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  • From: Bunjov AT aol.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Plant life ethics --for real
  • Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:31:02 EDT

I believe it...every word.

Being only a wanna-be homesteader, I can only recount my direct experiences
with various house and landscaping plants, but lemme tell ya (AK)...

I have had pothos and philodendron, and some kinds of ivy, and Wandering
Jew, and Airplane plants that would grow so fast overnight that I had to
get up
every morning and continue stringing raffia (or equivalent) all over the
house to keep them at bay. I could literally stand there and see the little
new
leaves forming. I had bougainvilla in big clay pots on the balcony, and it
proliferated, to the amazement of neighbors and visitors.

Then I moved, to a place where I was not so happy, and nothing would grow.
All of a sudden, the cats began to be real pests about whatever I planted,
whereas they'd never been a problem before. No matter how I babied the
plants,
and moved them from place to place, everything eventually turned brown and
died, and now I have a large collection of empty pots.

As I said, I believe every word of it.


In a message dated 10/10/2008 11:05:32 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
crazygardens AT verizon.net writes:

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
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