Cathryn Wellner

I'll Tell You a Story Cathryn Wellner

If we want to change something, we have to change the stories we tell about it. So this is a good time to talk about changing the stories we tell about this amazing planet and all that's on it. The 7th book in the Small Scale Stories book does just that, giving voice to flora and fauna and even a crane and a park bench.

We need their stories because they help us to respect and look after the storytellers, whether we consider them animate or inanimate.

Anyone can help tell nature's stories. Sit at a wooden desk, and think about the tree it came from. Smell a flower, and consider what it would be like to spend all your life tethered to the earth. Watch a goose hanging out solo with a pair of mallards, and consider what made them companions. Duck for cover when a red-winged blackbird dive bombs your hair, and ponder what it must be like to be able to scare off birds many times your size.

Storytellers are everywhere. Sometimes they tell their stories with words. Other times they evoke them with a turn of the head, a funny dance, or a wild blossoming in a starkly ugly place. All we have to do is pay attention, ponder, and ask what role we play in changing the stories.

You are a storyteller. Everyone is. Be a storyteller for change, for honoring the earth, for loving the planet.