During the COVID-19-related lockdowns, Kelly Williams found a symbol of resilience in the form of a pinecone growing on a pine tree in her backyard.
Now a retired educator, Williams has taken the lessons she learned from the pinecone combined with Chakra Yoga and written them into a story for children.
“When we were taking time outside we’d notice the pinecone that withstood many, many storms,” said Williams. “It was kind of cool to see that one pinecone kind of hung on for more than two years. And it became symbolic for me.”
Called The Resilient Pinecone, Williams' first children’s book went up for sale online Nov. 18 and her printed copies arrived at the end of November.
“It was very exciting … like Christmas,” said The Blue Mountains resident. She moved into her Thornbury home full-time after retiring from her 32-year career in education. When she retired, she was a Halton Catholic District School Board principal.
“I am really passionate about wellness, mental health and wellness for children, in particular, and that’s part of where the story came from,” she said. “Just the importance of building resilience with children.”
The story follows a child named Ajna, who over a period of two years spends time outside in nature and, while outside, Ajna asks questions to a pinecone.
Ajna has no specified gender in the book, and has neither masculine nor feminine clothing or appearance.
Williams wanted the main character to be relatable.
“I wanted to have a character that most people could see themselves in,” she said.
The pinecone represents Mother Nature talking to the child and instilling wisdom, a narrator helps tell the story and set the scenes. The story also has Ajna exploring yoga poses and Chakra teachings, which is another passion for Williams.
“Ajna is moving outside, and basically learning to be more resilient, and recognizing that we can do hard things,” said Williams.
It’s a need she saw throughout her career as a principal, seeing kids in her office who were struggling.
“I just noticed that the resilience isn’t always there,” said Williams. “It really does take a village of people to support children to build up resilience to have that bounce-back … I think the global pandemic just made it more challenging.”
She said isolating during the pandemic made her realize the importance of slowing down, and spending time outdoors.
She wrote the story over the last year, and spent time working with an illustrator, Danielle Hartgers, who lives in the London area of Ontario.
Because she had written the book and had it illustrated, Williams went the self-publishing route and published the book via Amazon.
She has ideas in her head to make the story a trilogy of books and is hoping to be able to get them into schools, and to use her background as an educator to write lesson plans to accompany the stories.
Her vision is also to add yoga practice to the lesson plans.
The book is currently available online through Williams’ website at kellywilliams.love, or on Amazon.ca.
