Ellie’s Adventure

This is the continuation of Ellie of The Woods (2 of 3). These may someday be published as beginner chapter books, but for now, I’m sharing them here as 3 separate blog posts. Enjoy! 💖

Chapter 1

Ellie and Uncle Crow fly for many hours. Finally, they come to a stop and land back on the ground.

Looking around, Ellie notices something. 

“This place feels familiar. I’ve never been here before, but it feels familiar.”

“It should, Ellie.”

“Why?”

Uncle Crow cocks his head, but doesn’t answer.

Shrugging her shoulders, Ellie continues to look around and explore.

“The trees are here so alive! I feel them talking to me already. It’s like they’ve been waiting for me!”

Ellie goes from one tree to the next, introducing herself. 

“Hi! I’m Ellie. It’s so nice to be here!”

She stops and sits in the center of a fairy ring. 

“I like it here Uncle Crow. This feels like a happy place. And I love the view of the mountains!”

“I’m happy you like it here, Ellie. How do your insides feel?”

Ellie closes her eyes and thinks for a second. 

“They feel really calm! Lighter than they have been in a long time.”

She hangs her head. 

“Uncle Crow? That heavy feeling was my inner knowing trying to tell me something, wasn’t it?”

“It was, Ellie.”

“I should have listened sooner…” Ellie curls her knees into her chest and rests her forehead on them.

“Ellie,” Uncle Crow says gently, “you listened when you were ready. Next time you feel that heavy feeling, you’ll know better and listen sooner.

Remember, it’s not always about ‘doing what you’re told.’ It’s also about learning lessons.”

“I suppose, Uncle Crow. Learning is really uncomfortable.”

“It can be. But think about it. Would you remember this lesson if it didn’t hurt a little?”

Ellie tips her head up to the sky. 

“I guess not.”

Uncle Crow nods as if Ellie has just said something important.

Chapter 2

“Okay, Uncle Crow. It’s beautiful here and I love it. But why did you bring me here? What’s my new mission and purpose?”

Uncle Crow lets out a loud “caw” and flies up to a branch. 

“Oh, boy,” Ellie thinks. “I’m about to get a lecture.” She settles into the grass and rests against the trunk of a tree.

“Well, Ellie, part of that you will have to discover for yourself. The Wild Ones can only give you pointers and signs. It’s up to you to follow them and interpret.”

“But what happens if I make a mistake or don’t understand?”

“Not ‘if,’ Ellie, when. You will make mistakes. You will misinterpret.”

“Then why not just tell me right out?”

“You wouldn’t learn anything that way. Now hush up and listen. I’m not done explaining why you’re here.”

Ellie grimaces, but does as she’s told.

“As I was saying, part of why you’re here, you will have to discover for yourself. I’m going to tell you what I can right now. 

First, you’re here to help heal, but in a different way. This healing is for you as well as for Earth, nature, the Wild Ones, and all of creation.”

“That sounds like a lot!” Ellie is a little overwhelmed.

“Ellie, hush! This will all be answered in the right time.”

“Sorry, Uncle,” she mumbles and curls her knees up to her chest again.

“The healing work you will do here will feel more natural. Fewer ceremonies and planned experiences, more slowing down and interacting with each thing in a special way.”

“That feels a little better,” Ellie thinks, but she stays quiet.

“Another reason you’re here is to learn. You’ll learn lessons about life like you have been, but you’ll also be learning how to share yourself in a new way.”

Ellie’s not sure what that means, but again, stays quiet. She’s pretty sure that Uncle Crow would only tell her she’ll find out later, anyway.

“The rest of why you’re here, you’ll discover with time.”

Ellie looks at Uncle Crow in silence.

“You can talk now, child.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, I guess I should get started then. But how?”

Chapter 3

Ellie’s still waiting for an answer about how to start when she realizes Uncle Crow has flown away again.

Ellie sighs loudly. “I guess this is one of those parts I have to figure out for myself.”

She leans back on the tree trunk, closes her eyes, and waits for her inner knowing to speak up.

VROOM! VROOM!

“What’s that? This place seemed so quiet.” Ellie looks around and discovers there’s a busy road nearby.

She puts her hands over her ears and cries out: “How am I supposed to connect to my inner knowing with so much noise?”

She starts walking around the area, trying to find a quiet place.

“I can’t do the work I was brought here to do if it’s so loud! Why did Uncle Crow bring me to this place? He knows I need quiet to do what’s being asked of me.”

Ellie starts to cry again.

Through her tears, she begins to understand. 

“Uncle Crow told me there would be consequences for not listening sooner. I guess this is one of them.”

She sighs, stands up, and decides that she’ll have to find a way. 

“I’ve never backed down from a challenge. I won’t this time either.”

Chapter 4

Day becomes night. The stars and moon come out. Each one twinking and shining. 

“It’s so dark here! I can see so many stars.” Ellie loves the night sky and lays back on the grass to admire it.

“It’s quieter in the dark, too,” Ellie notices. She closes her eyes and starts breathing deeply to connect with her inner knowing.

Ellie feels the Earth and trees around her breathing with her. She feels the moon and stars synchronize with them.

Feeling a bit lightheaded, Ellie keeps breathing in time with all that surrounds her.

The road is still a little loud, but she doesn’t hear it as much.

As Ellie breathes with Earth, Sky, and Creation, she hears her inner knowing come out.

“Ellie,” it whispers. “You need to build community. You need to connect with others who share your values and create a place where you can all enjoy time together.”

“Hmm…” Ellie thinks about this. “I guess I can try to do that. This place is already a good spot for enjoying the company of others. I just need to find the people.”

“Psst…” Ellie’s inner knowing pipes up again. “Be sure to include the Beings here as well.”

“Yes, true. Thank you for the reminder.”

Ellie drops off to sleep, feeling held by Earth and Nature. It reminds her of what it was like before she left her birth woods.

Chapter 5

In the morning, Ellie wakes up to birds singing. The sun shines and kisses her skin with its rays. 

“I guess I should start working on making those connections and building community.”

Although the road is much louder now, Ellie has an easier time tuning it out. She follows her inner knowing and starts walking the area. When she feels it’s right, she stops and talks to the plants, birds, insects, and other animals she finds along the way.

“Hi Ellie! We’re so happy you’re here!”

“What took you so long, Ellie? We’ve been waiting for you!”

“Ellie, look! I’ve been saving my most colorful feather for you. Here, please take it.”

“I’m happy to see you all, too! Thank you for the warm welcome and the beautiful gift,” Ellie calls back.

Her feet start calling: “Connect here, Ellie. Connect here.” 

Ellie stands still and imagines roots growing out the bottoms of her feet. She feels them connecting deeply with Earth. And then Earth starts talking to her, too.

“Ellie,” Earth whispers. “I need your help.”

“I’m here.” Ellie whispers back as she drops to her knees. “Show me what you need.”

It takes nearly all the energy Earth has left, but Ellie thinks she understands.

“You’re sick,” Ellie says,“You need me to help you get better. And you’d like some happy, yellow flowers to get started?”

Ellie feels Earth sigh with relief and trusts she’s on the right path.

“I need to connect with other humans now. Earth needs all of us to help, and I need to find some of those yellow flowers right away!”

Ellie runs up to the street. She pauses, asks her inner knowing which way to go, and starts running again.

Chapter 6

A few miles later, Ellie arrives at a town. People are out and about - shopping, visiting with each other, playing in parks, and enjoying the sun.

“Hi, I’m Ellie. I’m new here.”

A few people walk away, but most seem happy to see her. 

“Hi Ellie! Welcome to the area.”

“I’m looking for some yellow flowers. Do you know where I might find them?”

Most people shrug their shoulders, but one woman steps forward. 

“I can help you with that, Ellie. Come with me.”

Reaching out to take the hand she’s offered, Ellie walks with the woman, trusting this is someone who will become part of the community she’s building.

“My name is Ann.”

“Hi, Ann.”

“I have a feeling the yellow flowers you’re looking for are very special. Not just any yellow flowers will do.”

“You’re right, Ann! They’re for Earth. She needs our help and she told me that these yellow flowers will help her start to feel better.”

“I know just the flowers you mean, Ellie!”

They walk in friendly silence for a while on their way to get the special yellow flowers. 

“Ann?” Ellie asks, “You seem like you’ve got a special connection to Earth, too.”

Ann smiles. “I guess you could say that. I’ve been trying to help her heal by myself for a long time.”

Ellie thinks about this for a second. “Maybe we could work together?”

“I would love that!”

They both add a little skip to their step and feel a little lighter now that they’ve met.

Chapter 7

Ellie returns to her new home with lots of yellow flowers. She plants them in a circle where her inner knowing shows her and she feels Earth sigh in thanks.

“I’m working on finding some more people to help you, but for now, I’d like to do whatever healing I can.”

Earth signals her agreement and Ellie begins.

“I call upon the directions: North, South, East, and West. I call upon the Wild Ones who raised me. I call upon the helper spirits, known and unknown. I call upon the sun, moon, rain, and snow. Come now. Come to Earth. Share your love and healing with her. Breathe with her. Cleanse her.”

Ellie raises her arms above her head, wiggles her feet into the soil.

“Come now! Cleanse Earth!”

Ellie closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She holds this position, making space for the healing to come through.

Much later, the sun is lower in the sky, Ellie’s inner knowing tells her she can stop holding space for now.

She shakes out her arms and legs and lays down on the grass.

With her cheek pressed to Earth, they breathe together.

“You’re feeling a little stronger,” Ellie observes.

“I am,” Earth whispers. “Thank you for helping.”

“You’re welcome. I’m going to keep looking for more people to help.”

“Thank you for that, too,” Earth whispers.

They continue breathing together, and Ellie drops off to sleep.

Chapter 8

While she sleeps, Ellie dreams. They’re fuzzy, but clearly important in some way.

When she wakes to birds singing and the sun kissing her skin, Ellie rubs her eyes and sits up.

“I know those dreams last night meant something - something important.”

Before she gets up for the day, Ellie lays on the ground with her eyes closed and asks her inner knowing to show her what the dreams meant.

Suddenly, she opens her eyes wide.

“I get it!” she yells. “This place feels familiar because it’s part of the same woods where I was born. It’s connected to my soul, woven into my being.”

Ellie gets up, runs through the grass and hugs the trees. 

“This is great! No wonder I feel so much lighter here.”

Then she stops and stares up at the sky. 

“But...when will I get to go home?”

Her inner knowing speaks up: “Ellie, Ellie. You’ll be able to go home when your work here is done.”

“That makes sense,” Ellie thinks. Maybe if she’d listened to her inner knowing sooner she could have gone home sooner, but she’s here now and she has work to do. Time to get busy!

Chapter 9

Ellie knows part of her work is to build a community of people to help Earth; people who understand things in ways that are similar to how she does.

But where to find them?

Ellie walks back to the town and meets with Ann again. Ann has the special yellow flowers with her today.

“Let’s find a place to offer these to Earth,” Ellie suggests.

Ann agrees, and they go for a walk in the woods nearby. When they come to a clearing, Ellie and Ann look at each other and nod. In silent agreement, they kneel down and start planting the yellow flowers.

“Thank you,” Earth whispers. Without saying anything Ellie and Ann know they both heard it.

Together, they walk back to town. 

“Ann, you’ve lived here a little while, right?”

“Yes, Ellie I have. Why?”

“Well, I know you said you’ve been trying to help Earth, alone, for a long time, but I’m wondering if there’s a place where we can connect with other people like us. People who will support what we do or join us in the work.”

“That’s a good idea Ellie. I’ve never really looked, but why don’t we start at the library?”

“Okay!” Ellie agrees.

At the library, they explain what they’re looking for to the person at the front desk.

“I know exactly what you mean,” she says. “In fact, I’d be happy to be part of your group.”

“This is great!” Ellie exclaims. “With the three of us working together, the healing we do for Earth will be amplified.”

“It will,” agrees Ann. “And I have another idea. Let’s visit some of the local gardening groups. We might find people there.”

“That’s a great idea!” Ellie shouts. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so loud.”

“That’s okay,” the librarian says. “I’m excited, too.”

“Can we go right now?” Ellie asks.

“Why not?” the librarian looks at her watch. “I can close the library for lunch and put up a sign saying when I’ll be back.”

“Great!” Ann says.

The three of them walk off, hand in hand, a trio of Earth healers on a mission.

Chapter 10

Over the next months and years, Ellie’s community grows. Some people leave and others flow in. What started with one little girl named Ellie has become a movement.

All day long, people visit Ellie’s home. They share healing, bring gifts, take something else to offer Earth somewhere else in the town.

When Ellie goes into town now, people recognize her. 

“She’s that girl who helped our town come back to life,” they say, though they didn’t realize it was sick in the first place, until long after she’d started doing her work.

One day, while Ellie is doing her daily breathing with Earth, Sky, and All Beings, Uncle Crow returns.

“Ellie…” he whispers.
Slowly, Ellie returns to her conscious self and opens her eyes. 

“Hi, Uncle Crow,” she says, excited, but quiet.

“Hi Ellie. You’ve done great work here.”

“Thank you, Uncle.”

“You’ve helped create a community of healers who will continue to care for Earth and her Beings long after you’re gone. You’ve learned to listen to that inner knowing and be mindful of it.”

“I suppose I have,” Ellie realizes.

“And you’ve learned to do it with distractions like noise from the road.”

“Yes,” Ellie agrees. “That part was really hard, but I think it was my consequence for not listening to my inner knowing before coming here.”

“Very good Ellie. And you accepted that consequence with grace. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, Uncle.”

“You’ve done such a great job, Ellie, that I’m going to give you a choice. You can either stay here and continue to do the work you’re doing with the community you’ve built. Or, you can trust them to keep going without you and you can come home to the woods where you were born.”

Ellie’s been longing for home for such a long time that she’s surprised by her answer. 

“Can I think about it for a little bit?”

“Of course Ellie. Talk to Nature. Talk to your community. Then, trust your inner knowing. I will come back next week for your answer. Whatever you decide, we love you, we’re proud of you, and we’ll always be here for you.”

“Thank you, Uncle. I’ll see you next week.”

Chapter 11

Ellie spends the next day talking to Ann and the rest of her community.

The day after that, she talks to the trees, Earth, and the Wild Beings she’s gotten to know while she’s been here.

The next day after that, she lays on the ground and breathes in harmony with all that surrounds her.

The next four days, she walks, plays in the river, sits in the grass, stares at the sky, and converses with her inner knowing.

On the day Uncle Crow comes back, she knows what she wants to do, even though it’s scary.

“Caw!” Uncle Crow lands on a branch above her head. “Have you decided what you’d like to do, child?”

“Yes, Uncle Crow, I have.”

“Tell me.” 

“I think I'm ready to come home, but I’d like to be able to come back here and visit sometimes. Would that be okay?”

“I think we can arrange that, Ellie. Tell me, what made you decide this way?”

“Well, there’s a lot here I love, and the community I helped build is important. Some of them are my friends, so even though they can keep doing the work without me, I’d like to visit them.

“And, although I’ve gotten more used to the noise and the traffic, it still grates on my nerves a little. I’m still longing for that deep silence and the Nature sounds of where I was born.

“Plus, I miss you and Tree, and Owl, and all the Wild Ones. I want to be in your company again.

“I know I’ll always have more learning to do, more healing to share, and my life mission to accomplish. But I think it’s time I do it from home.”

“Very good, Ellie. I can tell that you’ve thought this through, accepted things you can’t change, and have listened to your inner knowing as well as the opinions of others. You may come home and come back here to visit any time you’d like.

And your friends from here are welcome to visit you in the woods, too.”

“They can?!” Ellie squeals with delight. She hadn’t thought about that before. She always thought her birth woods were a holy place where no humans could come.

“I promise, I’ll only invite people who will honor you and all the Wild Ones.”

“We know that, Ellie. That’s why we’re offering it.”

“Thank you, Uncle Crow.” Ellie smiles and picks up her bag. She takes Uncle Crow’s wing and together they fly back to the woods where Ellie was born.