Unkempt

I wrote elsewhere a while back about my distress over my neighbor "mowing the woods" in front of my property because he thought it looked messy -- we live in a semi-rural neighborhood, it's why I fell in love with the place, it's supposed to appear chaotic and wildly gorgeous! Not only that, but the "messiness" is inherent in promoting a healthier environment:

"The industrialized eye, accustomed to suburban lawns and controlled gardens, generally sees such diverse, visually complex plant communities as chaotic. There appears to be no order or control, only wild, random growth. Regardless, plant communities have spent some 500 million years learning their craft; there is a reason for how they are structured. The more visually complex a plant community, the better it can respond to ecosystem demands and stressors. All ecosystems are dynamic over time in their drive to preserve this kind of 'wildness.' A suburban landscape, not continually forced into an orderly shape, will 'relax.' It will begin rearranging, reassembling, itself immediately; it will begin to look rather unkempt." ... "Disease outbreaks and heavily destructive insect infestations are extremely rare in these kinds of lumpy, visually complex, 'unkempt' ecosystems." ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner in The Lost Language of Plants

I have also been seen as messy or unkempt, especially once I passed my mid-thirties. Maybe that's part of why I protect the messiness of the woods; I feel it as kindred, as part of me.

What if ... ?

I've been reading a variety of books on plant intelligence, from conventional science to innovative experiments to holistic perspectives to sacred intuition, and yesterday's reading--the chapter titled "The Function of Psychotropics in the Ecosystem" from Stephen Harrod Buhner's book Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth--led me to a few "what if" questions that I decided to share.

our volunteer patch of
Philadelphia Fleabane

What if ... one of the ways that people in power began to control others was to deny them the ability to empathically connect with plants, animals, and even other humans by limiting their access to psychotropics? (Studies have shown that "serotonergic neurognostics generate, or perhaps more accurately, regenerate, the natural childlike feelings of empathy, the direct experience of the personhood of the [human and] nonhuman other, by altering sensory gating in important ways.")

What if ... some of the visions of prophets and/or spiritual leaders were a result of plant-assisted journeying (as with current indigenous shamans)?

What if ... one of the reasons for our current drug epidemic is that some people intuit (on a level they aren't aware of) that we need to find our way back to the connective, inter-related oneness of all life? That the so-called escape it provides from our modern society is also part of a journey or return to holistic functionality?

Buhner's book is itself profoundly mind-opening and I highly recommend it. This last of his books is a 500-page tome that I have explored slowly, every chapter gradually leading into the next one -- a beautiful journey.

When Robin Wall Kimmerer (botanist and author of the delightful book Gathering Moss) spoke with Krista Tippett of On Being, she commented that, "science asks us to learn about organisms; traditional knowledge asks us to learn from them." This is a sensational way of bridging the gaps between conventional science, indigenous wisdom, and sacred connection with Gaia.

Some people choose lifestyles that naturally lead them into learning from the earth, from Gaia. Even then, however, their sense of the aliveness of every Being around them can gradually become rigid. We don't have to imbibe psychotropics to alter consciousness, though. Remember daydreaming? Remember pretending? Recall the last time you read a thoroughly engrossing novel or were swept away by a piece of music? That altered your consciousness, because you allowed the meanings, feelings and sensations access (sensory gating). We can do this naturally. We can reconnect with Earth when we offer ourselves the space to do so. Creatives are an obvious example, one that any of us can mirror and then become.

POV to Systems

I was struck how appropriate the following quote could be when applied to other systems besides organ systems (and plant systems, which is the focus of the book); for instance, consider its potential for understanding cultural, political, social, or religious systems, not to mention simply other personalities, and how we can relate to them.

"The closer the reality of the organ system is to your normal point of view, the easier it will be to experience its reality. The farther away it is, the more disturbing it will be. Experientially assuming an extremely different orientation will in itself teach you about the narrowness of your normal point of view. The resistance you have to this new and very different perspective is information about how and how much you cling to your normal perceptions." ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants

The book Secret Teachings of Plants is profoundly moving; I highly recommend it!