I often wonder if, rather than waiting for science to confirm it all so we can believe it, we just accepted it. And in accepting it, just started engaging in the conversation. The shift from being in a forest with the mindset: I wonder if it is sentient - to: the sentience is all around me - is a huge shift of experience. Talking to trees I don’t think comes from learning from an instrument. It’s much simpler - just give that big beautiful being a hug, share your love and go from there. The rest… you work out as you go and learn each other’s language. That’s been my journey, and there is no going back 😊
Totally agree, I think there's definitely something to the idea that what we believe in automatically becomes more real and apparent in our lives (and god appears to those who believe, etc.) so we can't just wait for science to confirm this. Though I firmly believe it will continue to and eventually will prove that magic and divinity, in every sense, has been real and with us this whole time. Thank you for reading and sharing, and best wishes on your own journey!
This makes me so incredibly happy! Have you seen the guy who uses biodata sonification to talk to plants? Here’s one of his videos. It’s the coolest thing. It reminds me of using a spirit box to talk to ghosts. The plants are so chatty!
wow I love this!! there are definitely some similarities between ghosts and nature, the spiritual world is so much vaster and stranger and more wonderful than we know 🌱
I read the title and was like - ahhh yeahhhhhh - it always astounds me at how much people don't realise this! Thanks for bringing their voices to more people...
Congrats on jumping off the anthropocenteic train and considering all of Life's sentience. The answer you're looking for is experiential and participatory. I learned a great deal when I started practicing shamanism. <wink>
I've been drawn to shamanism for a while, and it's definitely super relevant here. I think this is why we need ceremonies and to revive this art on a mainstream level! Plenty of people are ~hearing these things and they don't know how to process them in a modernity that pretends it can't hear at all. :)
Two things I have learned in my bioacoustics class this quarter: mycelium respond to songs, thunder, and distant footsteps (Paul Stamens); and the reason humans have such a limited range of hearing is because it was most important to our survival to understand each other, less so the environment (David Haskell). There's some profound beauty in both of those things, and in the idea that the world is always communicating with us.
Wow!! I love both of these. Mycelium is definitely very aware and communicative 👀 so magical and strange to think of all the songs around us that we can’t hear but possibly sense. Also a bioacoustics class sounds absolutely amazing, I’d love to hear more!!
Wow thank you so much, this is a complement of the highest order! So glad it brought up synchronicities for you; I really believe those are ways the divine shows itself to us :)
I love the way you weave science together with spirit to reconnect us with the magic of reality. Thanks for this Monday reminder to wake up and listen!
Thank you so much for reading! I really do think blending these two things is the key to connecting with the “magic of reality,” as you so eloquently put it :)
I’m glad you’re giving voice to this - my world changed completely when I realized that plants are listening and speaking. Just tonight I walked outside at dusk and said hello to the sagebrush at the edges of the driveway. Thanking them for being here. I’m always filled with a very deep joy when I take the time to communicate and commune in this way with the wildness.
So beautiful! It's definitely an idea informed by books like Braiding Sweetgrass and Indigenous ideas about how much the world is communicating with us. This is such a lovely practice, and what a nice way of developing kinship with your local plants :) thanks for reading!
Maybe some part of us can hear the earth screaming 😭😭😭 omg, I loved this so much and had to instantly subscribe. You are of my people. 🩷🙏🏻🌳 I cannot wait to read more.
If the lactobacillus in a yoghurt emits negative energy when we stir jam into it, imagine the complexity of messages coming from our bodies and every single person we walk past. Thank you for this beautiful piece.
Wow I love this insight. Yes everything is radiating a specific song + frequency. It’s too much, and if we heard it we’d probably go mad (I suspect many people called mad, or mystic, in the past were in touch with these frequencies as well). A tiny pathogen or a bit of mold or a passing mood can change everything. Thank you for reading and sharing your reflection!
I often wonder if, rather than waiting for science to confirm it all so we can believe it, we just accepted it. And in accepting it, just started engaging in the conversation. The shift from being in a forest with the mindset: I wonder if it is sentient - to: the sentience is all around me - is a huge shift of experience. Talking to trees I don’t think comes from learning from an instrument. It’s much simpler - just give that big beautiful being a hug, share your love and go from there. The rest… you work out as you go and learn each other’s language. That’s been my journey, and there is no going back 😊
Totally agree, I think there's definitely something to the idea that what we believe in automatically becomes more real and apparent in our lives (and god appears to those who believe, etc.) so we can't just wait for science to confirm this. Though I firmly believe it will continue to and eventually will prove that magic and divinity, in every sense, has been real and with us this whole time. Thank you for reading and sharing, and best wishes on your own journey!
Cool. I recently wrote about this for an academic paper which has now been accepted for publication. I’ll share the link when it comes online.
Thanks Mal
This makes me so incredibly happy! Have you seen the guy who uses biodata sonification to talk to plants? Here’s one of his videos. It’s the coolest thing. It reminds me of using a spirit box to talk to ghosts. The plants are so chatty!
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT28aP8Ye/
wow I love this!! there are definitely some similarities between ghosts and nature, the spiritual world is so much vaster and stranger and more wonderful than we know 🌱
So true!
Holy crap that was wild!!! I have chills
It's so cool!! I have to figure out how to get my hands on one. I want my houseplants to tell me when they're pissed at me.
Wow, that’s wild!!!!
So cool!
I read the title and was like - ahhh yeahhhhhh - it always astounds me at how much people don't realise this! Thanks for bringing their voices to more people...
Thank you sooo much Cari! So glad it resonated in that way:)) thanks for doing your part as well!!!
Everything speaks! It always blew me away how inner culture we were taught treat nature as something inanimate. Everything speaks.
Congrats on jumping off the anthropocenteic train and considering all of Life's sentience. The answer you're looking for is experiential and participatory. I learned a great deal when I started practicing shamanism. <wink>
I've been drawn to shamanism for a while, and it's definitely super relevant here. I think this is why we need ceremonies and to revive this art on a mainstream level! Plenty of people are ~hearing these things and they don't know how to process them in a modernity that pretends it can't hear at all. :)
Two things I have learned in my bioacoustics class this quarter: mycelium respond to songs, thunder, and distant footsteps (Paul Stamens); and the reason humans have such a limited range of hearing is because it was most important to our survival to understand each other, less so the environment (David Haskell). There's some profound beauty in both of those things, and in the idea that the world is always communicating with us.
Wow!! I love both of these. Mycelium is definitely very aware and communicative 👀 so magical and strange to think of all the songs around us that we can’t hear but possibly sense. Also a bioacoustics class sounds absolutely amazing, I’d love to hear more!!
I love when people talk about the more-than-human world and how it speaks to us in myriad ways. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for reading!! So glad it resonated!
Ah... this is the origin of poetry.
Yes!!!
So, so beautifully written. Shades of Inayat Khan here. A synchronicity of things I've been absorbing recently.
"Perhaps forests are really choirs that we cannot hear — symphonies of invisible signals, webs of tongues carried on invisible vibrations."
Wow thank you so much, this is a complement of the highest order! So glad it brought up synchronicities for you; I really believe those are ways the divine shows itself to us :)
I love the way you weave science together with spirit to reconnect us with the magic of reality. Thanks for this Monday reminder to wake up and listen!
Thank you so much for reading! I really do think blending these two things is the key to connecting with the “magic of reality,” as you so eloquently put it :)
I’m glad you’re giving voice to this - my world changed completely when I realized that plants are listening and speaking. Just tonight I walked outside at dusk and said hello to the sagebrush at the edges of the driveway. Thanking them for being here. I’m always filled with a very deep joy when I take the time to communicate and commune in this way with the wildness.
So beautiful! It's definitely an idea informed by books like Braiding Sweetgrass and Indigenous ideas about how much the world is communicating with us. This is such a lovely practice, and what a nice way of developing kinship with your local plants :) thanks for reading!
I’m going to listen more carefully from now on. What a fascinating article.
“Perhaps forests are choirs we cannot hear.” Wondrous!
An ear-opening piece!
Brilliant
Maybe some part of us can hear the earth screaming 😭😭😭 omg, I loved this so much and had to instantly subscribe. You are of my people. 🩷🙏🏻🌳 I cannot wait to read more.
So glad you’re here! Thanks for reading, and I’m glad to be connected! more along these lines to come :)
Can’t wait 🙏🏻
Beautiful and provocative, loved it!
Thanks for reading and glad you enjoyed it!!
If the lactobacillus in a yoghurt emits negative energy when we stir jam into it, imagine the complexity of messages coming from our bodies and every single person we walk past. Thank you for this beautiful piece.
Wow I love this insight. Yes everything is radiating a specific song + frequency. It’s too much, and if we heard it we’d probably go mad (I suspect many people called mad, or mystic, in the past were in touch with these frequencies as well). A tiny pathogen or a bit of mold or a passing mood can change everything. Thank you for reading and sharing your reflection!