Ep.107 ReWilding Mythology with Wendy Wuyts

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Hello, Hello, everyone! Welcome back to another episode of reconnect with plant wisdom. It’s me, Tigrilla Gardenia.

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This was such a fun conversation. 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. Wendy wits is really on. Many

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is really an amazing person who has a broad experience. 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, and we went through a greater understanding of the role of mythology, especially

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modern day mythology or rewriting of our mythology with a modern lens, and understanding why this is so important, as you know, in the naturally conscious community. We spent about 6 to 8, 8 months in the plant, inspired masterclasses working on a rewrite to the Garden of Eden.

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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 Todd.

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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. Why the world has gone in the direction that it’s gone. And what are the archetypes that we need to re

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find in our modern society? And I think Wendy is doing an amazing job of this. 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

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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. That’s the word I was looking for. So this is episode 107. Rewilding mythology. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I have.

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Welcome to reconnect with plant wisdom. I’m your host, Tigrilla 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. In this podcast I delve into ancient and modern knowledge, from biology to spirituality, about the wondrous ways of plants

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together. We’ll explore how ecosystem thinking helps you overcome limiting beliefs, understand the true nature of relationships, and live an authentic, impactful life.

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Wendy, when you and I spoke. 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. 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? Yes, I got it. Butts.

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Yeah, that’s our woods. I think my family name actually says a lot about who I am, because

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I think my family they wanted like a research about a name, and it would come from from the woods.

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You can say it’s Wendy from the woods, and I think it actually tells a lot about who I am.

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Where am I? I think I might have to start a story like

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once upon a time, almost 37 years ago, I was born on a misty Wednesday in Antwerp, in Belgium, in Flanders.

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and I had a very nice childhood with a grandfather. We told, like a lot of fairy tales and folic tales.

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and we had like a small forest, and went walking a lot and did some gardening and stuff at the same time. As a child was very interested in mythology. You know, I was this nerd

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who really want to learn everything about Greek and Norwegian mythology. I don’t know why.

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but I think I was reading a comic, and that was the 1st time I got introduced to mythology, and something in me was like.

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I need to read this. I need to know who is Odin I need to know with Loki, and I start to like stick into this whole mythology. So when I studied ancient Greek at secondary school. Even my teacher knew I was this big nerd very into like, yeah, the gods. So sometimes I had to do the introduction into mythology.

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I have this interesting childhood also, where I was very close to nature. I was a very privileged person.

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It was quite a conservative municipality, with a lot of access to forests

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and people might ask, Is there forest in Flanders, Belgium, which is known one of the most industrialized countries in the world, and urbanized countries in the world.

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And then I say, yeah, we have like little patches of fairy tale forests.

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a lot of legends and swamps and legends about blackwater spirits and leprechauns and gnomes. So it’s not only at the edge of Europe, in Ireland, in Norway, where you could find this

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I lost my grandfather when I was 17, a forestry accident that actually kind of used mythology and nature connection to go through a very long morning process. So I think that was very difficult for me to go through this process.

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I think that’s also when my questions about home and homecoming also started.

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and I think I might explain why I studied geography 1st in Leuven, but then I kind of also was searching for this. Because.

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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 and like, let’s contact my grandfather. And just weeks before his forestry accident. I asked him at my 17th birthday. I want to get back. I want to learn from you. You know this knowledge about gardening plants.

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mythology folklore, and because he died too soon, I had to kind of look it for in other sources.

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when I look back.

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so I think me living in different countries afterwards, especially my twenties and early thirties. Even now kind of probably explains, or might be explained by the fact that I’m kind of looking for almost lost knowledge in this industrialized Flanders. So I did my master in countries like Thailand, on the campus, where I was like living with big snakes

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and monitor lizards, and when I was in Thailand I got opportunity to go to Japan. And I did my Phd. In environmental systems.

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And that’s also where I got to know about forest therapy guiding and Shinranoku and I also like learned more about Shintoism. I got my Phd. During Corona time. I went back to Belgium, where I also realized, maybe I have the tools like, there is something in me which is very interested to kind of

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kind of find the lost knowledge and lost environmental knowledge, you know. Sometimes I feel, and also myself. I’m still like reading books written by indigenous scholars from Asia, or even from the Nordic of Europe or Africa, or South America.

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but actually, because I think there’s so much knowledge lost, because what happened in

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Europe, especially in Flanders, where we had the Roman Empire with some patron systems, you know, erasing a lot.

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and I feel like there is still some knowledge. If you kind of recognize a lot of patterns in auto mythology and folklore intelligence. You start to also see there are some traces still in a country or a place like Belgium. So I start to like, rewild, and do some echo famous retellings of Flemish folk tales.

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I need some more experimentations. I can come back later to. And yeah. Almost 4 years later I got a new job, and I moved to Norway, which was amazing for someone who studied Norwegian mythology as a child.

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So I also have been here already for 4 years working in a circular timber construction.

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So I’m very interested in especially sustainability around timber and wood and forestry.

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And yeah, I’m still like doing small projects here and there between. So I only work part-time for the startup. So I still have time to do my little projects.

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So yeah, I love it. What I love is that there’s this storytelling theme that I desperately want to get deeper into. But I want to ask a question first.st 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

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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

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these mythologies in their lives.

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I think.

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I think, for someone who already like cope with some traumas. You’re always looking for some meaning, or you want to make sense of a place you want to make sense like, why are things like this, and for me, living

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with mythologies, there are so many they’re like archetypes

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that you can work with, and I feel often different mythologies or folk tales and fairy tales. They can give you some kind of anchor points, or messages or archetypes to work with. So even like now in March I was again thinking about the fairy tale of the Frock Prince, which is all about transformation, and I feel like March in the northern hemisphere, is a little about, you know, starting spring transformation, this liminality?

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And I think that’s it helps me to. Yeah, to do a lot of deep psychology work

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working with mythology. So I think

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it sounds a bit arrogant. But I feel because of this, I’m very consciousness of conscious about

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my emotions are how I feel.

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And yeah, I think, especially in process in in times of like loss and grief.

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Working with certain stories really helps and I think I’m just thinking about. I mean, even now

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I am a

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reflecting about a project that feels like a never ending story. But then I’ll do a lot of mythology is actually kind of reminding us that everything will always be incomplete. And there’s some beauty in being

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incomplete. And I think just kind of like interactive stories, and especially reflection

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and working of it or telling. It can be so good for your own mental health and your own psychological work. Also. Friends who are mental health promoters. They are like applied acop psychologists and applied physical psychologists who also work with narrative psychology, hematology. And what I learned from them is also that stories are so powerful.

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I mean, humans are narrative wired like we.

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Everything just goes so much easier. If you tell a story.

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I mean, I can. I work in science. I work in academic world, and I know I can give you a table of data and say, this is how it is. But I’m very sure. Maybe I don’t know. I don’t know you enough, but a lot of people will not

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really be able to interpret that or just hear it or see it. I’m like, that’s okay. But if you tell a story, then people will remember it because

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they’re 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.

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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 to a certain extent they feel make-believe, even though deep down inside of you the mythology resonates in a way that

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always leaves you in a state of hmm! Maybe like, could it be? Or how does this approach it? And that’s why I feel like it’s really interesting on 2 of the big projects that you’re working on. One of them is the whole rewilding of folk tales in general. Right? The idea of

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how is it that we can tell these stories with plants as in the foreground as agents? 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

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and I’m excited because it’s the 1st time in a while that we’re reading a novel again called The Island of Missing Trees, and one of the main characters. Isn’t it great? I’ve only started like the first, st the 1st quarter like quarter of it. And I’m just. I love that a fig tree is one of the main characters, and so bringing really that fig trees experiences to the foreground, so that you see that tree and the

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and what that tree lives in in relation to the overall family. Can you tell us a little bit more about your projects like, how is it that you’re rewilding these folk tales? And what does that look like?

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Yeah, 1st of all, retelling of fairy tales and Folktales is really happening for

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thousands of years. So it’s not something new, even feminist retellings, some people say, Oh, it’s now something new with Madeleine Miller, and I forgot other one was writing this.

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Oh, yeah, there are a lot of famous retellings, but actually, that has been also done for even since Greek times. So

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what I think is now happening more, I think there’s this kind of

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emergence consciousness to actually see. I mean, I have to watch out because

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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. So a lot of people who have been influenced by the patch. Harold, industrialized system have been seeing plants just as objects.

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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. 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.

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And I hope but I hope the the bubble expands more and more, and I really see a lot of cool things happening. I work with architects, and also experimenting a lot with this kind of posthumanism.

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eco-humanism, ideas to kind of work more with what they call the digital 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. So people start being more aware about this, and I think other

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like academic fields like eco-linguistics, eco-humanism. They all start to kind of

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criticize, and have been seeing plants too much as objects well, actually should also be agents. So and we have been experimenting not only me, but with all different people.

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especially in my little own tribe in Europe that we we call ourselves like

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we don’t actually have a tribe name, but we have a practice writing with plants, and we like start to like shapeshift into a certain plant. So when we had indeed this last call, I was indeed going to facilitate this 2 h long writing plan, session

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where we kind of like. First, st we do a lot of like storytelling like people like, yeah, first, st I do the introduction blah blah, like in many online sessions, you would observe. But then we have a sharing circle. Practice where we like give people also chance to share memories or folk or scientific fact about a plant, and we start to get to know the plant a bit better through the different knowledges or wisdoms.

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And then we do this creative exercise where we like. Let people imagine, to shapeshift into a plant, and we give certain prompts.

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I really like

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kind of nudge them to start taking from the plants as an agent and subject, and we also have a couple of slides about the methodology. So really say, to watch out for anthropomorphism. I’m not English speaker, so some words are very difficult to pronounce. So we try to also like, watch out that people don’t project too much human intelligence on the plants.

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because it could be good because people need familiarity

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to connect, to love some someone.

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But if you anthropomorphize a plant because you think human intelligence is higher than plant intelligence

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that might be coming from the wrong intention. So I was like trying to reflect a bit on that in the 1st part.

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and then we just also allow different media. I’m like, always you can choose which language it can be a prayer poem, a sitcom scenario, a comic or a short story.

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and you will see, like often participants afterwards, they can share always like. Tell them you don’t have to share before I give the creative writing exercise.

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But I’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.

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and after you see, like otherwise, people have an analog with the plant.

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and certain themes which I think are connected to the seasonality often emerge.

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or they try to indeed, imagine to be the plans which is very in many cases it’s really very cool, and it’s what I always see because of the sharing circles before. Also, people share memories and associations, sometimes, especially in the poems. Certain words that sometimes other people told

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come back in the poem or the short story.

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So I think.

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yeah, that’s something we try to do. And I think it actually goes much more easier for a lot of people.

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But maybe we also check. People already kind of are aware that plants have intelligence.

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So I think it’s again the bubble that, indeed, when I want to do this, retellings of stories or writing plan sessions where plans

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are in the foregrounds and their own agents, I think

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certain people are ready for this. I’ve always been ready for this, of course.

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it might still be a challenge how to like.

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make more people aware about this. Yeah.

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Yeah, I understand that challenge because I have a book club, not a book club. Excuse me, a writing group. It’s 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 founded. And we do a lot of those similar activities. In other words, we meet every week. So we meet every Wednesday for an hour and a half.

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and in that time we tried different pieces. So we do, mostly writing, but we also have one the second Tuesday, for example, we call our budding artistry, and there we do any kind of

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anything else anything that’s kind of not writing. So people mostly draw. 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 pushing ourselves even more. So we’ll do song lyrics.

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and we’ll do like you, said Haikus, and we’ll do different kinds of writing blackout poetry, for example, and in many of the instances we’ll include the plants, I think. What if I’ve learned something? We’re experimenting with more different modalities now, because it used to be that we just did prompts.

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and it was great

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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 invites in a plant that they want to work with. Where, then, we have certain prompts, for example, deep time coming into the plant. And it is true that

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we try not to anthropomorphize. I think that as you do this more often, and you sort of break beyond the barriers of the limitations of language. 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.

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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 at some point I couldn’t find words. 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.

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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 1st thing that came which was actually charcoals. And I was just drawing.

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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, 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.

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And this is the thing that it’s supposed to say, 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

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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

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retelling of stories, but we got so much into our head we were trying to do a rewrite of the Garden of Eden, 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

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keep the core essence of the story in the sense of the overarching moral and archetypes, while, like

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breaking the story down into

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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.

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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, like we need to get in to what they’re observing. And and that was one of the things we talked about because you’re actually working on a retelling

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an ecofeminist retelling which, by the way, for my audience, I’d love for you to like define ecofeminism. But you’re doing a retelling also of a specific myth, which is the myth of egle.

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Yeah, okay, which is 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? Like? Tell me everything. I’m so just so curious.

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Okay, so let me see where to start.

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Maybe I have to remind so I come from this practice of Shinon Yoko from Japan, and for his bathing, and also social science. There’s a lot of talks about art, of noticing by Anna Singh.

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and I think also, even in writing plan sessions. We always remind

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that deep listening is very important, and sometimes I even make jokes about this like we’re so good in talking and interrupting during meetings and circles. We’re not really listening. And I think that’s the same with plants or other non-human nature that really

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have to be open, like receive. And if they are indeed like visuals.

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or it’s just a feeling or some words.

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I think that’s really a very good start.

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Say,

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So I think what we do in this project. We also do a lot of this kind of

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observing and sensing through the human body

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and the forest bathing, and be very aware.

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and forest bathing can be seen like a practice.

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But it’s not like Yoga. I often go inwards.

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No forest behaving is really about going outwards.

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and I think, especially in this world where people are really isolated. Bring 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 a lot this weekend, for some reason.

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I think it’s because I have this diva plant in my in my house. I was like sitting next to this plant, and I felt like, Lana, don’t worry.

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But yeah, I think that’s a very important attitude to be open, to receive

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and to be open for imagination. To do this.

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you know a lot of thought experiments, but at the same time kind of be open for a lot of like information or data coming from different sources and directions. This kind of tentacular thinking, like tentacles from like octopus.

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where you feel like your antenna are very sharp.

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So you don’t know where it is coming from, some information or some dreams, and I really believe it. I think I sometimes

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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.

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So having established that some, maybe 2, 3 years ago, I have this one friend, and she’s from Lithuania.

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and she’s already also very interested in eclipseology, nature, health, biodiversity 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 planned circles.

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And at some point you start talking about this Baltic myth of Egla and

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I think when I hear the story. It really yeah, struck me because

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it has so many powerful archetypes. I will tell you very short what the story about. It’s not my

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echo famous retelling yet. But I’ll just say one of the versions I heard

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so once. It was like this young woman living somewhere

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in about in the Baltic sea region. So this could be Lithuania. This could be Latvia, Estonia.

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Poland, Kaliningrad, Sweden, we don’t know, and she was ready

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to go into the water of the Baltic Sea.

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and when she came back she had taken off her clothes, and when she came back there were some snakes or one snake on her clothes

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and the snake. The grass snake says you can only get back your clothing

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if you marry the Snake King.

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and she was like, Okay, let’s do it.

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And why not?

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Maybe there’s some other things. But she was not that immune resistant.

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but her family was quite not okay with it, like you cannot marry

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a snake, which I think is interesting because there’s so many stories about women marrying animals like you have in Norway. Also the story about Falermon, the Polar Bear King.

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which is a very powerful story. Psyche and Arrows is also kind of like similar trends. And there, I mean, there’s so many stories, Bell, and the beauty the same right?

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And after some. Yeah. They tried to deceive 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.

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and the family tried to trick them, but it didn’t happen, and then she met her

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husband, which was apparently a very hot Snake king, who took her under the water to live in Amber Castle.

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and there’s not so much details, but apparently it was a nice

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marriage, because she got 4 kids.

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And that’s like the interesting thing is

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Egler. When you speak Lithuanian or Latvian, it means spruce.

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So. And even today a lot of girls are called egle, which is really spruce. It’s like a very interesting name, and the 4 kids are 3 boys and one daughter, and they’re called oak. Well, are the Lithuanian names oak.

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oak, ash, birch, and then the daughter is little Aspen.

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I love it, and that’s very important, because then I go back at some point. I think it was Oak who asked. I want to see our family on the land. Get to know a bit about my roots.

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which I think is interesting. Ok. Is saying that.

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And then eglement to her husband was like, maybe it’s time to introduce the kids to. You know my family, and he was a bit like I’m not that sure. She had to do some trials.

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and but then she got the permission to yeah to visit her family.

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To make it very short.

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her 12 brothers, and remember, 12

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is the number of, you know. Order Apollo.

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the number of patron, whole structure. They killed a husband.

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So it’s a really sad story, actually.

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because, it ends a lot of grief, a loss also betrayal, because it was actually

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also because the 12 brothers have been beating the different kids to know how to reach the husband. And it was little aspen a girl who broke

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that. It happened that I could kill him.

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and of course a lot of remarks about the fact. It had to be again. A girl betrays talking about

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your Bible story you earlier mentioned. It’s always, I guess, that a girl is a portrayer.

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And Egla, in all her mourning and grief and loss. She transforms herself in a tree and also her 4 kids. So it’s kind of the origin story of

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of how this yeah. 5 people became trees which are very common in the Baltic States and other countries around the Baltic Sea.

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So when I hear this story, I was like, Wow, this is so powerful. I mean, this is like one of the many stories to tell you about for me. About the emergence of patriarchal society.

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You know, like

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how everything the woman loses, often seen as betrayer. For me the snake is in a lot of cultures connected with chaos.

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the the female, the nature this intelligence of the more than human world.

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and then the fact that our brothers killed it with actually

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a weapon that’s used in agricultural use.

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It tells me a lot that this is actually maybe done by this big cultural trauma

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where men became more powerful, especially in Europe. And then, of course, in other places.

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We see this and I. And it’s like, I want to work with this. So if some people were like indeed doing different

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experimentations, we’re also also writing an academic book chapter about this, but I’m also myself writing

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a book where I combine a retelling, but also some essays like kind of dissecting, deconstructing

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what this myth is about, and how to make it more powerful. In the same time, the Baltic Sea is one of the most contaminated seas in the world. I mean, they’re really like

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the parts of sea are just dead. It’s contaminated a lot of algae and a lot of not so much research also, and it’s very political, if you know

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European countries. Russia were also like connected through the Baltic Sea.

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So, working with this very contaminated water body and trying to find some hopeful stories.

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That’s actually the the goal of this retelling. So the idea is like, first, st we will retell the part.

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and we’re going to like add much more elements like

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a lot of women they are. Don’t have a lot of agency

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in a retelling, so also it will give them more agency. It will reflect a bit, or change a bit. That aspen is a betrayer.

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and to also 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, and also kind of playing with themes like transhumanism, posthumanism. The fact that humans are both water trees are both partly water and often conduits

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this underworld thinking, because a palace from snaking is under the water

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like in an underworld. So we also can play with this.

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At the same time, we also want to untel what happens after they killed the snake

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husband, and also Egler the Queen is also transformed. So I could really tell about how the Baltic see the past

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100 years really became a bad place.

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And now we want to work with the resurrection of little Aspen

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was coming back in this world

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in some way and kind of like start to plant seeds of slow hope.

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Also want to like really work slow hope.

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because often people, especially in this Instagram, I’m also an Instagram person. We want to have this gratification. Everything has to come fast. But for growth and transformation it takes a lot of time. That’s something we can learn from the plans

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that’s

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growth and regenerating the land. It takes time. So we really want to like work with that in our.

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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 a really important element we had in our conversations. In our 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

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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, and it was a part of the garden, and the garden didn’t have boundaries. The garden was not. This 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

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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, and the snake’s ability to intertwine

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and to be a conduit to help. You see both sides of it where you know the tree of Duality, or Todd. As we were calling Key, we were calling Key Todd, 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.

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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 more of the spectrum from, you know, one side of it to the opposite side of it, so like a magnet.

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Nobody says that the north pole of a magnet and the south pole of a magnet is good or bad. They’re just different poles, and I think that the tree of life gave everything and put it into a form

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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. You can see everything if you really want it. But I do think that that aspect of the fear of knowing of really having

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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 kind of restrict that. And look at the snake in that negative light. And on the other side, as you were talking, I was really listening and thinking about also how many tales end with women.

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either because she has been betrayed, most likely, or has been constrained to betray

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rooting herself into a tree, and becoming that moral compass like even in Caribbean mythologies. There is also, you know, that that

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that Timun who roots herself into 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, 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

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I am going to be here to watch over. Because you.

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my dear brothers, in this case, should never forget what you did 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.

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and that they know what you did.

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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

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like you, said the patriarchy steps in. 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, and it’s like.

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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 plants

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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 they have taken that hit for us. They’ve been that witness.

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and how do we tap into their ability to tell their story 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, I think, that there’s just so much there if we allow ourselves to

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step out of not just an anthromorphization, 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. 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

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without letting the story itself unfold. In whatever way the story needs to tell. 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. 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.

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and the same is what what was you know trying to say by naming her children? You know the oak aspen like? Where? What is the actual story that each one of these characters themselves, as tree protagonists want to tell. I think that’s just so powerful. And I think it’s also it helps us take back

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are, it helps us take back 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 myopic to a certain extent, stories that pass on and pass on and pass on and become the norm in our minds, but instead, we give them a broader opportunity for you to infer what you want out of the story

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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 there’s a narrator that tells the story of little aspen, or tells the story of Igley, or tells the story of the King. But it’s more of what is the story that the king wants to tell. What is the story that each one of these characters want to tell on their own?

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Yeah.

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but there’s also so much direct. 1st of all, I like how you interpret. Egglo was like, witness me

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witness the mistakes you made.

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I think that’s very powerful. I love a good consequence like for me. It doesn’t. I’m actually after referring and looking to the work by Sharon Blackey, which is also an echo feminist, ecop psychologist. And she also loves this kind of mythology and stories. That is just a good consequence. And

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it is like this, like you.

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you you guys, you killed the snake, the complexity. So, of course, things are going wrong in the Baltic Sea.

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and it’s really cool that they also be reminded, because even today, you see, all the trees, the reminders of the mistakes of our 12 brothers. For me, the snake.

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I mean. I cannot even disconnect the snake from the tree. It always is so entangled, I think, even when you look to so many mythologies, Norwegian mythology the same, and the snake in Mexican culture mythology is everywhere. I followed this amazing course by Advaya, but also referring to the trees, sacred trees.

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And how often there’s a snake I’m like, here we go. There’s a snake for me. The snake is 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. And you really have to dig into this complexity.

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And for a lot of people, indeed, the complexity, the heels. The connection, understanding all the relationships is

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big. It’s scary. And I think.

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certain scientists in the past century try to like reduce this with a reductionism, and only look to isolated parts. But then that’s when we make so many mistakes because you held other contexts like economy. If you don’t have this holistic view, and you don’t see the relationships.

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That’s when things were really wrong.

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So for me, killing the snake is killing complexity.

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killing the chaos for me chaos and complexity. It is kind of similar, like going underground and do the dreaming work and imagination work. That’s also the snake. So for me, the snake is very present.

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Ecofeminism! I have not really defined how I see this. So ecofeminism I got to know about this when I actually was in Nepal at some point when I was in my teenage time. I also worked as a waitress, and I had a good relationship with some Nepali family who took me to Nepal when I was 18,

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and it also changed, of course, a lot of my views on the world. I think it really helps when people how younger, how better? But you can do it at any age. We’re exposed to different worldviews.

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And in Nepal I got a lot of unlearning and

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Then at some point, and in a permaculture farm, where it was also ecofeminist Startup, where, like rural women, were making menstrual pads from cotton, and that’s when they introduced me to ecofeminism as this kind of reaction to oppression of woman and non-human nature.

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and they say, whatever you do from practices or theory

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which is trying to like. Take care that woman and non-human nature are not exploited. You can see as echo feminism.

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It also, of course, means celebrating that there are different ways of being a woman. There are different ways of being nature.

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So for me, that’s all. Like even forest bathing is for me like eco feminist activity.

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especially because you don’t get money for for just listening and noticing. But when you think it’s so good for the world, when people are just

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standing still, observing, listening, reflecting about themselves, reflecting about environment, relationships

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with themselves, themselves and other nature beings.

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So that’s why we also eco feminists

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and an eco-famous retelling. Sorry about?

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Yeah, like analyzing. Indeed, this paterical constraints. We often see your retellings.

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because what happened with a lot of mythology and fairy tales and Folktales is. They also often went through quite

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some retellings where maybe certain things are erased.

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Our characters are erased.

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And

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sometimes I feel it’s also about rebirth and reconstruction of what is the race, or almost lost?

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So the examples I was like talking with the other people we’re working with amidst is

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who is a missing mother? Why don’t we hear that much? Or it’s a story about grief

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and mourning. Where is Babel? The goddess?

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Well, let’s

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was like, you know, using female humor to help the other woman which you see in Japanese mythology and Greek mythology.

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So you just start to like, especially look to the spaces between.

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You know the safe plants, too. Yeah, like you look to the relationships.

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You can see the plan. But you’re more interested like this communication, or what’s

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I don’t know how to explain it. Oh, I think you’re explaining it. Just fine, I mean, I think. Then 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?

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The fact that you’re doing the work you do.

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and the projects that you do. So. You have this, you know somewhat this ecologically focused circular timber like you’re in the real world, quote unquote and at the same time these tellings, which to me is another further proof

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of how important these 2 pieces are like, we tend to think of people as either artists or scientists.

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But I think that the most going back to the systems thinking, or the ecosystems, thinking, as I often call it, I feel like it is that intersection that helps us rethink the way we’re doing business 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 folk tales.

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and rethink of them with, 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?

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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 own sense of being to be able to see that in our quote, unquote, 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

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another form of passion, another form of expression, another form of creativity. 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 it makes you. It helps. You see, the possibilities

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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. That’s what they’ve been telling us with these myths, too, but by expanding and looking at these myths from these different beings, perspective and bringing up.

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you know, the other kin right, all of the more than human world that’s in there and bringing them into the spotlight. Well, what if I bring in the case of timber? What if I bring, you know, into the spotlight the plants

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that are being, you know that we’re working with? What if I bring into the spotlight and other environmental causes. What if I bring up to the spotlight, who are the more than human and bring them up to the same level, to the table that we’re discussing. And so I really see how all of this gives us.

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It enhances our flexibility to be able to see the possibilities beyond the limitations of the human centric approach that we have done this. And I think, like you said, that’s probably a big part of what that echo feminism 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.

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I agree. It’s really about challenging also binaries. And it’s true it’s really cross-fertilizing by different projects in a even a company. I am actually giving science fiction prototyping workshops with students and other people.

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and we work with robots. So they are even imagining about robots and digital technologies.

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the materials like hemp and timber.

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but they also have non-human characters

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and a lot of amazing little prototype stories.

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I really have like collected like 50, 60 of them.

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And then also, then we also open this debate of all this possible or likely futures or biofutures where digital artificial intelligence has a place, plant intelligence, collective intelligence. And I kind of like to.

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Yeah, I see a lot of, I think that’s also the role of Ecofm is to indeed expand our knowledge.

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And indeed to remove these constraints as you mentioned earlier. Yeah.

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I love it so much. Look, I have a feeling that I could ask you a billion one questions because I love all these different projects that you’re working on, and I love the

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the 360 degree view, which is, I think, the part that, like we said, like I was saying before, is what we need in the future. Right? We need that when when we, as scientists, as you know, Futurists, as all these different sort of more technical roles go in to our quote unquote workspaces. We bring with us

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all of that creativity we bring with us everything that was our passion, whether that’s in whatever form of the arts. Because 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. The creativity allows me to not get stuck in that.

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and that part helps me and my creativity give it bounds and give it a shape and put it into something greater. 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 all these different ways. People are doing it, the writing and Creativity group to practice all of these pieces that

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similar to your kind of wood, wide Web stories that you’re working on, and such because I feel like those really challenge our own limitations and help us push beyond

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those boundaries between the human and the more than human world, because, even though we might mentally accept it.

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telling it into or weaving it into our stories, is almost like living it in that fantasy world and helping us really think, how could this be right? 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.

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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.

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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 way of exploration to be.

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And so I love that you’re doing all this work. Please please tell everybody as we wrap things up. Where? Where do they find all of this work that you’re doing?

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Well, as a system thinker, I have many things happening. And

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Well, I think the main website where we have already since 2,018 I’m creating after also inviting guest bloggers is woodwidewebstories.com so woodwide web.

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It’s a bit yeah, I’ll put it all into the show notes. So don’t worry about it. And, Instagram, I have a couple of Instagram accounts, because I feel. Often the different projects have different call to actions.

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and I think something I learned in communication is

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to just have one call to action. So it’s like, Oh, join our writing plan sessions. So we really have Instagram just about this.

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The Eggler has their own Instagram account now, and people can really join us, like even like doing symposiums

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of the Nordic Summer University every half year people can just join, propose their practice experiments. They want to do with us.

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And Linkedin, if you want to learn more about my technology and science fiction stuff, yeah.

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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 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 in. And so you’re welcome to come and write with us, and and

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design with us and draw and create as we do like. I said, we’re there every single Wednesday. So, and I’ll also include that in the show notes for those of you that are listening to be able to do this.

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Thank you for the invitation. And yeah, I would just want to say, May the forest be always with you. Yeah, yeah.

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that was just going to 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 gets to be able to

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enrich their lives. With this. Please check out Wendy’s work. I’ll put all the links in the show notes, and also remember that that’s what the naturally conscious community is, for. 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

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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. So please head over there all the links. Everything that you need is in the show notes, and

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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 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.

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Thanks for tuning in to 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.

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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

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connect with like-minded individuals collaborating with plants to integrate these insights into life, intro and outro music by Steve Sciulli and poinsettia from the singing life of plants. That’s it for me, Tigrilla Gardenia and my plant collaborators until next time. Remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. I’m out bye.