Communication with plants (long)

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This is an article I found online. Many should find it quite interesting.

 

 

 

Dave

 

 

 

Semper in fæcibus sumus, sole profundum variat.

 

 

 

 

 

Communicating With Plants

Reprinted from KAJAMA Online Journal of the Psyche

By Valerie Ann Worwood

8-29-6

 

 

When we suddenly remember to water our plants, it is because the plants send

us a message across the room, " Hey, don't forget about us! " Why shouldn't

they talk to us? We talk to them. People in their high-rise apartments or in

their gardens say to their plants, " You look lovely today, " or " What's up,

you're looking a bit off-color, " and then fuss around them, administering

love and fertilizer - organic, of course.

 

Chatting to plants is a regular occurrence, even for royalty, and some plant

aficionados play them music, taking care to choose something they like.

 

Edward Bach, the man who invented Bach Flower Remedies, attributed certain

medicinal qualities to plants because the plants themselves told him what

they were. An entire Western healing system is thus based on plant

communication, and it has gone on to inspire much more plant-human

exploration.

 

Meanwhile, in many indigenous cultures, it is considered wrong to become a

healer without first having dreams or visions relating to the plants used to

heal. In other words, the spiritual realm is seen as the source of accurate

information.

 

Cultures that are very much in touch with the earth and all that grows on it

believe totally that plants have a spirit. Obviously a plant doesn't have a

voice box and mouth with which to chat, so to communicate, we have to get

into the common space we share, the spiritual one.

 

If you want to know what a plant can do, go to the source and ask it. To

indigenous peoples, that's the logical thing to do. There are variations on

this cultural theme: some people believe the spirit of the individual plant

conveys the information; some believe each species of plant has a kind of

overall spirit that communicates; some believe there are a variety of nature

spirits; others believe it is the voice of the Creator who speaks. These are

all variations on a theme: you can speak to, or through, a plant.

 

The Yaqui people of northwestern Mexico have an oral tradition going back

four thousand years, to 2000 BCE. Around 1500 CE, because of the oppressive

actions of the Spanish conquistadors, the sacred traditions had to become

secret. Seven lineages were chosen to preserve them, through sacred oral and

family traditions.

 

Through many generations the sacred way of the Yaqui was kept underground as

the bullets flew overhead. Now that we are older and wiser, hopefully the

knowledge can be revealed. Indeed, it is time for us to know it.

 

A man who carries this knowledge, passed to him by his father and mother, is

Yaqui traditional healer Cachora Guitemea, a highly respected Native

American elder. It was a great privilege for me to be invited to spend a few

days in the Mexican desert with Cachora to learn about sacred plant

medicine. We were accompanied by both our daughters and the mutual friend

who introduced us.

 

Although Cachora is more than eighty years old and has white hair, you would

never guess his age - either from his appearance or from his extraordinary

energy. His face is lit up with a joy that defies time, and despite his

boyish love of jokes, you never forget that you are in the presence of great

wisdom and positive intent.

 

Cachora teaches that we must respect plants. Permission must be sought from

the plant before picking it, and if the plant is required for ceremonial

purposes, sacred chants and mantras are said aloud, in honor of the plant or

tree. All plants have souls and spirits that guard and protect the species.

It is not that every individual plant has its own, but that there is a

species-spirit that has a place within plant hierarchy, depending on the

sacredness of the purpose the plant is put to.

 

Many plants also have animal spirits attached to them, says Cachora. The

connection may be derived from the fact that an animal eats from the plants

and thus distributes the seeds because the animal eats smaller pests upon

the plants, or because the animal uses the plants as food and medicine.

 

Cachora is quite plain about the underlying principle of healing herbs. He

says that healing takes place when a person connects to the plant spirit,

becoming the plant and understanding its personality. Using spirit as the

method of transference, the plant's energy or healing properties are

transmitted to the person.

 

First, the spirit of a particular species has to become known, its use and

purposes memorized, its strengths and weaknesses understood.

 

Then in times of ill health, as body, mind and spirit are one, healing can

take place by calling on the spirit and taking into one's mind the spiritual

essence of the plant.

 

Plant life must be respected and spoken to, says Cachora, for it is part of

the universe, part of ourselves, part of our heritage. I understand this to

mean that everyone evolved through the plant, and through the plant cycle of

crystalline life. We are all part of the same consciousness pool.

 

Getting to know plants involves looking at them closely, communicating with

them with honesty, integrity, gentleness.

 

Human thought is the greatest obstacle to plant communication.

 

You have to get beyond thought, into empathy and feeling through focus and

concentration.

 

On this amazing journey, I encountered a magnificent six-foot-tall white

sage bush, a grandfather of the species, having seeded many generations of

plants, an elder in its own right. It was so vibrant the leaves seemed to

send out showers of sparks, but I was rather taken aback when the large bush

bowed its body to greet us.

 

As there was not a hint of a breeze, I turned to my friend beside me to

verify what had happened, and could tell from her wide-open eyes that she

had witnessed the same action! Then the sage spoke to me in a silent block

of communication, clear and precise.

 

There are many indigenous peoples in the world who feel the spirit in nature

and work with it. Certain themes emerge. There is the idea that some plants

should not be picked because they are too sacred, that is, too old and

valuable to their " tribe. " Just like us, plants need their wise elders.

 

They say you should ask a plant if it is okay to pick it. A plant may say no

or it may agree, but it is respectful to explain who the plant is for, and

what is wrong with the person. The plant will then know it is not being

sacrificed for no good reason.

 

There is also the general idea that the spirit of the plant is a communal

one, that it is not an individual plant that has a spirit but the species as

a whole. When you communicate with a plant, you communicate with its

species-spirit, which at the same time can be expressed as an individual.

So when I spoke to the large sage bush, I spoke to the spirit of the

species, but through the wise old bush who, from experience, happens to hold

a great deal of communal species wisdom and can express more information,

more clearly.

 

When you think about it, this is not dissimilar to the way horticulturists

and gardeners view the plants in their care. Older plants have an authority

that seedlings do not. Also, each species has its own character, and

individuals within the species have their particular character. We speak of

animals in much the same way, saying a breed of dog might be generally " good

with children, " but individuals within the species might be good (or not)

with children in general or with a particular child.

 

Many Western gardeners " tune in " to their plants in essentially the same way

as do native peoples. Looking at a bed of roses next to a bed of hollyhocks,

we might perceive each species to have a different emotional tone. Each

looks different, grows different, has different kinetic qualities, and

different characters in much the same way people do. The more species we

grow, and the longer we work with them, the more our " instinct " about plants

develops (as instinct develops over time when using essential oils.)

 

The difference between our approach and indigenous peoples'

 

is the effort we put into learning about plants. We'll spend time reading

gardening books, while they will sit with a plant for hours, days even,

getting to know it. They'll bring it little presents in gratitude for what

it offers, in respect, and to let the plant know they care. They go to

plants as a pupil goes to a wise person, to learn. Western horticulturists,

on the other hand, often feel that they are the holders of information, and

that it is their job to control the plant, which they see as their property.

 

We know from the concept of companion gardening that plants can influence

each other in terms of preventing pests and disease. This is often

accomplished through scent, as aroma molecules from one plant waft over

another and exert their beneficial influence.

 

Stephen Harrod Buhner's Sacred Plant Medicine provides an interesting

anecdote on this subject. He was sitting with a lichen called usnea, which

has powerful antibiotic qualities, when suddenly the usually subtle " feeling

tone " of the usnea increased in intensity. Buhner felt his " personal

boundaries " dissolving, and the plant appeared as a youngish man.

 

The plant-man told him that usnea's primary role is to keep the earth's lung

system healthy by being an antibiotic for the trees on which it grows,

adding that as a by-product of this intended role, usnea can be used to

treat human lung infections. Imagine how much more we could learn about

plant interaction, and how many new medicines we could discover, if more of

us could hear what plants have to say.

 

______

 

Excerpted from Aromatherapy for the Soul: Healing the Spirit with Fragrance

and Essential Oils, copyright 2006 by Valerie Ann Worwood. Reprinted with

permission of New World Library, Novato, CA, 94949, 1-800-972-6657. This

book can be purchased from your favorite bookseller or at the publisher's

website.

 

excerpted with permission from Aromatherapy for the Soul

 

Reprinted from KAJAMA Online Journal of the Psyche August 21, 2006

http://www.kajama.com/ _________________________________

 

Human-Plant Interaction

 

Valerie Ann Worwood

 

reprinted with permission

 

Plants are sensitive, sentient beings. There has been a great deal of

research in this area, starting in 1966 with Cleve Backster, then a New York

lie-detector expert working for law-enforcement agencies.

 

One classic Backster experiment involved plant murder. He put two plants

next to each other in a room, along with six of his students who each drew

from a hat a piece of paper, one of which had instructions for the murder.

The people with the five blank pieces of paper left the room with Backster.

In the room, the " murderer " ripped one of the plants to shreds.

 

Backster then returned, attached the remaining plant to a polygraph machine,

and called the students into the room, one by one. There was no response on

the machine to the five innocent students, but when the murderer entered,

the pen flew across the paper as the silent " witness " recognized the guilty

party.

 

The implications of Backster's work on plants are staggering enough, but he

has also done experiments with other life-forms including eggs, shrimp, and

human mouth cells - the implications of which are equally amazing. Backster

had to conclude that all nature is essentially unified, not separate.

 

The planet hums. It emits a low-frequency radio signal, the earth's

vibration, which is known as the Shumann resonance. It can be detected

coming off of trees. Researchers in America were curious to know whether

this vibration could be altered with human thought and feeling, and

connected an oak tree to a machine described as being similar to those used

to measure brain waves in humans.

 

A group of people circled the tree and, saying a traditional native prayer,

sent it love. Apparently, the signal went off the scale.

 

Although the measurements can't really say whether the tree was happy to

receive this love or wanted everyone to go away, clearly some form of

interaction was taking place.

 

Plants respond to human thought and to the human energy field, and you can

prove it for yourself. In the thought experiment devised by Marcel Vogel,

you pick three leaves from the same tree or plant and place them by the side

of your bed. Vogel put them on glass, presumably so he could view the

underside without touching the leaves, but a sheet of paper will do.

 

Every morning when you wake, concentrate on just two of the leaves, sending

them love and pleading with them to live. Imagine them green and healthy

looking. Ignore the third leaf. Don't touch any of them for seven days, by

which time the leaves you concentrated on should still be looking fresh,

while the ignored leaf should be shriveled.

 

Do the experiment when you wake because that's when you're most physically

and mentally relaxed. It's absolutely vital to approach this with a pure

heart, because plants know what you think. Don't try to fool them because

you'll only be fooling yourself. Expect the experiment to work.

 

In the energy experiment devised by Daphne Beall, you put water in a

container and energize it by putting both hands around it without touching

it. Relax and visualize white-light coming out of your hands, into the

container. Imagine the water becoming bright white, and do this for ten

minutes. Then put a tomato in the water.

 

Get a second container, fill it with water, and put another tomato in it

without thinking about it at all. Leave both containers overnight and in the

morning take the tomatoes out of the water and place them where they can sit

for three weeks without being moved. Put labels nearby so you know which is

which, and wait to see what happens!

 

An energy connects us to plants. In some people it is very obvious, as when

they transform a neglected piece of earth, as if with fairy dust, into a

resplendent garden. We say they have a " green thumb. " But everyone has

empathy for the glory of nature, natural gardeners or not. There is a

magnificence there we can plug into, and do.

 

It is difficult to see which particular field of study should research the

subject of human-plant interaction. It involves the study of light, physics,

astro-physics, botany, biology, harmonics, electromagnetics, hydrology,

mineralogy, and a dozen other disciplines, plus neurology, philosophy,

spirituality, theology, and psychology, to name a few.

 

Perhaps that is why the field is so little researched - we don't know whose

academic territory it is! The answer may be, of course, that it is

everyone's territory, because there is only one territory, in that we are

all part of the connecting whole.

 

_________

 

Excerpted from Aromatherapy for the Soul: Healing the Spirit with Fragrance

and Essential Oils, copyright 2006 by Valerie Ann Worwood. Reprinted with

permission of New World Library, Novato, CA, 94949, 1-800-972-6657. This

book can be purchased from your favorite bookseller or at the publisher's

website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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