405 ~ Kerriann Mackenzie Interviews Holly

Transcript

Holly:  Hello adventurers and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 405. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with a very exciting episode –  something that I haven’t done in ages – I have brought someone on the show to interview me. And I have done this in the past, during times that I have pivoted my focus and changed, and it has been a few years I think since I have done this. So tree communicator, Kerriann Mackenzie, who you may remember from episode 392, is back on the show. This time she is interviewing me about tree communication, sacred sites, outdoor stuff and more. I really loved our conversation and I hope you enjoy it too!

So, who is Kerriann Mackenzie? Kerriann has spent most of her life consumed by the magic of trees, and living in alignment with the pulse of nature. She’s on a mission to normalise tree communication and help others manifest magical lives through nature connection. Kerriann brings her work into the world as an artist, magical life mentor, and masterclass facilitator at the Treehouse Club. When she’s not working, you’ll find her rescuing and caring for wildlife, or spending time with her nature-loving family on the East Coast of Australia.

What are going to talk about today? We talk about: tree communication and how I got into it; can tree spirits be evil? (This is a really interesting question based on a message that someone sent me recently.) We also discussed: can we talk to other nature spirits, or just trees? (And do we talk to other things?) Can everyone talk to trees? What exactly is channeling? And we talk about why I think Avebury is such a fantastic place.

Now, some of the members of my private Facebook group, Holly’s Grove, sent in some fantastic questions for this episode and not all of them made their way into this interview. So what I am going to do, I am going to record those separately and release them to my patrons. So if you are a member you can head over to Patreon.com sometime in the next couple of weeks and I will have that available for you to download. If you are not a member you go to Patreon.com/HollyWorton and join me there (membership starts at just $1 a month and you get exclusive access to stuff I don’t share anywhere else, in addition to ebooks and other exciting things!). So that’s all for now, I hope you enjoy this episode.

Holly: Hello Kerriann.

Kerriann: Hi Holly, so good to be here with you again; such a pleasure to be able to talk to you again.

Holly: I am so excited to be talking trees with you again!

Kerriann: I feel like every time we have conversations about trees, it helps other people talk about trees. The last conversation we had about trees, can you tell me a little bit about the feedback and the people that came out of the woods {laughing} in relation to tree communication?

Holly: Yeah, I just got lovely comments from people on social media, thanking us for the conversation and saying how they had had their own experiences with trees, but they always thought it was weird, or they didn’t understand what was going on and the fact that they had read my book and then heard our  podcast (or the other way around) showed them that there are other people out there doing this and it is a normal thing, it is just people don’t talk about it much. So I think our conversation gave people permission to explore this further with themselves, because they know they are not the only ones doing this.

Kerriann: 100%, that was the exact feedback that I have and so many people were really inspired by the courage that we had to have that conversation as well. Can you tell me a little bit about your background and your journey and how you came to be a tree communicator?

Holly: Mm, so, I don’t even know where to start with this. I guess I have always had a slightly unconventional life: I quit grad school to start my first business, back in 1999 (god that was ages ago!) and I have always really loved nature but kind of from a practical perspective: I have always really loved hiking and walking and that kind of thing. I don’t know about six/seven years ago I started to realise that my connection with nature was kind of more spiritual, or there was another layer to it that I didn’t know how to put into words. And, that was actually when I left the spiritual group I had been in for 12 years at the time and I joined OBAD, the order of bards and druids, which is a Druid order here in the UK but also has members all over the world. And that kind of helped me to develop my spiritual connection with nature and to kind of have words to describe that spiritual connection that I didn’t know how to put into words. So I think that was a huge shift on my path and that was a really big shift to make, because I really loved the spiritual group that I had been in, but I knew I needed to focus on nature and I couldn’t follow two spiritual paths at the same time, because I didn’t want to kind of half-ass each one and I didn’t have the energy to do both, and so I thought: I have to make a decision. So that was the before and after and I think making that decision to focus on my spiritual connection with nature opened me up to so many things and that was about the time, I think, when the tree communication started.

Kerriann: Do you feel like that was like an activation and that is the channel, because you became inquisitive, because you wanted to seek out, you almost opened yourself up to it so that it was available to you?

Holly: Yeah, I think by making that commitment I opened myself up to the possibility and the universe was like: okay, well here you go. Also, because I didn’t even go out looking for tree communication, it was kind of served to me on a platter, I got that email from Vickie Young, who used to do Akashic Records readings for me, email pops in, the Akashic record keepers are saying to me, ‘on your next week go out and talk to the trees, yes the trees’. And I was like, ‘what? I don’t know how to do this?’, and then I gave it a try and lo and behold I could!

Kerriann: Incredible! Can you tell me the very first time a tree spoke to you, what were the emotions that you experienced through that process?

Holly: I think confusion!

Kerriann: Yes!

Holly: Because the communication it was odd, because the Akashic record-keepers had said, ‘go up to a tree, put your hands on a tree, feel your energies, feel if chakras are activated and listen for what it has to say’, and the tree just said, ‘it’s okay’. And I was like, ‘what’s okay?’ and it didn’t say anything else. And then I went to another tree and it said the same thing and it wasn’t until half an hour later down the trail when I got totally lost, I was like: oh that’s what they meant, it’s okay, I can find my path again!

Kerriann: That’s so, so, incredibly cool. When you then moved into exploring deliberate tree communication, what do you think the trees were most excited to tell you, or what was the most common theme that they all had, that they wanted to share with you?

Holly: In the beginning it was very kind of superficial communication, it was like I would be walking through the trees and it would be like, ‘hey’, ‘hi!’, just… {laughing} just like small talk, because I think I was still getting used to it, so it wasn’t very earth shattering! But it was when that yew tree told me to write the book that I was like, ‘okay, this is a thing now, this is a project’, and that was when I started having deeper communications with the trees and the overarching theme was: people need to get outdoors, they need to connect with nature, they need to connect with the trees so that they can reconnect with themselves and get to know themselves and have a happier life.

Kerriann: Yep, that’s such an interesting… I agree that’s the common theme that I get for two reasons: for the reason of getting to know themselves but [also] getting to know the nature of nature reciprocity. Do you think that there is something that we as humans, in our humanness, who generally reject nature, can learn when we embrace nature about personal development, so that we can be happier and live better lives?

Holly: Yeah, I think one of the super-common messages that I got from the trees in relation to that was: slow down. I think our lives are so fast-paced, we have got our to-do lists and I have got my Google calendar which is time-blocked and colour-coded and I have got all this stuff to do and I have got all these plans and goals and projects and I am ticking stuff off my list and I am going, going, going… and I am so busy, and everyone else is so busy, and we are doing all this stuff and it is great…but nature helps us to slow down. And that was such a common theme with so many of the trees, just slow down you are moving too fast. And when we are moving fast through our lives we lose that connection with ourselves, we are so focussed on doing, doing, doing, we are not being and when we slow down we dip into being and experiencing and feeling and reconnecting with ourselves and I think that really leads to happiness. I am still guilty of doing, doing, doing, because I have so many things that I want to do! But I also try to balance that with just kind of slowing down and just being and experiencing. 

Kerriann: Do you think that it was the speeding up that we started to do as humans that made us lose the connection with nature and nature spirits?

Holly: I think so. I have just started this ethnobotany course, it is a seven-month course where you are out in nature, you are camping in the woods, you are learning how to identify trees and plants and their uses.

Kerriann: That sounds amazing!

Holly: It is so cool! And you are also learning practical skills. Last weekend we did basket weaving. The guy cut down a tree, we peeled the outer bark off the tree, we peeled the inner bark and we used the inner bark to make baskets. Someone asked him at one part, ‘are we going to do more of this basket weaving later on in the year?’. And he said, ‘no, because this is the kind of thing you harvest when the sap is high in the trees and that is in the Springtime’, so you wouldn’t be able to do this at other times of the year. And that really got me thinking, when we were hunter gathers way back in the day, you would have had a season to do different things. You would have known how many baskets you needed for collecting and you would have made all those baskets in the Spring and then you would have known, ‘I can’t make more baskets until next Spring’. So it was like different things at different times of the year and it wasn’t like doing, doing, doing all the things all the year, there was a seasonality for things that I think helped us stay connected with nature, but also know that there is a time and a place for everything.

Kerriann: And the spiritual connection between humans and nature would have always been there, had we not had things to make us go faster, like machines, industrial things, that happened to remove us from that relationship. Do you think though, and this is leading to… I feel like this is my biggest question for you, do you think that is part of the reason why there is a surge, now, of tree communicators, because the trees are trying to interfere to bring us back, to reintroduce that kind of relationship because that does create harmony on our planet?

Holly: Yes absolutely. And that is something that some of the trees said to me in the book, ‘it is in our best interest for people to reconnect with nature, because then people will respect nature, they will respect the planet, things will be changing. And, I have this romantic notion of hunter-gatherer life, I sometimes feel like I would love to live that lifestyle, although I know it is obviously a very difficult lifestyle, but I always kind of feel like: damn, I wish I could remember living in those ages in previous lifetimes and what it was like, because it feels so beautiful for me. But, John Ryder, the guy who teaches my ethnobotany courses, and other outdoors courses that I have taken, he always says that he thinks that the golden years are yet to come, it is not that the golden years were back when we were hunter gatherers but there is something even better that is coming, and I do think that it is the trees that are going to help lead us to that.

Kerriann: Right, I could not agree with you more. And I have recently gotten into the idea of permaculture, for the self-sufficiency from all of that. But I often contemplate why there are so many people all of a sudden who are experiencing tree communication, do you think that it is us that are waking up, or do you think it is nature calling us to wake up?

Holly: I think it is both. I think people are open to these things, more so than every before, and so I think nature is responding to that and saying, ‘okay they are ready for this now, let’s step up and help’.

Kerriann: And let’s step up and freak them all out for a while! {laughing} Let’s make the tree communicators talk to each other so they can find each other all over the world and feel normal. Oh, that is so awesome! I have to agree with you I just feel like it is a joint, collective, thing and I am really excited when you say that you feel that this is just the start, it gives me a lot of hope. So thank you so much for sharing that, I really, really, really, needed to hear that, because sometimes I think it is really easy to question what we are experiencing as tree communicators. And I guess that is where my next question for you would really come from is: if you had somebody come into your world, or if there was something you could impart on somebody who was very sceptical of tree communication, what would be one thing that you would share with them, or tell them?

Holly: I would say, it is okay to be sceptical, I think it is healthy to be sceptical of things, I think it is healthy to question things, but don’t focus on the tree communication then, just go out and sit with a tree and spend some time… close your eyes, listen to the birds, listen to the squirrels, like, listen to nature, touch the trees, smell the tree and experience the tree with all your senses and just do that! Maybe at some point you will hear a voice, or maybe not, that’s okay but just get out and connect with the tree in a way that feels okay to you, or rational to you, or reasonable to you… find other ways of connecting with the tree and then see what happens, but keep an open mind.

Kerriann: Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that sometimes people become very narrow with how they think tree communication is: like talking to trees and hearing a voice back is the only way to communicate? Or do you feel like there is a certain level of aliveness that we can talk and communicate with trees from different Clair-senses?

Holly: Yes that’s a really good question and I actually wrote a blog post about this last year and I talk about the fact that I hear a very clear voice in my head, but that’s not the only way to communicate, because this is a kind of telepathic communication and there are many Clair-senses. So you might see images, you might smell something, you might taste something, there are so many different ways that you can get messages and they are all really subtle, which is the key. I was just talking to a guy, I am getting interviewed next week by BBC Radio Oxford, and so I was having a preliminary chat with the guy, and he was like, ‘so how do you get these messages?’, and I was like, ‘there are so many different ways, but yes I hear a voice’. But it is subtle, because it is not like you and me talking out loud like now, that we can record on a podcast. I think that is part of the reason why you have to slow down and connect with yourself, because otherwise you are going to totally miss the messages because they are so subtle.

Kerriann: Yes, I couldn’t agree with you more and I think when people come into tree communication they want to hear It like we are talking now, because that is their only idea of how it should be but I agree there are so many different ways that it can happen and I hear (you have different Clair senses) but sometimes it not all audible, other times it is a lot of imagery and sometimes, I have told you I think in the last podcast, that I tasted a colour and was like, ‘what is that, it is so peculiar, that doesn’t make any sense to my brain!’. So yes, I think that is a good point to make for anyone out there who is listening, and is inspired by the work that you do, that it can happen in so many different ways.

Holly: It is like different languages: people speak English, the speak Spanish, they speak French, and all the Clair senses are like different languages and ways of communicating and they are all valid. I think people just default to wanting to hear a voice because that’s how we are used to speaking and it might feel harder to interpret other types of Clair senses. It is just a matter of relaxing and accepting and  spending the time to kind of decipher it.

Kerriann: Yes, I agree. It is kind of like faeries, people want to see the faerie looks like a faerie, and actually it is more like a little whirlwind or a little white ball, it is not necessarily how we have kind of had this kind fo projection of what it looks like, so I think that is an awesome point to make. What do you think is the best tip for somebody who wants to be a tree communicator? So they have spent a lot of time in the forest and they are trying to make it happen…

Holly: Trying really hard! {laughing}

Kerriann: What would you suggest they do to try to let go of the resistant of effort and surrender more to the process?

Holly: Oh that’s so hard! You just talked about the faeries and this is how I feel with the faeries: I want to see them! And I know they don’t look like how we stereotypically think they look, I know they look like other things but I still want to see them! So I have had to let go of that: trying really hard to see them! And just accepting that maybe it is not the time yet, maybe they don’t want to show themselves to me, maybe I am not ready for this… maybe I just need to relax and just experience them with my other senses. So I would say for someone who wants to communicate with trees but is trying too hard, just relax and recognise that not everything happens in the timeline that we want it to happen in and I know that is a hard lesson sometimes!

Kerriann: Yes it is hard.

Holly: Yeah! But just relax and enjoy the process and slow down and focus on the subtleties.

Kerriann: Yeah, subtleties, right, so important. Do you feel that there is, you described earlier that when you started learning the spiritual side of nature that almost opened up the welcoming of new things. Do you feel like eventually everybody who spends a lot of time in nature, and spends a lot of time with trees, will at some point have tree communication happen in their life?

Holly: That’s a really good question; yeah, maybe, that’s a really good question. Probably/possibly, if they are open to it, and I guess someone who is spending a lot of time in nature, and really enjoys nature and loves nature will probably be open to it; but I guess it is also possible to spend a lot of time in nature and be really sceptical about it and so close themselves off to the experience. But I think if it is in your path, I think if it is something that is meant to happen it is going to happen, even if you are sceptical. I have received emails from people that were just “normal” people, just walking down a street or walking down a trail and all of a sudden a tree said something in a way they couldn’t ignore and they were like, ‘what was that? That was the tree?’. I got an email from someone who said, ‘I thought I was going crazy, I didn’t know this was possible, I was not into this and then I googled it and I came across your website and I was like, oh this is a thing!’. So I think if it is meant to be they are going to make themselves heard to you, even if you are not interested or don’t believe – or if you had never even thought about it.

Kerriann: Yeah, I agree. I have just noticed a common theme between a lot of people who are tree communicators, including the ones that don’t call themselves tree communicators, because there are a lot of people who don’t like to come out about it, which is cool, I understand it is an unusual thing. But everyone of them, and especially the science-based communicators, all were just spending a lot of time with trees and then all of a sudden had their experiences. So I wonder if there is already almost the desire built into your DNA to want to be closer to trees because you already have that ability to communicate with them and that is why you are drawn to spending a lot of time with them in the forest or through your field of work or something like that.

Holly: I wonder if, as you said earlier, we used to all be connected to this, this used to be a normal part of our lives and so it is theoretically built into all of our DNA and we have experienced it in our past lives and all of that, so maybe it is just a matter of little-by-little everyone at their own rate catching up to this and coming back into the new phase of communicating with nature in this way.

Kerriann: If you look at witchcraft in particular that is very much tied into a commune with nature and that was something that was shamed and there was a lot of consequence to admitting all of that sort of thing, so it is possible that it has just been wiped out over the years.

Holly: And it doesn’t feel safe, it still doesn’t feel safe sometimes to talk about this because there are a lot of people that get really violent when you talk about stuff like this, you know I have had some weird messages from people on social media, that were crappy, but it is time to start talking. {laughing}

Kerriann: Yeah, because the risk of being silent is that there are more people like you and I, Holly, who didn’t get to meet each other and feel okay about everything and feel like it is normal and it is part of our lives.

Holly: Yeah, I think the more emails I get from readers and podcast listeners who say, ‘thank you for telling your story, because I didn’t know this was a thing and I thought I was the only one’, the more emails that I get, the more I am like: I have to talk about this more: I have to post more about it on social media or do more interviews – talk about it – so that more people realise that it is okay.

Kerriann: Yeah, I think it is these brilliant conversations that will help more people be more in tune as well and open to it. So I want to go back to witchcraft, but not actual witchcraft, but more into sacred sites and different places that are filled with magic, I love magic! Why is Avebury one of your favourite places in the world?

Holly: Oh Avebury, I didn’t even know what I was getting into the first time I went there! I went there for the first time when I was walking the Ridgeway, which is a national trail here in England, and it is the biggest stone circle in Europe, the trail starts very near there and so I thought, ‘I will just have a wander around Avebury before I start on the trail’, and it just felt so important. I don’t know, I just felt such a connection to the land and it is this area which is very rich in sacred sites, so it is not just the stone circle. There’s Windmill Hill which is another ancient site, there is West Kennet Long barrow which is an ancient tomb, and all of those sites, and just even wandering around the trails in that area, I just felt such a connection to the land, this was a special place. West Kennet Long Barrow in particular, I have spent so many hours in there: meditating, sitting in silence, channeling; and so many of the trees in my book are from the Avebury area because it just feels so magical there and just ancient. I can’t explain it any logical terms except that I just feel such a strong connection with the land and the land feels so magical there.

Kerriann: For those who don’t know what the site is known for being sacred about, what makes it sacred, or what is its history, could you tell us a little bit about it?

Holly: Well, I mean it is the biggest stone circle in Europe so that is saying something and clearly took them years, probably 100s of years, to build the circle because it is a huge circle and then there are smaller circles within it. The stones are enormous and there used to be an ancient walkway lined with stones that went between Avebury and West Kennet Long Barrow, which is a good half-hour walk away. And, there is another site called Silbury Hill, which is I think the largest manmade earthwork in Britain, or in Europe, but it is a giant hill that kind of looks like a volcano, it is very conical, that was also manmade, it would have taken 1000s and 1000s of work hours to create. So it is just this site where people were creating these just massive works of, I don’t know if they were ceremonial sites, we don’t know, but they were spending a lot of time…

Kerriann: Why were they doing it?

Holly: I know, I know! But you wouldn’t put that kind of work into something unless those places were of spiritual importance to you. Silbury Hill serves no purpose, it wasn’t like they were creating a look out point, because there were other natural hills in the area, there were Iron Age hill forts they could use for that. So they were spending a lot of time building these beautiful sites for some reason and so clearly they also, I am assuming, would have felt something was special about the land there, whether it was an energy spot or a power spot, something where there was something with the land that they wanted to call attention to by creating these earthworks, or stone circles, or marking the land in some way, so…

Kerriann: It blows my mind, it absolutely blows my mind because the first thing I am thinking is like, what did they do there?

Holly: I know! {laughing}

Kerriann: I just want to know! {laughing} And then I am having all these visions of all these people gathering and they have cloaks on and I am like, what is happening there? I need to come and visit you and we need to go there together.

Holly: Yes, absolutely.

Kerriann: That is what we should do, as soon as we can travel. When I watched on Instagram the other day, when you were learning, what did you call that work you are doing that you are studying at the moment…the botany?

Holly: Ethnobotany.

Kerriann: Yes, I watched you making things and I was like: I want to hang out with Holly some more! I want to be with Holly there in the forest!

Holly: Well this school where I have done so many courses, it is called The Woodcraft School and I have done plant identification, bushcraft and ethnobotany and animal-wildlife and tracking, so many practical ways of connecting with nature and I love it because I find it very grounding to kind of balance out my spiritual connection with nature. I feel like the more ways that I connect with nature, both spiritually and physically and practically, it just really deepens my relationship with it.

Kerriann: Yeah, amazing. Can you tell me, are you going to write another book on tree communication?

Holly: Yes, it is in the process. (Kerriann: Yay!) I have this book that I am working on which is basically, ‘How to Talk to Trees’, but again, it is going to be channeled through the trees. So I have been collecting people’s questions, like: what are your questions? What do you struggle with? And then I am taking these questions to the trees and the trees are going to be teaching people how to communicate with them. And I am super-excited about that and hopefully that is going to be out by the end of the year, the plan is for December.

Kerriann: I cannot wait! Will you do an audible copy of that as well?

Holly: Oh, probably, I hate recording audio books! Ideally I want all of my books to be available on audio but it is just so much work {laughing}, I don’t know what it is!

Kerriann: They are awesome to listen to, it is the best, I love it.

Holly: I will. If Trees Could Talk is by far my best-selling book, I have written 21 books but 75% of my sales are If Trees Could Talk. And so it is important for me to have that book available in all formats. I see my audiobook numbers and it doesn’t sell as much as paperback or ebook but it does sell every month. So I will make the effort to do an audible book, but it is long…

Kerriann: Just for me Holly, just do it is just for me, the lady in Australia!

Holly: All right Kerriann, I will do it for you.

Kerriann: So I can garden and listen!

Holly: Yay! And I do think, especially these types of books, having an audio book available is really important because people can go on a walk and take the audiobook and listen to it, so I recognise the importance but it is just exhausting.

Kerriann: But that’s a good point, it is really super-activating to listen to you talk about your work, especially if you could do that in nature, it is a really beautiful way to really open yourself up. I have got another question for you, I think I have spoken to you before about tree communication is not the only part of nature that I communicate with. And I have heard a lot of people say that they think that the land is talking to them, I talk to ocean spirits and they take me on journeys to the bottom of the ocean and it is quite incredible, do you have anything else, or any other parts of nature where you feel like nature is communicating to you, other than trees?

Holly: Yes and also this came from my Akashic record keepers who, a few years ago, said: next time you go on a walk talk to the water sprites, and talk to all the different nature spirits that are out there. So I did for a while, I haven’t in a while actually practiced this but it is something that I have done on and off over the years and it is something that I would like to develop. And I have received messages that I am meant to write books about communication with the faeries and also communication with the star-beings, yeah, but it is a matter of having the time to dedicate to developing my relationship with those beings and then writing the book, so.

Kerriann: Can you tell me about the star-beings?

Holly: I would love to but I haven’t put much effort into connecting with them but, interestingly, a friend of mine just emailed me, about a month ago, about this app that he has been using to connect with the star-beings. So I have been wanting to use it, it has this frequency that you play to try…

Kerriann: What!?

Holly: Yeah, I will link to it in the show notes, and I will send you a link, but it is this app on your phone that kind of tells you, ‘go out into a place where there is no light pollution and you are all alone and it is peaceful’, and then there is this kind of frequency on the app that you play so they can hear it and connect… it is a way of you telling them that you are open to receiving connection. I don’t know it is this huge thing and I was like, ‘oh my god, this sounds so cool’, and I downloaded the app but I haven’t have time to do this yet, but it sounds very, very, cool. But yeah, it is something that I want to get into but haven’t gotten into yet, but I have been told that this is another project that I need to work on.

Kerriann: Yeah, I think it is such a gift that you have to explain your interactions and normalise it. I love that word, because I do believe that is such a huge role that you are playing in tree communication and I think you have such a beautiful gift for that and it would be amazing to have you express other forms of communication with other beings in the same way, because it is so enjoyable to read how you experience things and normalise it.

Holly: I think that is such a key word for me and it is something that I need to write it on the wall, hang it on the wall, to remind myself that this is my mission to talk about it as much as I can to normalise it, because it is out there, people are doing it, but they don’t know that it is normal.

Kerriann: Yeah, 100%. Do you feel like when you are teaching people in person, do you feel like there is a sense of holding back? Or do you find that people are really open to it? I know when you have done TV shows and things like that, what do you think is a great way for you to be able to teach people, aside from in the books?

Holly: Hmm that’s an excellent question.

Kerriann: You could run a retreat Holly, where we can all come and hang out and talk to trees!

Holly: {laughing} Oh, so, I have been wanting to put together an online course, as I am working on the book, to have something, because people keep asking me about this. As I am working on the book to be able to direct people to an online course so they can get started on their journey to connecting with trees. I have been meaning to do that, I have been waiting for the weather to get better, the weather is now better, so I need to put that together. And I have never actually done workshops in person, or retreats, that is something that I would love to do, but I haven’t done it. And, as you have said, the only times I have encouraged people to give it a try have been on television and live television is so fast-paced and it is just not the place to help someone have a meaningful connection with trees, but yes, it is definitely something I want to commit to.

Kerriann: It is like an interesting thing for them to see you do, but then there is not a lot of learning.

Holly: No.

Kerriann: And I believe a lot of feedback that I get is, ‘when I hang out with you, all of a sudden trees just start talking to me’. And I am like, I wonder if tree communicators are like activators for other people? So the more we create these spaces; I am the same as you Holly, I have done one retreat, and I took women and taught them, other than that just forest bathing and then maybe at the end [asked], ‘is anyone interested in trying to talk to a tree?’. But I think there needs to be maybe more of an effort from people like yourself, and myself, to create these safe spaces where people can really explore it and the natural activation is just you and I.

Holly: Yeah, I think people like us can be facilitators of the experience for other people and I don’t know if it is because if we take people out there the trees are going to realise, ‘oh these people are okay, this is a safe place to speak up’, or what it is. Or whether it is something about our energy that activates other people as you have said. I don’t know, but I completely agree that I have a responsibility to… and make this available to people in different ways. Yes, we shall see, now that things are starting to open up.

Kerriann: I think also, do you still have any kind of hesitation, or do you feel like you are ready to dive right in? Where do you sit with your commitments to all of it? Do you still feel like there is a little bit of hesitation from people receiving it well, or do you feel like you are ready to be the full leader in this area, because I often call you that! I often give you that tag!

Holly: {laughing} No pressure!

Kerriann: {laughing} I am just telling the world that you are it, so I am hoping that you are okay with that?

Holly: Yeah, I am totally fine. Do you know, that’s a really good question. I don’t have hesitation to step into that role from the sense of, ‘how will people receive it?’, but I think I have so many different interests, and I have so many different passions, that I forget that this is my thing, you know? I love trail running and I have all my trail running goals and so I have got to train for events that I have signed up for and so I get distracted by that; and I get distracted by hiking. And I forget that this is my thing, that this is what I am here to do, this is what I need to be talking about, and I forget that because I get distracted by other interests. So again, maybe I need to be making a poster on my wall that says, ‘tree communication, plant-spirit communication, this is it. Forget everything else!’. {Both laughing}

Kerriann: And I am asking you that question because I feel like I am really similar in that regard, I will dive into it and then I get distracted and then I am reminded, ‘this is something that you should be focussing on’, and I remember, and I am like, ‘oh that’s right, this is an unusual thing that not everybody does, I should try to spread that more’. 

Holly: Yeah, exactly! But for me it is a matter of, I think, now that I am working on this book, I need to block out the time in my calendar to make sure that it happens and I need to treat it with the seriousness that I treat other projects in my life, you know. Like I have got an ultra-marathon in the first week of July and so I have been training to build up to that; so I have got my training runs in the calendar. I need to do that same thing for working on the tree book, for improving tree communication, for spreading the word about tree communication – I need to give it that level of seriousness.

Kerriann: Yeah, absolutely. Can you tell me, when you have spoken to a tree, did you have a moment where you just realised that your life was never going to be the same, because of that experience with a tree, and could you tell us about it?

Holly: Yeah, I think it was the day that the yew tree gave me the idea for the book, If Trees Could Talk, that was when I kind of shifted from small talk with the trees to: okay, I have a mission for the trees. And I remember coming home and telling my husband the story of how the tree had given me this idea and we had this conversation and the excitement that I felt in my body made me realise that something exciting was coming, like this was going to be a big thing. And I remember when I was working on the book, I had written I don’t know seven books before and they were doing okay, and I remember talking to my friends in my master-gut group and I remember saying to them, ‘I think this book is going to be different, this book is going to be like a ‘before’ and ‘after’ for me. I don’t know what, but it is different and something is going to change once I write this book’. And that is how it was, you know: there was definitely a before and after, and that conversation with that yew tree shifted me into a very new relationship with the trees and a new way of being, and a new phase of my life.

Kerriann: Incredible. And do you make a particular time in your routine to talk to trees, and step out of your usual trails? Or do you find that you just have conversations with trees while you are on your trails?

Holly: Yeah, I definitely have conversations with trees when I am on the trails. When I am hiking or walking, I can slow down and sit with the tree for a while. When I am running, sometimes if I am having a rough time on a run I will sometimes pause and I will touch a tree and ask it for help and I will ask it for energy. And sometimes I will just touch them as I go by and say, ‘hi’, ‘hi’ {laughing}, because I am running…

Kerriann: Have you ever met a grumpy tree, Holly?

Holly: {laughing} Yeah I have!

Kerriann: Can you tell me about the grumpy tree?

Holly: There have been a few! Sometimes I will be like ‘hi!’, and they will be like ‘nah’, and I kind of get the feeling that they just don’t want to talk and that’s fine, I just let them be and say, ‘it’s okay, I will go away’. {laughing}

Kerriann: The moody trees, I love it!

Holly: I remember reading once, I can’t remember where, it was in some blog post, I remember this guy saying that he thought that oaks were very grumpy and I remember thinking, ‘oh you are right, there was this one oak that was grumpy with me!’, but actually I don’t find that any one particular species is grumpier than others, have you noticed that?

Kerriann: Well, yeah, that’s actually really interesting with the species vs trees just having personalities, right? So I always thought that trees, each one is a unique personality and something. Until recently, I kind of realised that all of my best friends are kind of fig trees, then I was like: ah actually there is… Also I really struggle to connect with eucalyptus trees in certain regions, so I think it is really interesting and I think there is something to that, I just haven’t quite pieced it together yet. Have you noticed anything about any other species that you found, so with the yews, you have more of a deeper connection to yews than with other trees?

Holly: I hate to say this, I feel bad having favourites, but my favourite tree species are oaks, yews and hollies: those are trees that I really, really, love. Not just because of their personalities, I just love the trees, just from an aesthetic perspective. But, interestingly, there were no hollies in my book, so, I don’t know…

Kerriann: That is interesting because, when I met you, I had a really clear message to draw a holly tree and it is has been on my white board since I met you: ‘draw a holly tree for Holly’, it is still on there.

Holly: Thank you!

Kerriann: It is on my list of trees to draw for people, that’s interesting because I didn’t hear about hollies in the book.

Holly: Which is weird because it is one of my favourite trees.

Kerriann: Do you talks with holly trees a lot?

Holly: Yeah I do, I don’t know if a lot, but definitely when I am out walking or running and one holly tree has stepped forward to be in the next book and so I have channeled a message from that. So I have definitely got one holly in the next book.

Kerriann: I want to tap on what you just said there which was you channeled a message from a tree. Some people get really freaked out by that terminology, because they don’t quite understand it, if you could simplify it in a particular way for people who don’t quite understand what that means, how would you say that channeling works?

Holly: That’s a really good question.

Kerriann: It’s a big one!

Holly: Yeah, so I guess it would be like, receiving a message through this kind of subtle, telepathic, Clair communication and translating it in a way that is available to a wider audience. (I think that works!)

Kerriann: Yes, yes, like it is a vibrational message and then it is interpreted into a language that we understand, and humans understand. And do you feel that everybody has the capacity to do that, to channel?

Holly: Absolutely, absolutely. Like, if you are interested in it, if you are curious about it, if you have been thinking, hmm I wonder if I could do this? Absolutely, give it a try, I include resources in my book and I can link to these in the show notes, about ways to learn how to channel, absolutely. I do not think it is a special skill that you are born with, it is a skill that you can develop.

Kerriann: Same with tree communication, do you feel like that, in its entirety, is something that can be developed?

Holly: Absolutely, absolutely, yes. I have a question for you. I recently got a message from someone who was telling me, the same thing, ‘I didn’t know that this was a thing, but I have had all these experiences with trees, found your book, found your podcast’. And she had, one time, an experience with what she called, “evil trees”, and she said, ‘do you know that trees can be evil?’. And I said, ‘oh interesting, no I didn’t’. And something felt a bit off about the story and I wondered if perhaps it wasn’t evil trees, it was something else that was masquerading as a tree spirit and somehow that thing knew that she had a relationship with trees and so maybe she would be more open to it, if she thought it was coming from trees. And then I asked Suneet, my plant-spirit mentor, and she said, yeah I think that was kind of a thing. So my question for you is have you ever met a tree that was bad, or dark, or evil, or shadowy?

Kerriann: Yeah, interesting. So, first of all, my question would be: what does she define as evil? And, try to work out what evil means, because I guess that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I think darkness, yes, I have definitely experienced a tree with a certain darkness to it, that made me feel ill, spending time with that tree made me feel ill. It was two trees, one tree is wrapped around it, and one tree, Joseph, he is totally cool, but Amir is not cool, he doesn’t always love it when I go to visit Joseph. So I think that I can definitely sense, the first thing that I ask the both of them is permission to draw them, and Joseph was like, ‘yeah that would be great’, and Amir is like, ‘only if you draw me in all of my sorrow and all my sadness’, he was just so deeply pissed at the planet and the people and what we had down to this area in which he lives. But as far as a dark evil spirit, no, I haven’t. But I do know that trees, sometimes, can be space holders for spirits that have not been able to leave this realm and it doesn’t surprise me if there was a spirit that had not had its opportunity to grow and expand and learn its lessons and it was holding space within a tree, before it moved onto its next journey and that doesn’t surprise me if that’s what maybe happened. Or the other thing is that there are nature spirits that aren’t always positive and they don’t like people in their space, they don’t want to be invaded and have somebody forcefully be in their space. So maybe it was trying to scare her off (I know that sounds really silly), but it could have been something like that. Did she just elaborate on her experience?

Holly: I think it is very interesting that you shared that story about how the tree had such sadness, because when I kind of followed up with some questions she said that there is a lot of deforestation in that area and so she thinks there is obviously a lot of, probably, sorrow on behalf of the trees and maybe the trees are feeling defensive. But she said, she was staying in an AirBNB when this happened and she said later she had been speaking with the AirBNB owners and they said, yeah this property is haunted, we are selling it. And she didn’t say, ‘oh this is what is happened to me’, she didn’t tell them the story to them, but she said, ‘that’s really interesting that they are aware of something off in the energy of the place’.

Kerriann: Yes, and I definitely feel like, when I look at ancient energies and ancient spirits that have been tied to a particular land, tied to a particular home, if you really think about that it can be tied to a tree as well, that makes perfect sense, right? Because if you walk into a house that has a spirit that hasn’t been able to move on and is really pissed about its experience or some kind of trauma happened that is holding them there, it is often our job to clear that and bring that spirit into the light so that the house can be cleansed and that spirit has the freedom to move on. So I wonder if some kind of ceremony for that spirit, that is tied to the energy of that tree would really help it move on. There are really brilliant people who specialise in space-clearing and specialise in all of that work that would be able to help. I feel more sad for the spirit that is not able to move on more than anything rather than attaching the word evil to it, yeah.

Holly: I think that is the energy she felt when she was having this experience, it was like, you know… I love it when people share these stories with me, because it gets me thinking; you know I had never had an experience like that before, so I am asking people like you, and Suneet, like, what’s going on here? What do you think is happening?

Kerriann: Yeah, I had one experience when I did a tree reading for someone, that was really intense, and I got in my car and I was like: okay, where is the tree that I am supposed to talk to? And then the trees showed me it was on the side of a fricking cliff, and I was like: of course you are on the side of a cliff, that’s such a mission to get to that tree! As I am walking up there, I could just feel the wind pipe in my throat closing as if something was strangling me and I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t talk, and I was like: this is so bizarre. And when I got to the tree, and it was a she-oak, and I was sitting there and the she-oak kept on reinforcing that feeling. And then there was a lot of information that came through to pass onto this client and I said to the client: did you have something happen with your throat? And she just burst into tears, and it was a common theme, it was something to do with suffocation and also being closed off, so that she can’t speak her truth. So that experience felt like there was a physical something on my throat, squashing it, and I think that was probably the most scariest experience I had with tree communication channeling for other people, and it was part of why I stopped doing tree readings and I do not do them now. I only channel messages for art work, and for sharing, I don’t do any spiritual guidance for other people, for that reason, and I also because I got in trouble with a faery, a faery lord of the trees, he totally got cross with me and told me that was not what I was here to do, it is not the path I am supposed to take {laughing}. So I think there is always, with anything I think in the spiritual world, there is always something we need to be mindful of and I know we spoke about sacred places before and I think there are all these thresholds where you should really be asking permission to step into those places, right? And maybe when we don’t there are consequences to that, so I think it is really fantastic to hear those stories from people who have had bad experiences that teach us lessons about the importance of really respecting trees and their energies and things like that. The would never hurt anybody, trees are just here to be beautiful and to work in service with humans and I really, really, deeply, know that. So it surprises me that she had that kind of experience, but I know that I have had other experiences, not the same as that, that weren’t always pleasant. With anything in the spiritual realm I think it comes with a level of responsibility and no one is giving us rules, Holly, other than what we learn through our own experiences with trees.

Holly: Which is why it is so important to talk about this.

Kerriann: Right, right, and there are not a lot of books, other than traditional shaman work which I don’t feel that is what I am doing when I am communicating with trees. When I have done research about that kind of work, it doesn’t really resonate with what I experience. Do you have a similar thing, where you don’t really feel like you are a shaman?

Holly: I would never that word to describe myself, no. I did a plant-healing-apprenticeship a couple of years ago, working with Suneet, it is using shamanic skills: drumming to drum yourself into a trance and that kind of thing, but I would never consider myself to be a shaman, nor do I think I am on a shamanic path, but you know, who knows? Those are not words I would use to describe what I do.

Kerriann: Right, and so there is not a lot of material (and I know, because I have spent many hours trying to seek it out!). When I hadn’t found other tree communicators, when I first experienced it, I just researched like a crazy person and didn’t find, even ancient books on it other than going back to the Scottish heritage and druids and all of that. I guess there is no real…because it was always taught by passing it down to someone in the family, when it has been lost along the way, there is no real guideline to all of this work, I think it is like we are the test subjects!

Holly: We are the pioneers!

Kerriann: {laughing} The pioneers exactly! So we will document it so that hopefully that helps people in the future, when I feel like there will be so much tree communication, and nature communication, happening, it will come back to just be normal and hopefully this work that we are doing through our experiences helps people in the future.

Holly: Yeah, absolutely. People are definitely searching for it online because I see the search terms they use to arrive at my website, ‘Can trees talk to people?’ Yes.

Kerriann: It is so good. I am wondering, too, Holly, if, on your journey, and the books that you are making, whether there will be other old books that start to surface? I wonder if that will help call it in. Because I know that people wrote about things in the 80s, and then they discovered there were all these books in the late 1800s that were talking about the same theories, like law of attraction and all that kind of stuff, and they started to find all this documentation later on, that really linked everything. So maybe there are books out there but they haven’t really surfaced yet and maybe they will in the future?

Holly: Maybe, if anybody listening to this knows of any, please let us know!

Kerriann: Yes, absolutely. And there are so many beautiful people in your community, Holly, that reached out after they hard our interview where you asked me about tree communication, and it really gave me so much insight into how many beautiful, wonderful, listeners you have, who are so committed to being so open to the journey of tree communication. It has been so beautiful. So I think you are just creating something so special through this podcast and the work that you do to bring us all together.

Holly: Oh thank you.

Kerriann: I am very grateful for you.

Holly: Thank you so much for coming back on and interviewing me and asking me questions and sharing your experiences, because I could talk about this all day, it is so good to have someone else’s perspective, and hear someone else’s experiences and have someone else to talk to about this…love it.

Kerriann: And hopefully one day there will be a whole series where it is just all tree communicators, or you could hold a tree communicator forum!

Holly: {laughing} A conference, an international conference of tree communication!

Kerriann: Yes a conference Holly that would be so good! Can you imagine? That would the funnest weekend ever, that would be so good! Thank you for holding this space, it is fantastic.

Holly: Thank you and thank you for coming back on.

Kerriann: It was my pleasure, always wonderful to talk to you.

 

Holly: Please drop me a line and let me know what you thought about this week’s episode, you can email at [email protected] or find me online and get in touch there. Thank you for listening and remember to visit: HollyWorton.com/405 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.