Join local author Laura Ollendick (founder of The Healing Shack) and illustrator Beth Steffen for a book reading and signing Saturday, Sept. 19, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the Oneota Co-op deli seating area. Reading will begin shortly after 11 a.m. Enjoy sampling from the Co-op’s Wellness Department and seasonal snacks. Copies of Ollendick’s book, “The Green Whisper Chronicles: Gentle Herbal Wisdom From Our Roots”, will be available for purchase during the event and remain available at the Co-op following.
Laura Ollendick opens “The Green Whisper Chronicles” with an invitation to listen. As she says, “You do not need any gardening or herbal knowledge before you begin. All you need is curiosity and a willingness to listen and remember what you already know.” We sat down with Laura recently, and what we learned, following a delightful hour, was that this is exactly what her whimsical-yet-practical book is about. She’s animated talking about the natural world, plants in particular, and us humans remembering that we’re all a part of this wonder too.
Inside this slim, beautifully illustrated book you’ll find little introductory love songs to a selection of plants whose names are commonly known – lavender, chamomile, tansy, to name a few. This book isn’t coming from the perspective that these herbs are here to serve us. It’s coming with an offering to acknowledge that we exist simultaneously with them. It wasn’t long into our conversation before we felt like asking Laura if she thought plants have feelings. Yes, she responded, “wholeheartedly.”
“The Green Whisper Chronicles” came about because Laura’s a mother, a listener, and someone who normally doesn’t have trouble sleeping, but then did. She was traveling to visit her two (now adult) daughters when her dreams became filled with varying herbs. “I had pictures in my mind and ideas of talking about what herbs can do for us from the perspective of the mother herb to her child, the sprout. I picked 10 go-to herbs to write in story form.”
Laura notes that she didn’t intend her work to be categorized as a children’s book, but that it is one she would have read aloud to her daughters as children, if she’d written it years ago. It’s a work that’s intended to be ageless. In the pages on white sage, for example, the sprout asks,
“Mother…the humans speak of us with such reverence. Why do they seek us?”
White Sage-Mother inhaled, gathering the wind, the memory, the dirt, the sun.
“They seek us,” she said softly, “because we help them hear themselves.”
Asked what readers might find in this book that serves them, Laura says she hopes readers are inspired to examine different herbs, their potential uses, and that it may offer “an opening to different relationships.” Laura asks us to examine things we might feel we know – but that we don’t know why we know them. Ancestral knowing, she says, is a matter of listening, and that’s easy to learn through plants. An example of a plant’s inner knowing:
“Common plantain,” observes Laura, “isn’t necessarily an herb. But it’s an example of a plant that you’ll see being prolific in wet years. Plantain is also very good as an anti-inflammatory for the bug bites and stings that wet years produce. What’s growing around you knows its own needs, as well as yours.”
In “The Green Whisper Chronicles: Gentle Herbal Wisdom From Our Roots” Laura gently encourages us to take a lesson from the plants in our midst. Listen to what they may be telling us. We might just remember truths we thought we’d forgotten.
About the author (left)
Laura (Carolan) Ollendick grew up in Bluffton by Coldwater Stream. She majored in German in college (which seems random, now). She’s the founder of The Healing Shack near Lime Springs, but prefers calling herself the “steward” of this holistic health organization. It’s a place where “as long as you are well-intended and kind,” she says, “you are welcome.” We found Laura wonderfully transparent, down to earth, and rich in complex thoughts about people and nature and the great, necessary potential of healing our place within it all. She also loves trees (and aims for them to be the subject of her next book), and embraces a snowy day looking out at them in between watching football and munching on nachos.
About the illustrator (right)
Beth Steffan was born and raised in Cresco and has loved art her whole life. She’s spent many recent years immersed in the art of raising two children, but has found her way back to art. Creating, she feels, is a form of healing, and a place the world “quiets” for a bit. Beth is drawn to nature, emotion, imagination, a bit of whimsy, and enjoys working with watercolor and alcohol ink. She shares this specifically about “The Green Whisper Chronicles”:
“My collaboration with Laura gave me the opportunity to bring together my love of art, nature, and storytelling. Laura’s beautifully written words and vision became the inspiration for each illustration, while still allowing me the freedom to bring my own interpretation and artistic voice to the story. I wanted the illustrations to do more than simply accompany her words. I wanted them to capture the personality, emotion, and magic within them. Working with Laura has been a wonderful creative journey, allowing her words and my artwork to grow together.”