Listening to Nature
5.5 Listening to Plants
Scientists Listen to Plants
In 1921 George Washington Carver testified before the Congress House Ways and Means Committee about his peanut plant inventions. He discovered one hundred and ninety-nine peanut products. To what did Carver attribute his creative insights? He listened to plants speaking. In Carver’s own words:
. . . [the Creator] talks to us through these things that he has created [plants] . . . I get . . . so much information in this way . . . nature [has] . . . unlimited broadcasting stations, through which God speaks to us every day . . . if we will only tune in . . .[1]
Carver continues, “All flowers talk to me and so do hundreds of little living things in the woods. I learn what I know by watching and loving everything.”[2]
Carver is not the only scientist that listens to plants. Medical doctor Larry Dossey reports that geneticist and Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, in her research with corn, would:
. . . crawl down the microscope and stand toe to toe with the [corn] genes, getting an up-close look at their behavior . . . feeling for the organism . . . going beyond the boundaries that separate us from other life forms . . .”[3]
This kind of observation and knowing suggests a unique form of empathic listening that the philosopher-scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe describes as a method, “. . . in which data [from nature] could be acquired directly from empathy and introspection.”[4]
The Heart as an Organ of Perception for Listening to Plants
Stephen Buhner, an herbalist, senior researcher for the Foundation of Gaian Studies, and author of nine books, provides insight into how humans empathically listen to plants.[5] Buhner presents elegant, complex, and scientific explanations for how the human heart acts as an organ of perception. The human heart can intuit emotional information and meaning from plants through electromagnetic fields. I attempt to summarize the reasoning for this outstanding claim based on passages from his book, The Secret Teachings of Plants.
The Secret Teachings of Plants
Just as the human brain has a mode of cognition that is “verbal-intellectual-analytical” the heart has a “holistic-intuitive-depth” mode of cognition.[6] All living organisms (humans, plants, animals, rocks) create and radiate electromagnetic fields. The human heart can perceive and interpret these electromagnetic fields. Buhner provides evidence that the heart, in addition to its role in the circulatory system:
. . . is also an endocrine gland producing a variety of hormones . . . has a central nervous system with about twenty percent of heart neural cells of the same kind as those in the brain . . . has its own memory . . . perceives experience before the brain does . . . and creates an electromagnetic field about 5000 times that of the brain, measurable up to ten feet from the body.[7]
When the human heart and the plant’s electromagnetic fields come in “. . . close proximity, the fields entrain or synchronize, and there is an extremely rapid and complex interchange of information . . .”[8] The heart as an organ of perception senses, “. . . specific electromagnetic spectrum carrier waves . . . as a few basic emotions”[9] which, when combined, represent complex emotions. “The heart’s waveforms, experienced as emotions . . . have embedded meaning . . . [that] can be extracted from the emotional flow just as meaning is extracted from the visual and auditory flow.”[10] Those meanings in the electromagnetic fields experienced as emotions, “. . . affect the heart’s rate, hormonal cascade, pressure waves, and neurochemical activity.”[11]
Unfortunately, human language of the electromagnetic information sensed by the heart as emotional meaning is very limited and poorly understood in modern society. However, there is a process of listening (sensory experience, feelings, and meaning-making) that humans can practice to:
. . . hook yourself into a living thing [like a plant], you anchor yourself to the nonlinear flow of its life. As your connection is deepened, you begin to flow with its life patterns; you absorb its meanings, intelligence, and particular points of view.[12]
In sum, the human heart can perceive the electromagnetic field waves of plants as information, emotions, and meanings, which, with practice, can be translated into human language. This is one explanation for how humans can listen to plants.
Listening to Plant Activity
Buhner devotes chapters eight through ten in his book to describing how to listen to plants through sensory perception, feelings, and gaining knowledge.[13]
Listening to Plants Practice
For this activity, I paraphrase and quote parts of chapter eight from Buhner’s book on the sensory perception of listening to plants in nature.
Before beginning, I suggest consulting a field guide,[14] or taking the field guide with you, and inviting a person familiar with plants in the local area to accompany you to ensure that the plant you are listening to is non-poisonous.
Take a slow and mindful walk in a natural setting near your home. The wilderness is ideal, but any forested area (e.g., a park or playground) will do. Observe which plant interests you the most. Sit comfortably beside the plant and open your sensorium. Let your eyes focus on the plant’s leaves. Notice their shape . . . the stem, its color . . . do not classify . . . speak as if you were a four-year-old. . . touch the leaf, feel it with your fingers . . . let the sensation . . . fill you . . . Bend closer to the plant, so its leaf is near your nose. Rub it lightly across your skin . . . Now smell . . . Savor it . . . [let it] enter you . . . hold the living leaf in your mouth . . . how does it feel to your tongue . . . take a small piece of the leaf and eat it. How does it taste? . . . notice how your body responds . . .[15]
This listening activity aims to perceive and sense rather than think, name, and classify. This initial phase of the listening process is followed by feeling the electromagnetic pulses of the plant. Buhner writes, “. . . by allowing yourself to describe these plant-generated feelings in any way they come to you . . . [you take] the step of letting them come into consciousness.”[16] The final step in listening to a plant moves from feeling to knowledge. In this step, “. . . the analytical capacities of the brain are allowed to generate–of themselves–linguistic descriptions that capture the essence of the thing, the meanings that are encoded within the feelings you have felt.”[17] The heart and brain work together creating, “. . . gestalt-pictures of understanding by using its stores of memories, information, and experiences.”[18] Buhner further develops this method of listening to plants in additional chapters on plant medicines for healing in his book, The Secret Teachings of Plants.
Listening to Plants as a Psychedelic Experience
This is Your Mind on Plants is the title of journalist Michael Pollan’s book on how some plants change human consciousness.[19] By consuming certain plants, our sense of reality (our consciousness) shifts, and our consequent ability to relate and listen to life is also transformed. This is a controversial topic for a book on listening since many of the mind-altering plants are illegal in many countries, including the United States. Yet, the impact of these plants on our consciousness and ability to listen is profound and merits our attention and understanding.
Pollen’s book summarizes three classes of molecules in plants that alter human consciousness.[20] Morphine in the opium poppy is a sedative and decreases many kinds of pain in the body. However, as of this writing, growing poppy plants for the purpose of harvesting the seeds to make morphine is illegal in the United States and can result in heavy fines and up to ten years in prison. On the opposite end of the spectrum, caffeine in coffee and tea is a stimulant. Caffeine from the coffee bean and tea leaf is legal in the United States and provides an energetic boost to the body and mind. Caffeine is also highly addictive and can interfere with sleep. Finally, mescaline in the peyote plant and the San Pedro cacti is a hallucinogen. Consuming peyote buttons creates stunning visual perceptions of immediate experience. Consumption of peyote and the San Pedro cacti (except for Native American rituals that use peyote) is illegal in the United States.
I am not aware of any controlled research studies that specifically examine the effect of morphine, caffeine, and mescaline on human listening. For those interested in exploring how these plants, and other psychedelics [21] impact their consciousness and listening, I recommend proceeding with caution. First, be informed. Read James Fadiman’s The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys, and Neal Goldsmith’s Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development.[22] Also, consider other ways to safely explore how altered states of consciousness impact listening through meditation.[23]
Listening While Eating and Drinking a Plant
Plant Altering Consciousness Practice
A simple and legal experiment to assess the way plants alter consciousness and influence our ability to listen to nature, self, others, and the Divine is to mindfully consume part of a plant.[24]
For the adventurous, slowly and mindfully consume a small bite of a fresh garlic clove, a bit of raw ginger root, or a tiny portion of a ripe red chile pepper.
Another less dramatic approach is to create and consume an infusion of fresh herbs. Begin by gathering a handful of fresh herb leaves and infusing them in a covered cup of hot water for twenty minutes before mindfully sipping the brew. Start with a handful of lemon balm, chamomile, or any variety of mint.[25] Notice how the plant feels in your brain as you imbibe the infusion. What happens to your body temperature, pulse, skin, and energy level when the plant settles in your stomach after five to ten minutes?
In short, listen to the communications of the plant within your body and mind. See if you can determine how your individual change in consciousness influences the way you listen to yourself, others, nature, and the Divine.
- Gary R. Kremer, ed. George Washington Carver: In His Own Words (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1991), 135, 143. ↵
- Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 136. ↵
- Larry Dossey, One Mind: How Our Individual Mind is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why it Matters (Carlsbad: Hay House, 2013), 203. ↵
- Larry Dossey, One Mind (Carlsbad: Hay House, 2013), 203. ↵
- Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants (Rochester: Bear and Company, 2004). ↵
- Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants. ↵
- Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants (Rochester: Bear and Company, 2004), 70-115. ↵
- Ibid., 90. ↵
- Ibid., 93. ↵
- Ibid., 95. ↵
- Ibid., 115. ↵
- Ibid., 158-159. ↵
- Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants. ↵
- There are many excellent field guides for plant identification. Choose one with color photographs and thick descriptions. The National Audubon Society has a series of field guides that I recommend. For instance, for wildflowers in North America, John W. Thieret, William A. Niering, and Nancy C. Olmstead, National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers Eastern Region (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). For general plant identification, I recommend Thomas J. Elpel, Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification (Pony: HOP Press, 2012). And for children, I recommend the delightful story of Shanleya's Quest. Thomas J. Elpel, Shanleya's Quest: A Botany Adventure for Kids Ages 9 to 99 (Pony: HOPS Press, 2005). Check with your local county extension office if you live in the United States for more information about plants in your vicinity, https://pickyourown.org/countyextensionagentoffices.htm. ↵
- Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants (Rochester: Bear and Company, 2004), 141-146. Never eat a plant you have not positively identified. When in doubt, do not eat it! There are protocols for testing an unidentifiable plant, but these are beyond the scope of this book. Consult a nature survival guide for details, such as John Wiseman SAS Survival Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere (New York: William Morrow, 2014), 113-114. ↵
- Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants, 148-149. ↵
- Ibid., 170. ↵
- Ibid. ↵
- Michael Pollan, This is Your Mind on Plants (New York: Penguin Press, 2021). ↵
- Pollan, This is Your Mind on Plants. ↵
- James Fadiman defines psychedelics as, "The general term for the spectrum of natural [plant] and synthesized conscious-altering substances . . ." James Fadiman, The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys (Rochester: Park Street Press, 2011), 16. ↵
- Fadiman, The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, and Neal Goldsmith, Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development (Rochester: Healing Arts Press, 2011). ↵
- For other ways to safely alter consciousness using meditation, see the next chapter on listening to the Goddess-God-the Divine. For additional non-drug methods to alter consciousness, see Edward Rosenfeld, The Book of Highs: 255 Ways to Alter Your Consciousness without Drugs (New York: Workman Publishing, 2018). ↵
- Note for those with any kind of allergies. Check with your doctor or pharmacist before ingesting any new plants. ↵
- If you are not in a locale where fresh herbs are available, you can find them in most open-air markets, farmer's markets, and some health food and grocery stores. Dried herbs are available year-round in the spice section of most grocery stores. Again, for those with plant allergies, take care to consult with your doctor before trying any new herbal tea. ↵