Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Plant life ethics --for real

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Wendy" <crazygardens AT verizon.net>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Plant life ethics --for real
  • Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:04:50 -0400

Yes, Bev, they do communicate through a "collective mind". It is almost impossible to detect anything from a single specimen, however, when you are in a big greenhouse where there are hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of a single species, their "thoughts", "feelings" and "emotions" can become apparent and sometimes so overwhelming that it can bring you to your knees. I worked in a large commercial greenhouse one season as an assistant grower and I can tell you some first hand accounts of the interactions of the plants with the workers there. There are people who seem to be able to pick up on their form of "communication" and there are people who cannot. I have wondered if the difference is in the individual people or that the plants "choose" to "communicate" with some people and not others. Whatever the case, I am absolutely sure there is some form of "sentience" in the plant kingdom that we have very little understanding. I have put some words in parenthesis because am not sure if those words accurately convey the meaning behind what is actually happening. They are just the words I have that come close to what I mean. I found that those of us that could experience their "communication" often kept mum about it. It was best because those who could not sometimes made unkind comments about us and referred to us as "hittin' the peyote". How people reacted to the plants "communications" differed depending on their personal beliefs and personalities. For example, I saw one very religious man emerge from a greenhouse obviously shaken but smiling, and said to me, "You know, sometimes you can actually feel god in there." I saw one young girl come dashing from a greenhouse, in a totally "freaked out" state of mind and yelled to me, "I QUIT! There are SPOOKS in there!" My personal feelings are that it is the "life force" that joins everyone and everything together that we pick up on. Some people call it the Supernatural, some people call it Mother Nature, some people call it God. I'm not sure what it is, but there is definitely something there that is not us, and yet, I feel, is us also.

Wendy



Very interesting..
thanks Sage, that sounds like a book I should find.
As to my post, I responded to Bob's, and Ray tagged onto mine.
I really don't see any conflict from what I believe and what you and Ray
believe. I do know that plants communicate through a collective mind of
sorts. I hadn't heard about training plants to open doors, I'll have to
look into that.

Bev

eureka AT hctc.net wrote:
Bev,

Sorry, I don't think I saw your initial post, I came in on
Bob's and then read Ray's. I'll have to go back and look
for yours to see what you said.

As for egos, the people I've studied with don't recognize
an individual plant ego, but more of a collective
consciousness within a genus/species. So, they would say
that all roses have one conscious mind, thistles another.
I think individual plants can have personality, but from a
life purpose standpoint they are working together from a
collective.

Stephen Harrod Buhner visited with many medicine men
around the world in indigenous tribes and asked them how
they new a certain plant was good for a certain ailment.
They all said "the plants told me". Some of this goes back
to the doctrine of signatures. For instance, most of the
plants that treat cardiovascular problems are
red-flowering, sedative plants are blue flowering, urinary
tract yellow flowering, etc. By reading their form and
noting where they grow you learn more about particular
uses.

Some of his interesting studies included how keystone
plants "call" other plants into an ecosystem. Ironwood is
one of those plants that sets up first and changes the
environment and then the other desert plants follow. In
college we called them pioneer and successional plants but
we never got into the mechanics of how it happens. He also
talks about the intelligence of plants as the original
"chemical factories" with the ability to produce one
substance in the day to attract one kind of pollinator,
and another by night to attract a different one. When you
start looking at these processes you begin to see plants
do make choices.

If you read Tompkins you will remember odd experiements
where philodendrons were supposedly trained to open garage
doors, etc. But Buhner's work is more accessible for the
scientific mind and bridges the gap between it and what
might be considered more esoteric. I do recommend the
book.


--
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from
the government and I'm here to help.'" Ronald Reagan
_______________________________________________
Homestead list and subscription:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
Change your homestead list member options:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/crazygardens%40verizon.net
View the archives at:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead










Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page