Midweek Gentle Turning Practice: Speaking with Plants (part 1)
Happy Wednesday! As part of your Weaver subscription to This Isn’t it, I’m bringing you a 5- minute gentle turning practice for your midweek. You get a prompt for a meditative activity for disengaging from the powerarchy and connecting more closely with yourself and your surroundings. You may find it helpful to have a journal at hand, but it’s certainly not required. I hope these practices of body and heart bring you peace and connection in the middle of whatever storm is blowing around you at the moment.
Amy Farnham
Plants are always in my heart, but especially in spring. Depending on how tuned in you are to the world of botany, you may or may not know that it is being turned upside down at the moment. A whole wave of recent discoveries indicate that plants have intelligence. Plants can (in their own way): 1. See (sense not just light but color, shape, and maybe more) 2. Hear (perhaps the reason most flowers are shaped like satellite dishes is to be more receptive to sound waves…) 3. Sense touch 4. Smell 5. Remember. 6. Plan …. Oh, and they can sense gravity, moisture, and maybe even electromagnetic fields. Also, they can communicate, with their own species and sometimes other species.
I’m not going to get into the science of it here because, well, I’m not a scientist. There are other, smarter folks whose writing you can read on the topic. I put a list of books at the bottom of this email in case you’re interested in diving in. 👇 For today, I just want you to sit with the thought.
Plants are intelligent and aware.
Let the idea sink in and roll it around in your head, in your heart. How does it feel? Warm? Interesting? Scary? Intimidating? There’s no right or wrong, just awareness.
Now, find a plant near you, if you haven’t already. Maybe you have a favorite houseplant. Maybe there’s a tree outside. You don’t necessarily have to be in the same space. If there’s not one nearby, imagine a plant you know well or one you knew in the past. Maybe you had a favorite tree as a child.
Imagine the plant is telling you a story about itself, about the alien world and perspective it occupies. What questions do you have for it? Here are some that come to mind fo rme: What is it like to lose a leaf? What does the plant like most about the sun? What is the plant gossip in your house or yard these days? Does it remember what life was like as a seed? If it’s a perennial, what is it like to be dormant in the winter? Imagine its answers. Try to use all 5 human senses. If you like, include some of the senses it experiences that are less familiar to you as a human–gravity, moisture, and maybe even electromagnetic fields.
If you like, write it down. Or pick a few key words and write them on a sticky note. Put it somewhere you’ll see it throughout the day and just let you mind play with the idea, tell snippets of stories.
Bonus activity: share your story with a family member or friend.
Thanks so much for subscribing! It really means the world to me to be on this journey together. If you enjoyed this midweek change of mind, please forward to a friend! It’s a free gift—they can read or listen to the meditation in the forwarded email even if they’re not a subscriber.
If a friend forwarded this to you and you want to learn more, check out my site. I unravel the domination mindset that permeates western culture to reveal healthier life ways and deeper connection to ourselves and our world.
Wishing you a week of meaningful moments,
Amy
P.S. Want to learn more about plant intelligence or awareness? Here are some of my favorite books on the topic, all for non-scientists:
The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence, a collection of essays and poems edited by John C. Ryan, Patrícia Vieira, and Monica Gagliano
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard