Carolyn Hunter
“The T. A. Barron Podcast.”

T. A. Barron
“Hear the voice of the bard who present, past, and future sees, whose ears have heard the holy word that walked among the ancient trees.” So wrote William Blake over 200 years ago.

All of us today still love to walk among ancient trees. And so, in today’s episode, let’s take a walk together in an enchanted forest. We’re going to talk about nature, which I’ll say right off the top for me has been my life’s greatest teacher, healer, and inspiration. In life’s difficult, challenging, and painful times, I’ve always gone outside. Because for me, the only place big enough to hold all of that, as well as my aspirations and needs and hopes, is nature.

How did that all begin? Well, I think the best place to start is by sharing a story about my life at age seven, when it was one of those big snowstorms and I wanted to play outside. I wanted to go roll around in that fresh snow. So, my mom dressed me in one of those big puffy snow suits that made me look like a waddling balloon and took me outside. Those snowdrifts, I remember, were taller than I was. [Laughter] They towered over me. And then my mom surprised me by patting one of the snowdrifts above my head and saying, “Believe it or not, there are flowers under there. You won’t see them until next spring. But it’s true.” Now at the time, I really thought she was crazy. [Laughter] Flowers? Really? Are you kidding? But eventually I realized that she was right and that her comment wasn’t just about the changing of the seasons. It was about nature’s amazing power of transformation. And she was also saying something else, something about hope.

Carolyn Hunter
The power of transformation, I love that.

T. A. Barron
And there’s more.

Carolyn Hunter
Such as?

T. A. Barron
I am always amazed how it’s possible in nature, especially big nature, in wilderness, to feel both very, very small and very, very large at once. We can feel reduced by the immense sweep of the stars overhead, the towering trees of an ancient forest, or the endless expanse of the ocean. And we can at the same time feel enlarged by it all, humbled and inspired at once. We are very small, yes, but we are also part of all of that grandeur, the pattern, the mystery, the Cosmos. We belong to that.

Carolyn Hunter
Small and large at the same time.

T. A. Barron
That’s right. What a paradox.

Carolyn Hunter
I love a good paradox. [Laughter] It kind of reminds me of Shim in your newest book, Giant. He embodies smallness and largeness at the same time.

T. A. Barron
[Laughter] My favorite giant.

Carolyn Hunter
Mine, too.

T. A. Barron
In that book, Shim is a tiny little person, but also has the heart of a giant. And so, in that same way, but much, much bigger, all of us can feel smallified, as Shim would say, by that grandeur all around us. But at the same time, bigified by it too.

Carolyn Hunter
Rather magical.

T. A. Barron
That’s why in my books about young Merlin, he learns all his greatest lessons from nature. And what is magic? Honestly, I think it’s the best word in our language to describe what’s indescribable, the mysterious, the wondrous, the surprising, the powerful that we experience but cannot explain.

Carolyn Hunter
Like…

T. A. Barron
So you’d like me to explain the unexplainable? [Laughter]

Carolyn Hunter
[Laughter] Exactly.

T. A. Barron
Oh, sure. That’s my job description as a storyteller. Well, here’s a cut at it. The seed that sprouts after a long winter and grows into a sapling and eventually into a majestic tree that has hundreds or thousands more seeds. That’s magic. The marvelous light that sparkles on the wings of a Morpho butterfly. The love that blossoms between two people. The incredible power of human minds, the sheer diversity of life that has evolved on our planet. The indescribably complex patterns and connections that form our universe. All this immense magic surrounds us every day, all the time, in our lives.

Carolyn Hunter
So true.

T. A. Barron
And all we need to do to find it, is go outside.

Carolyn Hunter
Going outside is one thing, but being outside is another.

T. A. Barron
Well said. Going outside is the beginning. But to really be there in nature, to be present, it helps just to notice what’s all around us. Whenever I go outside, I like to roll through all five of my senses and ask myself, “What am I experiencing here? The light, the shadows. The way that tree is moving its branches with the breeze. Oh, there’s a butterfly over there. Look, there’s a leaf spinning. And how that leaf’s dance is different as it falls than the leaf of a different kind of tree. How are my feet moving? Is it through grass? Is it swishing as I go by? Am I on rocks? Are they unstable? Is the soil wet? Is it dry? Oh, and listen, there’s a bird on that branch. It’s a Red-winged blackbird and a cricket in the distance. The first one I’ve heard this spring. And the smells in the air, the feeling of the wind on my face. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m in this place.”

You know, one thing about smell worth thinking about, it is said that a dog actually lengthens every moment because dogs’ sense of smell is so powerful that they can know in every instant what went there before and what is coming their way. So, it’s as if every instant is three times as large in terms of its fullness. When all of our senses are engaged, we can be fully present. And as the great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said so often, “Each step really matters.”

Carolyn Hunter
This is one of my favorite parts of your books. The way you describe nature in such detail.

T. A. Barron
I’m so glad, because part of how I view my job is to try to make places come alive. It actually really helps me as a fantasy writer that I started as a nature writer.

Carolyn Hunter
Oh.

T. A. Barron
Because as a nature writer, you learn it’s all about giving life to place and really, truly inviting the reader to be there. And part of that is opening up the senses. That’s why it’s no accident that in all of my books, I try to engage all five senses in the first two pages.

Carolyn Hunter
Amazing.

T. A. Barron
I’ll give you another example actually, on a grander scale. When my goal was to give young Merlin a sense of his powers and a sense of nature’s magic, I didn’t just have conversations about that in the text or have him hear a speech about that. No, the way to do that was to absolutely bring him fully into nature. So that’s why in the first five books of the Merlin Saga, young Merlin changes, transforms into a deer and runs with them. Or he becomes an eagle and flies with them. He goes swimming with the whales, or he goes flowing with the river. He becomes the wind. He actually also goes to visit in a later book, in The Great Tree of Avalon, the greatest river of all, the one we call time. He even merges with an ancient stone to hear its secrets.

Carolyn Hunter
Wow.

T. A. Barron
Yeah. And believe me, it was fun for me, too. It has helped me be more deeply present in nature to have imagined Merlin having those experiences. Would you like to hear an example?

Carolyn Hunter
Definitely.

T. A. Barron
Let me read to you the passage where Merlin becomes a deer. Here’s how he describes it.

“I heard more sounds than I had ever known. They washed over me in a constant stream. The continual pounding of my own hooves, the echoing reverberations through the soil, and the whispers of a dragonfly’s wings. Then I realized that somehow, in a mysterious way, I was listening not just to sounds, but to the land itself. I could hear, not with my ears, but with my very bones. The tensing and flexing of the Earth under my hooves, the changing flow of the wind, the secret connections among all the creatures who shared these meadows, whether they crawled or slithered, flew or ran. And not only did I hear them, I celebrated them. For we were bound together as securely as a blade of grass is bound to the soil.”

Carolyn Hunter
That’s exactly what I mean. I really feel like I’m there. Can you give us one more example?

T. A. Barron
Well, this one, actually, I’m going to choose to read not from one of the Merlin Saga books, but from The Adventures of Kate trilogy. This is from the second of those books, The Ancient One. It was just reprinted as a 25th Anniversary celebration edition, and I’m so excited about it. I love the way the cover conveys the feeling in the mood. And also they let me write a little author’s note in the beginning. That was fun, because I revealed for the first time the origins of The Ancient One, which were from camping out in a great redwoods park and sleeping the night inside the cavernous trunk of one of those ancient, ancient trees. And I remember feeling if only I could speak the language of these trees, what awesome stories they could tell me. These trees are two-three thousand years old. They have seen so much. And I would love to learn from them.

So that experience gave me the inspiration for The Ancient One. In that book, Kate, who is a teenage girl in Oregon, discovers that there is a terrible disaster brewing that could destroy her town. And at the same time, she learns about an ancient riddle, a mystery of a lost tribe of Native Americans who lived in that area and then disappeared centuries before. The only way to stop the disaster is to answer the mystery of the Native Americans. And the only way to do that is to go back in time. So, she seeks the help of an ancient Redwood tree that is not just a tree, but also a time tunnel.

And here is what happens when she enters the tree.

“First she smelled the sweet sap of the tree, fresh and potent, fragrant with life. And then a sound. Was it the wind outside? No, this was a rushing, coursing sound, like the surging of several rivers.

She realized with a start, this was the sound of resins moving through the trunk and limbs of the tree, and strangely, through her own self as well. Then she heard something more. With all her concentration, she listened to a distant gurgling sound. It came from far below her, rising from the deepest roots of the tree they were drinking, drawing sustenance from the soil.

Another sound joined with the rest, completing the pattern like an intricate fugue. It ran from the tips of the remotest needles all the way down the massive column of Heartwood and into the roots of the Redwood, back and forth, in and out, always changing, always the same. This was the sound, Kate realized at last, of the tree itself breathing, the sound of life being exchanged for life. Breath for breath.

“Great tree,” spoke Kate in wonder. “I feel so young. And you are so very, very old.”

A full, resonant laughter filled the air, stirring even the sturdiest branches around her. “I am not so young as you, perhaps, but old I surely am not. The mountains, they are old. The oceans, they are old. The sun is older still, as are the stars. And how old is that cloud whose body is made from the vapors of an earlier cloud that once watered the soil, then flowed to the river, then rose again into the sky. Oh, I am part of the very first seed planted in the light of the earliest dawn. And so are you. So perhaps we are neither older nor younger, but truly the same age.”

As she listened to the rhythmic breathing of the tree, Kate felt herself beginning to breathe in unison. A sense of her body was slowly returning. But this was a body that felt different. This was a body that bent and swayed with the fragrant wind, every element of her being stretched upward and downward, pulling taller and straighter without end. Her arms became supple, sinewy limbs. Her feet drove deeply into the soil and anchored there. She felt tall and strong, centered and surrounded, sturdy and whole.

A sweep of time swirled past. Seconds into hours, days into seasons, years into centuries. Spring, Azaleas blossoming and Pink-sorrel flowering. Summer, bright light scattering through the morning mist, scents of wild ginger and Licorice Fern. Autumn, harsh winds, shaking branches, gentle winds bearing geese. Winter, ceaseless rains, frosty gales, more rains brewing. Again and again, again and again. Seasons without end, years beyond count.

Fire. Flames scar her outer bark, charring even her Heartwood, but still she stands. An earthquake rocks the grove, toppling many other trees, but still she stands. Winds and rain, hail as big as Spruce cones, but still she stands. In time, Maidenhair Fern takes root at her base, mingling with the moss. A doe and her spotted fawn step serenely into the glade.

Then suddenly, a sound unlike any other sound ever heard, fills the forest. Piercing, screeching, banishing forever the centuries of stillness. A shudder. A scream of pain erupts from her whole being. Stop. Stop. Please, go away. Leave in peace. But the pain only deepens. The sound grows louder.

It is the sound of chainsaws.”

Carolyn Hunter
No!

T. A. Barron
[Laughter] Well, welcome to the 21st century. But I will assure you that isn’t where the book ends.

Carolyn Hunter
Okay, good.

T. A. Barron
Am I going to tell you what happens next, though? No. [Laughter] Enjoy it yourself as you read The Ancient One. But I hope, really, truly, Carolyn, I hope for even just a smidge of a fraction of an instant that you felt almost like a great Redwood tree.

Carolyn Hunter
I did.

T. A. Barron
Wonderful, well, reach those branches high and let’s continue.

Carolyn Hunter
Can you speak to us about the danger that nature is facing in the 21st century?

T. A. Barron
Of course, we all know that our planet is in trouble, largely due to human activity. We have problems with our climate, with deforestation, with the oceans, with our fellow creatures. So really, we’re in the midst of two gigantic crises.

One is the climate change crisis, and we need to get our arms around that and be more responsible about how we use energy, where we save energy. And then the biodiversity crisis, where way too many species, way too many of our fellow passengers on this planet that voyages around the sun are in trouble and could go extinct forever.

So how do we think about that? While we continue to probe with the science, and while we continue to be as ingenious as possible with the technology, we also need to do something that’s very simple and very elementally human. We need to tell better stories about the Earth and about our place in it. One of the best tools we have is to tell stories that give context and vivid metaphors, ways to think about biodiversity.

For example, one of the most powerful environmental stories ever told, I think, is from the Old Testament of the Bible, Noah’s Ark. Now, I know that that is first and foremost a story about faith. And to be sure, it is about faith in God. But it is also an environmental parable. I mean, think about it. God asks Noah to do something that’s almost impossible, to build a huge boat in the middle of the desert on the promise that there’s going to be a tremendous downpour coming soon. Not only that, he asks Noah to go find two of every single kind of creature that lives on this planet. So put all that together. If God has asked Noah to go through all of that trouble just to save two of every kind of creature, how can we do anything less?

Carolyn Hunter
We have a lot to do.

T. A. Barron
We do. We sailors on this bigger ship called Planet Earth. And there’s one more challenge, too, the challenge of making sure that people of all descriptions feel a real connection to our public lands, our parks and wilderness areas. It’s important that those places are open and welcoming to the full diversity of humanity, just as they are open to the full diversity of nature and ecosystems and wildlife.

Carolyn Hunter
So, are you optimistic or pessimistic about this?

T. A. Barron
Honestly, I am still optimistic because of my faith in human ingenuity and imagination, and also in young people. Young people really get this. They understand that the peril we are in is human created and the solutions can also be human created. Plus, I have an enduring faith in the resilience of nature. If we can just give nature enough space, just give her room, she can adapt.

Even as I answer your question, though, Carolyn, I’ve got to say I think it’s the wrong question. The real question is will we fight to protect nature and our planet? Will we make the choices that we need to make? Will we support those organizations that are working to do that, and all of those brave, heroic folks who are out there all around the world trying to protect the nature that gives us sustenance? Because if nature survives, we all survive.

Ultimately, I really do believe that people will come together, here, and we will learn to do better and do the right things, because we must. So, in the end, the truth is, I do have hope. I have hope because of the imperative of protecting nature and therefore ourselves, the wonderful idealism and energy of young people and the resilience of nature. Without hope, we really are lost. And with hope, we have a chance. My wonderful friend and inspiration, Jane Goodall, would certainly agree. Finally, it makes me think back to that moment when my mother took me outside as a seven-year-old in the deep snow. And to paraphrase what Gloria Barron said to me in that moment, “Even in the time of the deepest snow, there are still flowers under there.”

Carolyn Hunter
Beautiful. So, to close this episode, could you give us one example of something in nature that gives you hope?

T. A. Barron
There’s so many aspects of nature that do. But let me just pick one. The eye of a fellow living creature. If you’ve been lucky enough to look into a wild animal’s eye, you never forget that. And suddenly all the eons of evolutionary time that separate us from them fall away and we realize, wow, we are all fellow mortals, fellow living creatures, and we’re in this together. I often think about the first time I went kayaking in San Ignacio Lagoon off Baja California and a great grey whale surfaced just a few feet off the side of my boat. I will never forget looking into that big, deep, round eye. It seemed as deep as a galaxy.

Another moment like that came when I was in Rwanda, in Africa, with my wonderful daughter Denali and we came across a family of mountain gorillas. Right opposite us was this beautiful mother gorilla nursing her baby in her arms. And she looked up and looked into my eyes with those deep, brown, beautiful, caring, motherly eyes. And she trusted me. She trusted me. I could feel it. I was a guest in her home. It was a gift I’ll never, ever forget.

One more example. The very first time I ever saw an elephant. What impressed me most was not their gigantic size, which is immense. It was their eyes. And do you know what these huge creatures have the most long and delicate eyelashes you can imagine. It’s just so beautiful.

Our next two episodes will continue this exploration of nature but with a twist. We will welcome onto this podcast two people, each of whom runs one of the world’s most creative and effective conservation organizations. One of them called World Wildlife Fund and one of them called Outdoor Afro. They are also two of my most favorite people anywhere, so I am so excited to talk with them. Join us.

To everyone out there. Let me just say thank you so much for joining us for “Magic & Mountains.” We’ll see you next week. And in the meantime, may you have magical days.

Carolyn Hunter
We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of “Magic & Mountains: The T. A. Barron Podcast.” Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a five-star review, and share this podcast with your family and friends. For more information and to find all of T. A.’s books, visit TABarron.com. Have a magical week.