm all for giving the tree a voice, but I just feel like from what I know of tree souls or tree worlds, and they're working in a different time span or I'm assuming that they have to work in a different time construct.
Speaker: And kids play,
Speaker: and kids On the other hand, I mean, and human beings in general, they ah kids especially, they're working in this immediacy of time. So I need books that draw them in, keep very fast paces, lots of things happening.
Speaker: So a tree writing a book, I mean, that could take eons. and true yeah
Speaker: Well, there are, I mean, there are definitely people, there was just an event actually happening. What was it last week? The last, over the last few weeks in, in Finland, that was all about like, and yeah. And, and, and it was a group that were doing all kinds of like,
Speaker: co-authoring with nature and stuff like that. But I do think that, I think the hardest part that we, I know that the part that I struggle with the most is your, your story of Ariadne and Theseus and the Minotaur is a great one, especially because it's one of them. I know did a play many years ago where I played, I was a long time ago and I played.
Speaker: Thank you. and i played aotne in a modern version of a girl who was named marotne and whose parents had raised her with all of the mythology relating to aotne and it tells you know the whole story of her finding the vase and you know which which people want to call the the pandora's box and she's like it's on a box it's a vase And the fact that there's hope inside, but it does release all of the atrocities of the world.
Speaker: But at the bottom, there's hope. But this whole concept of the Minotaur is like, you know, we we so easily and I think that this is in some ways an answer to my own question is oh good.
Speaker: all of these, all of these monsters, you know, in stories like, for example, the Minotaur, it's not the Minotaur, right? Ultimately, when you go and you unravel, we're talking about jealousy and divinities who get upset because, you know, you have um ah the, the, oh my God, it's not Poseidon. It's ah the, the bull belonged to, i can't remember who right now, because the divinity is not coming into my mind and it'll come to me. But then, you know,
Speaker: to have her copulate. So Daedalus who helps us copulate with the, the actual ah bull cause it's the beautiful white bull and all these things and the fricking divinity who gets pissed off and is the one that tells, you know, and it goes down all these paths. And, and I think what we forget in a lot of these stories is that that monster, which is the monster of Minotaur was made up of the decisions of a whole series of different people. Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that in some ways, what our what our stories are sort of trying to, like like you had said, of the the sea monster that just you know passes or vomits up thus the plastic, it if it would have just been water, it would be one thing. But it's plastic because we made a whole heck of a lot of decisions.
Speaker: And I think that... the more we can understand that there is no one monster. There is a series of decisions that ends up creating the monster.
Speaker: And the monster is oftentimes just as big of a victim as, you know, as the person who's subjected to the monster's ill will.
Speaker: And I think that this is the difficulty and also the excitement right now in our storytelling and stories like yours that allow us to, you kind of look at this whole climate world through the eyes of story, which I think for a lot of people, they weren't able to do that.
Speaker: And when you look at it through story, you're able to give yourself space and time to dissect it in different ways. And it's like, oh, wait a minute. If the water didn't have plastic in it, then, you know, this, we it wouldn't be raining down plastic. So then that monster's effect would be very different.
Speaker: And would we still think of this as, you know, like it starts to, it starts to open up a series of other kinds of conversations that we can have in a fantasy world, as you said, but that we can't necessarily have.
Speaker: in a straight up nonfiction type, where in a nonfiction, when you say it, it doesn't have as much of an impact because it's too hard to conceive that there's a corporation over here, but then there's individual use over there, and then there's government regulation over there, and then there's this, and then there's that.
Speaker: And it's very hard for us to hold all of that because it's almost too real, it's too close. Right, although I do have an element of that. I mean, there are some bad corporations that the kids are doing this marine detective work.
Speaker: So when they're collecting trash, they're actually looking at the trash and tracing it here and there and using technologies. and But it's not, you know, sort of the average oil company or extraction company. It's more these big businesses which are anthrog handlers,
Speaker: So there's this group of anthrox handlers that can actually use the monsters for their own destructive purposes. And they've learned to communicate. And these are sort of in the grownup world, but the kids are aware of that.
Speaker: Right. So I'm, you know, there's a, I'm definitely trying to have this realistic today's world version of today's world with the fantastical overlay. And, uh, i think of what and I think that that's so important for people to have.
Speaker: Yeah. and it And it goes, you know, it goes into a few different things that um I think is really helpful for helping us reignite the idea of reading, helping us stimulate the imagination again, because as we've talked about today in in our society, you know, with the phone based society and with everything being in small chunks,
Speaker: The whole idea of I actually just I was telling you that um I kind of got into it, went into overload the other day. you know, even I have my moments. And so I decided it was time for me to take my rest.
Speaker: As a matter of fact, that we're we're recording this on a Monday. And this last weekend, I pretty much did nothing but read. And I was reading pure fiction, and like pure fun fiction. um and and and And that reading, i as I was reading through this fiction, this science fiction book in particular, it was so much fun to once again create the story world so much that the book the book that I was reading has a movie out.
Speaker: And after I finished the book, I was like, oh, you know what? I'm going to watch the movie now because I had never seen the movie. And I was, my my nephew had given me the book. So I'm like writing to my nephew and I'm like, this is such crap. Like yeah the movie.
Speaker: Of course you were. And I was like, because you've built this rich, besides the fact that they totally butchered it. Like there are some, some movies that, that do a book service and like help, but they totally butchered it. And I was like, there is nothing like reading and allowing your, you know, your creative juices to like,
Speaker: picture what the people look like and give them that world and really build out all the little details that maybe the book just highlights. And then you yourself give yourself, and then, you know, you pause in between chapters and you think about what's going to happen. Yeah.
Speaker: And you reply things in your head. And I'm just like, wow, for the whole like, literacy problem that we have right now, where kids are really not reading. What, what a waste of like, oh, my goodness, what is going to happen in the future?
Speaker: when you know, I try to be an optimist. And I try to think, okay, there's good things happening. But oof, this one scares me. And like, if they don't have those skills, how are you like as now going into the writing and specifically for that age demographic, what are you finding around literacy and like, is how are you combating the whole scroll? And, ah you know, these are thick books, which is exciting for kids that like to read, but how do we get kids that don't like to read excited about them too? oh Wow. You packed a lot into that question, but first of all, the way you describe the reading process are for any of your listeners who are parents or caregivers with kids, it's,
Speaker: Of course, it's very important for adults, but for children, I mean, that has been so well well presented in studies. But the way you described it then, because something very special happens when a child opens a book and reads a story compared with streaming it on their phone or looking at it on the TV, because as you said, they have to...
Speaker: They have to be the director and the producer. They've got to imagine the characters, visualize them, imagine what everything smells like and looks like and create the whole set in their mind. And that's so good for developing their creative skills and developing, obviously, as you go along in the book, you're developing empathy. You're going inside a character's head.
Speaker: Maybe you're feeling less lonely. There's just so many positive and wonderful arguments for getting kids back to reading And it's one of the happiest times I remember as, if I go back to say 11, I mean, nine, 10, 11 years old, when you still believe in the magic of nature, and then you read a story where you're out in in some kind of old world, which is new to you.
Speaker: it's It's just the most magical things. And I haven't answered your question about literacy, but I mean, when I saw the I was actually in touch with a sort of a friend or a of a colleague at Simon & Schuster who runs the children's program there in New York. And he wrote to me saying, who knew during the pandemic, the kids who are now reading middle grade, something went wrong and they didn't learn to read.
Speaker: i mean, it's just so it's just such a ah tragedy to think. um And there are studies from 2024 that I've recently looked at the so-called report card for the U.S. on reading.
Speaker: and it's really sobering. One statistic that jumped out at me that I've committed to memory is among fourth graders in the U.S., 40% are reading below standard reading levels or basic reading proficiency, I think is the way it's put.
Speaker: And then even even more disappointing, maybe, at least for me, because I studied literature at university and I've always loved loved books, ah even more disappointing is that children are not reading for fun.
Speaker: So those that are still reading, any spare time they've got straight to the phone or to to a device. And one one other statistic that I wrote, I jotted down, thirty this was actually – Yeah, this was a US s statistic because um obviously the problem is not particular for the US, but 39% of nine-year-olds oh and just 17% of 13-year-olds say they read a book for enjoyment.
Speaker: Isn't that so sad? It is sad. It's sad. And it's sad because we do have, so like, if you were to talk to me about the fact that the books don't exist, it'd be one thing, but the books are there. They're all over the place. or And there are so many opportunities, even, and there's so many opportunities. Like I live in Italy, but I also spend a lot of time, obviously in the U S because i I visit my family and stuff like that. So I have my library card. So the other day in the the latest book of the plant wisdom book club, so yeah the book club that we have,
Speaker: the we' where we just voted in because when we're recording this we just voted in our new book and it's it's if women what uh if women rose rooted by sharon blackie and it just so happens that i can't get the ebook version for it so i was like oh my goodness what am i gonna do so then i was gonna go i was looking at the audiobook and for a second i said you know what It's been a long time.
Speaker: I'm going to log into my local library from the United States because I have my library card because the last like a year ago when I was there, i specifically went to the library to get a new library card because my mother reads a lot.
Speaker: And and so I was like, oh I'm going just go get a library card. So I logged in and they have the audio book version. And I was like, so exactly. And I had to put it on hold because there's somebody who has it checked out.
Speaker: But in the meantime, I was you know what? There's a bunch of books because our book club, you know, there's so many books. I was like, I wonder if any other books from the book club are in the library, like in an ebook or an audio version.
Speaker: And sure enough, so now I'm listening to like, you know, another book on ebook, on audio book, I'm so excited to think, oh my goodness, I could just check things out from the library too. So again, it's not like we don't have Yes, of course, there always are the exceptions. But a lot of these kids, if they're scrolling, it's because they don't have access to, you know, or it's not because of that, because they do, they can go to the library.
Speaker: There's so many school programs, homeschool programs, after school programs, like lots that offer you books. But it's when we were kids, you know, of course, I went to a restaurant with my parents, and they didn't hand me an iPad, or they didn't hand me a phone.
Speaker: They handed me, you know, like the little games that we had on our napkins, or i brought a book with me and I spent years carrying a book always in backpack. Oh, that's lovely. and And and it's it's the way that we used to, you know, that that parents, and I've seen parents that still do it today. i was so lovely. Right before we got on this call, I had gone to um the Dominar Crea, which is ah an area that we have here that has lots of shops and our welcome office and stuff like that. And I was sitting outside with some guests and I was delighted to see a young boy who was probably...
Speaker: I don't know, 16 or 15, maybe 16 sitting there with, yes, he had his phone, but he also had a massive book. And I had seen him for the last few days and he was just sitting right ah reading. I guess his parents, yeah, his parents i must be doing something, but he's sitting there reading a book. And I was like, you go, I was like sending him lots of good energy. It was like that type of thing. Because,
Speaker: similar to what I say about going outside in general, general, right. You know, the whole, the fact that we have to encourage our children to connect more to nature because that disconnect is getting farther and farther and that creates a void.
Speaker: And I, it's another reason why I do love that the protagonist that you have in the book, You know, who's here he is. And here he is in this like secret organ is a secret school. He's thinking about it eco consciously. And what's the gift that he has and that he's developing plant communication, because it's like, let's connect all these dots together. Right. That imagination, that stepping outside of the norm. Right.
Speaker: That the the scrolling only gives you stuff that is, I don't know, what done in a kind of 2D sort of way. The 3D way is about getting out and doing it yourself, reading a book, letting your imagination take you there, going off and talking to the plant nearby and being like, well, if he can do it, maybe I can do it.
Speaker: let me go and try type of thing. So I just, I really, what was it that made you want to give you this main character that gift? why Why plant communication? Well, I mean, I think I've covered it quite well that I really wanted to have this whole, this whole interconnectedness with nature in this, in the stories.
Speaker: And Peter, and by the way, Peter, when he's training and he's a cool, a tree speaker, but he's still training. He hasn't mastered it by any strength. and And the plants that he talks to, you know, they're not kind of sappy and, oh, that was not a deliberate play on words, but they're kind of, um kind of a a lot of them are quite acerbic, you know. It's not it's not easy but for him.
Speaker: ah I've met those. have met those. Although, again, I'm anthropomorphizing to an extent, but, you know, I really wanted nature to have a voice and that was a perfect way, but still to have it humorous and, you know, have it, um because what Peter's a bit of a weirdo. mean, being a tree speaker is not a natural thing at the school. Like he's not, it's a standout thing and he's a bit shy about it, of course, but, you know, everyone has different kinds of gifts, not in a Disney kind of way, but more subtle
Speaker: and that gradually they develop while they're at school. But what ah what I, oh I think I talked to you about it earlier, that the thing when I had them at orientation in the very first book, when they first got to the school, ah everyone was brought by the principal to the apple orchard.
Speaker: So the apple is the principal's tree, Principal Hallowell. And she has this kind of mystical apple tree that rises up that's far too big for the orchard.
Speaker: And she we have this kind of mystical scene where every child among the hundred initiates gets their own baby tree. So I really had a lot of fun with that because it's kind of, they're like going to the nursery to get a baby tree. And we get a sense of what a tree is because you have this round head mound of earth around the roots.
Speaker: And she explains to them that the roots are kind of the brain of the tree. And Everyone gets a tree which, and among my main characters, a tree that somehow is going to be connected with them and be their friend for their whole time at school.
Speaker: They're on an island, ah kind of utopian sort of Arthurian style island, a bit like Avalon. The apple trees are kind of a nod to Avalon.
Speaker: And Peter is in a way a bit like the boy Arthur, i mean which is the big story of our time really. the legend of Arthur and Merlin. And there's a, you know, Harry Potter was built around it as well.
Speaker: Harry Potter and Dumbledore, Arthur and Merlin. But I've got this boy, Arthur, who is, who has this forest mentor, who's very much like a Merlin character. He goes in the sackcloth and he's um an expert master at speaking the trees. So he's a master tree speaker.
Speaker: And he develops a relationship with Peter, which is very much, well, not dissimilar to the Arthur and Merlin which I think is, you know, the story. oh I'm digressing a bit because I also want to just tell you that when I published the first book, I was really pleased with my with my first review, ah which came from Kirkus, which is sort of the 100-year-old reviewer without originally in New York.
Speaker: And they said, to my absolute delight, they said, Collis has created a kind of Hogwarts that operates on the magic of environmental awareness.
Speaker: And that to me was like the dream. I have it on the back of the of one of those books that you have there. ah Because I wanted this environmental awareness thing to come through, but I wanted to feel magical and hopeful.
Speaker: You talked about hope earlier. And you know even the monsters and this kind of fantastical element that hits kids in the imagination. I think that's a way also of bringing them closer to nature and and and helping them generate hope in the way they perceive nature.
Speaker: and And if Peter Blue can speak to a tree, then maybe a reader might think, well, they might look at trees differently when they're going down the street. um like and And to your point about devices, i'm i'm I'm not going to shy away from technology and devices. In the books, they all have phones, ah very high tech, and apps.
Speaker: And Peter actually has a high-tech Gaia jacket that once belonged to his father, you know, the mantle of the father. And that is a wearable device. so and it very And it gets them out of a lot of scrapes.
Speaker: um But it's a very cool device. and And I'm also, aside from my writing and marketing the books, I'm developing an app now, which is a Witch Tree is Me app, where readers could actually go in and punch in information about themselves and align themselves with their own tree or look for a tree in their neighbourhood and befriend it.
Speaker: So, you know, im hoping that I can generate sort of a hope-based um and can-do action-based a response from readers that, you know, they'll feel empowered to get closer to nature by seeing a character in the book that is developing this skill.
Speaker: Sometimes
Speaker: and And I think that that hybrid view is the most beautiful way. Like, you know, I live in in one of the largest spiritual communities in the world, and we don't shy away from, you know, technology. Every once in a while, we have somebody who arrives and is like, oh, I'm assuming you you don't use technology here. And it's like, no, on the contrary.
Speaker: Technology is part of our evolution, but it is about finding. And i I personally, I have to admit, I've lived around the world and I love social media because it keeps me in touch with my friends.
Speaker: But it is about curating my my feed. Right. I am. careful about what I click on. I also, you know, say I like and I don't like on purpose. And I curate it and I balance that or i I flow between moments of being very digitally, you know, savvy and doing things online and moments like this weekend where i never opened my computer and in the sense of sitting down to work.
Speaker: Yes, I did watch a movie afterwards, but it was because I had spent like pretty much two days reading a book And I went out with my friends a bunch of times, you know, and I got to see and we're working on different projects here.
Speaker: And so it's about finding that flowing through it all and that each element helps enhance who you are. i think that the problem that ends up happening is we see, unfortunately, technology being used as a crutch, a crutch because I have a void, a crutch because I have a trauma that I don't want to deal with, a crutch because my parents are not around,
Speaker: a crutch because I don't have any friends, a crutch of all these types of things. And when you use it only as a crutch, then that's when your own skill sets start to atrophy because that is filling a gap that you're no longer developing.
Speaker: Where instead, we want technology to be like you had just said, right? I have this special jacket. Peter has a special jacket and therefore it gets him out of a bunch of stuff. But it's not because Peter doesn't have skills. It's because he's learned what the jacket can do for him.
Speaker: And that's enhanced his ability to know when to, Like it's not that the jacket works on its own and you no longer have to know how to do things. Kind of like kids nowadays who don't know how to drive.
Speaker: I'm okay with the idea of not every kid having a car. I think that that's wonderful. But I think every kid should know how to drive because you never know. and emergency happens. Something is needed. you know, these are essential life skills of the planet that we're living on and that are important.
Speaker: And reading a book and being able to... decipher from their clues and codes and being able to explore and visualize and think about and implement and going out to experiment, I think is that exact same way. It's like technology should enhance that. by the way, technology is what I think is going to get us out of the climate crisis.
Speaker: We already have pretty much all the technologies we need. I trained with Al Gore in 2013, pretty much before I got into these books. And he has His presentation is pretty much everything you need to know. yeah His famous presentation, i trained with him in delivering that, and I decided to take the elements and work with kids based on what I'd learned.
Speaker: But the presentation is divided into three parts. it's It's basically so should we change is the big question, and then you have all the reasons why we should. Basically, the climate crisis is put in graphic and disturbing detail in front of you. And then the second part of the presentation is, can we change?
Speaker: And that's a whole segment on all of the technologies that we already have, all of the knowledge, most of it coming out of the US, s by the way, ironically. And the last part is, will we change?
Speaker: And that's sort of the area now where I'm operating. i thought Can we change? You know, One, it's well known by scientists that one hour of energy from our sun is enough to power the whole planet for a year.
Speaker: So technology, yes, we're not shying away from it. but ah And, in fact, in book two, The Renegade Tales, Wanda, who's quite a big thinking as sort of showy character, she uses her phone to solve a big problem and uses social media and her large following.
Speaker: to solve a big problem in a very curious way where she actually works with energy from nature. so it's a hybrid solution. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. So I love talking about my books. I could keep going.
Speaker: I can see that. And I love that that's awful. So where do people find your books? Okay. if you're just looking on your own, then obviously Amazon or wherever, pretty much wherever you buy your online books.
Speaker: But I, so Amazon. We'll definitely put links into the show notes. I appreciate that. um However, I'm um'm very fond of asking people to invest in the circular economy if they can. So back to what you said about libraries.
Speaker: um IngramSpark is the global distributor um which sells directly into bookstores, libraries, and can also be purchased by sort of any wholesale arrangement. I was telling Tigrella when we came on that ah I feel a little bit, again, like an imposter if I'm raising awareness of overgan overconsumption and all the reasons that we've got into this mess.
Speaker: And then I start saying, you know, buy all my books. So, of course, I would love it if someone listening wants to buy the e-book and maybe look take a look at it. I've kept the e-book very cheap.
Speaker: That's on Amazon, ah Kindle, or wherever you buy e-books. And then if you are interested in purchasing the paperback for your children or for a child in your life, um by all means, go to the public library or approach your elementary school librarian if you know or her or get your kids even better to go to the library and ask if they could purchase it so that it could be more of a circular economy thing. Of course, I want to sell my books so that I can expand my audience and keep going with what I love to do.
Speaker: But at the same time, I want to be mindful that any way that we can bring in sharing and circular, which is obviously the way forward for the world and on a rational level in terms of solving the crisis and yeah know addressing overconsumption, which is a – we don't need to go there now, but as we both know, there a big problem.
Speaker: No, exactly. I totally understand. And I think it's wonderful that you're you're pushing for libraries. I was telling you earlier that also homeschool groups sometimes share and they have like shared resources. Community centers have shared resources.
Speaker: And I think it's a great thing that you're saying it out loud that says, hey, don't just only think about buying for yourself, but think about like Are there is there a community resource that you have, like, you know, that you can put the book into afterwards so that therefore it circulates? I used to in the Nucleo, which is their shared homes that I used to live in. We have um a room that has ah various bookshelves.
Speaker: of which one bookshelf is English, the other ones are Italian and such, with the idea that we would tell guests, because we had lots of different guests, as well as us ourselves that lived in the house, you know, if you have a book that you finished reading, and you know, you want to be able to have it pass it along, please put it into this bookshelf. And therefore, whenever any guests would come, we would tell them, hey, if you want, just come in there and grab something.
Speaker: As a matter of fact, I went back to the house to visit the other day, and I picked up like, Okay, two of the books were mine. Like I had put them there and I realized yeah i realized I really wanted them like to read again. was like, I'm just going grab these.
Speaker: And I was so excited that one of them was still there because it was like one of those books that I only gave away because it was huge and I was moving around and I was like, I just want. But I ended up picking up another book and that i had that I had read there.
Speaker: that I love. And I was like, and I picked up a new one and I was like, Oh, this is great. And I have a few books now that I finished reading. look how excited you about when we talking about this And I think, you know with his i know, if someone listening does decide, and I hope you do to go and take a look at the books.
Speaker: If you do arrange some kind of a circular economy, maybe a book club or a library of purchase, then also bring it to the children's attention because it can be,
Speaker: I don't like the phrase teaching moment, but for want of a better phrase, um kids get excited when they feel coming back to hope, um not just coming with the bad news, but the excitement of even the very smallest thing where you're showing how together parents or caregivers, teachers and kids are taking action to do something worthwhile that actually is going towards addressing the problems.
Speaker: ah Because you kids feel empowered and they feel like but're we're doing something together, which is an action that has consequences and it's fun. We're going to read a book as well and go on an adventure.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's I love it. I love it. Laurel, this has been such a delightful conversation. I'm so excited. I'm really looking forward to diving deeper because like I said, I've only skimmed through them.
Speaker: And so now I'm really excited to like po put the first one right next to my bed. So that's my my reading time I've made. i have like this reading time in the morning and a reading time in the evening. And I'm looking forward to this being my evening reading time that goes into it.
Speaker: Any last words, anything you want? I you've shared already There's one more on the way. Ooh, nice. There's a course coming out this year. Yeah, so um'm I'm excited about that. I think it's my best one yet.
Speaker: Ooh, fantastic. Well, we will definitely include links to your website, links to the books, everything you need to do. Thank you very much. Yeah, forgot to say the website, course. Yeah, I will definitely. Thank you. And everyone keep reading, I think is the message. Keep reading. Exactly. And for everyone, please, like we said, go support your local bookstores, support your local like libraries, community centers and all the different places.
Speaker: And of course, remember that we also have the Plant Wisdom Book Club, which is another place where you can start to learn. And who knows, maybe we'll add these. We have plenty of of books that are unusual in the Plant Wisdom Book Club. So who knows, maybe this will end up being one of our reading things.
Speaker: and Oh, I would love that. Yeah, it would be great. And remember, everyone who's listening, you know, we are always here in the naturally conscious community as a place for you to come and have these types of discussions.
Speaker: Also remember to like and comment and subscribe and follow and all those important things because we want this message to get out to as wide an audience as possible so that they can find out about wonderful books like this that we've been talking about all this time and Laura Colas is all her great work.
Speaker: So remember, you know, take that time, hit that button, go over, support her and head over to the naturally conscious community and join us there for one of our many, many live events.
Speaker: We're just to post an idea or two. And remember more than anything, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning into this episode of reconnect with plant wisdom 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.
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.
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.
