Any Books Out There Teaching You How To Talk To Plants and Trees?

[Taomeow]

Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman, by Maliodoma Patrice Some

 

It is not specifically about communication with plants, and overall it's such heavy duty African shamanism (and some other heavy-duty themes) as not to be expected to be empirically accessible, but there's one episode there that can perhaps generate some ideas.  The author, in the course of undergoing an excruciating initiation ordeal, is given a task, one of many, to see a tree.  To see what it really is.  A particular stand-alone tree is pointed out to him, and three elders in charge of his initiation position themselves at some distance, in the shade of some other trees, observing him.  Maliodoma, however, is instructed to sit in the open, in full blazing African sun, naked, and I seem to recall he had no food and even no water, though I may be wrong about the latter.  He was told that he can't leave the spot until he sees the tree.

 

So, he looks and looks -- well, it's a tree.  However he looks, it's a tree, dammit, and nothing is going on with it, and he doesn't know what it is he is supposed to see.  He's getting hot, thirsty, tired, fretful, and always fearful of failing the quest.  So after a while he decides to make things up -- he's imaginative and he reports to the elders, "I can see it!  It's all shining with multicolored lights and it's really this and that," whatever it was that he made up.  He delivers these lines very convincingly but the elders just laugh at him.  "Quit lying, and keep trying."  So, if memory serves, he sat there through the day and maybe the night and the next day, half-dead of overheating and despair, and then...  

 

...well, I won't give it away in case you want to read the book. 

Edited June 12, 2015 by Taomeow

[DreamBliss]

I don't like this!  I don't like comments like this, which is why I'm not particular a fan of Alan Watts who indulged in a lot of this.  I guess its condescending.  To call someone a slave is meant as an insult and usually taken as one.  But that is their life, and it is probably exactly where they should be right now.  And they are probably more or less content with that.

 

I am not calling anyone a slave. Please note, "AS a slave behind the oars..." In other words like or similar to.

 

I am saying, in essence, you can choose to conform or not. If you choose to conform, you are like a slave. Maybe you have heard the phrase "wage slave?"

Edited June 12, 2015 by DreamBliss

[DreamBliss]

taomeow

 

Thank you for the book suggestion!

[Nikolai1]

Hi Dreambliss - not everyone has your intelligence and creativity. Not everyone has the inspiration or bravery to follow their own path. This isn't their fault. Some people are born to row to a rhythm that comes from outside them, and good for them. I just feel that you are criticising people when it would be nicer to love, respect and appreciate what they do.

 

I like your writing a lot, but this championing of self-reliance is one aspect I don't like so much. I think unconditional love and respect for all people, including ourself, is nicer than an elitist individualism.

[DreamBliss]

Hi Dreambliss - not everyone has your intelligence and creativity. Not everyone has the inspiration or bravery to follow their own path. This isn't their fault. Some people are born to row to a rhythm that comes from outside them, and good for them. I just feel that you are criticising people when it would be nicer to love, respect and appreciate what they do.

 

I like your writing a lot, but this championing of self-reliance is one aspect I don't like so much. I think unconditional love and respect for all people, including ourself, is nicer than an elitist individualism.

 

I respect your viewpoint and appreciate your sharing it.

 

Elitist? Me? I will have to think about that one...

 

Also what does individualism have to do with self-reliance?

 

So I can't champion self-reliance and be motivated by love?

Edited June 12, 2015 by DreamBliss

[Andrei]

This is not about talking to trees but talking to animals through "imagery":

 

http://youtu.be/TfP-XBUbMvs

 

And here is a fragment from the above doc about the black leopard Spirit

 

 

This is truly amazing!

Edited June 13, 2015 by Andrei

[Andrei]

She is teaching communication with plants too:

[Nikolai1]

Hi dreambliss

 

I respect your viewpoint and appreciate your sharing it.

 

Elitist? Me? I will have to think about that one...

Clearly you don't think of yourself as an elitist person, but I still maintain that any reference to another person as a 'slave' or even 'wage slave' is derogatory and elitist.  What these people spend their lives doing between 9-5 you are suggesting is pointless, or uncreative, or motivated by fear, or perhaps all of these.  Its judgemental, not a loving accepting attitude.

 

This judgemental attitude is quite toxic.  It leads people who are doing humble, but perhaps useful, work to think of themselves as somehow less worthy.  The word slave in whatever form is akin to a word like robot, which means less than human, or failure to be human.

 

The irony is: those people most likely to accuse others of being wage slaves somehow feel that it is perfectly fine and justified.  Very often this is because they themselves feel guilty for not working,or get judged for not working, but rather than face this, they judge others for doing what is perfectly natural to them.  Talk to your average 'wage slave', and, yes, they may not be the most original, creative people out there, but they are in the niche that suits them most and it can be hard to imagine them doing anything else.  They seem a million miles from ever being anything other than 'wage slaves'.

 

In some ways this judging attitude is quite an American problem, or at least America seems to be the culture most guilty in this respect.  Thoreau is like one of the founding fathers of intellectual America, and his writing were full of disparaging remarks about everyday people and their work.  Emerson was the same.  Undoubtedly some of this was inherited by the attitudes of the English and Continental Romantics (eg Wordsworth), but where I now live, in Scandinavia, these kind of attitudes really aren't there.  

 

So I can't champion self-reliance and be motivated by love?

If your words pass judgement on anyone, then it is not a loving attitude.  I think the secret here, primarily, is to love yourself, love the life you've led, and trust it as being entirely perfect thus far.  If you can do this for yourself, it will be quite easy to see that everyone else's life is also perfect.  It won't then occur to you that others are like slaves. 

[blue eyed snake]

you're beautiful mirrors for each other

[Nikolai1]

you're beautiful mirrors for each other

Sounds interesting - but please elaborate?

[DreamBliss]

This is a teaching I have encountered in Ram Dass:

http://www.amazon.com/Polishing-Mirror-Live-Spiritual-Heart/dp/1622033809/ref=la_B001HCS3GS_1_2

 

In essence we are all mirrors for each other. Others reflect back to us the things in ourselves we must address. The world is a reflection of our beliefs.

[mYTHmAKER]

DreamBliss i would first learn to talk to girls and then move on to plants

[DreamBliss]

Nah, plants are probably easier to talk to...

[RiverSnake]

Singing the Soul Back Home by Caitlin Mathews. One of my favorite books. It was one of the first texts to introduce me to the idea that you can open a dialogue with nature.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Singing-Soul-Back-Home-Shamanic/dp/1859061036/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434408824&sr=1-1&keywords=singing+the+soul+back+home

Edited June 15, 2015 by OldChi

[mYTHmAKER]

Nah, plants are probably easier to talk to...

and the sex is better...

Edited June 15, 2015 by mYTHmAKER

[Nikolai1]

Hi Dreambliss

 

In essence we are all mirrors for each other. Others reflect back to us the things in ourselves we must address. The world is a reflection of our beliefs.

Yes I too believe this, and I've been reflecting on this idea that you are a mirror for me, which I think has lot of truth in it.  When I read your blog you are often saying things that I agree with.  You become my mouthpiece.  When you talk about your break with Christianity, I find it inspiring...but I also relate to it, because my whole adult life has been the struggle to break with and 'see past' the materialism of my parents and the circles I was raised in.

 

Your poems, particularly the simple haiku style ones, remind me of my own vision. Or at least me at my best, when my vision and my mood are sublime and I am seeing the world as you see it.

 

But also, the loneliness and isolation you write about, your need to make changes and the fear of the outside world all very much remind me of myself. I have walked away from the world, the ordinary everyday world, and I don't have any conscious idea how to return.  All I know is that I have to hope and keep on living and trust in whatever comes my way.  it is intensely frightening, but I have to do it.  When you talk about death, I feel the same.  I will either succeed in my return, or I will die.  It is as simple as that.  And I'm not even afraid to die, which is itself scary because I see that I am unable to put up any sort of fight.  I am completely surrendered.  I can't even resist my own death, which it what we imagine we need to do if we want to keep living. Whether I live or die is truly up to God.

 

But it was an adult life spent criticising the world, the people (or the herd as I truly see them), that has left me in this situation.  If I don't come to terms with the world I will die because accepting what is is the only way to avoid the isolation.  This is why I don't like it when you disparage the world.  I don't like it because I've fed myself a belly full of it myself and now I'm in a very difficult situation.  

 

You know I just criticised Thoreau? Well, guess what? I have spent most my adult life saying that Thoreau saved my life when I first read him age 21.  He was the first human being I encountered that thought as I did.  Thoreau threw me a lifeline - I was connected to a fragment of humanity - wow, other humans see what I see! -  but then I clung to this fragment and let go all the rest.  But now the fragment isn't enough for me. Thoreau couldn't live off it, died young himself, I can't live off it anymore, just like you can't live off your solitary life in your bedroom any more.  

 

If I criticise you for calling people 'slaves' rest assured that I criticise myself.  I don't want to see myself doing that any more, and I don't want to see you doing it either.  For me that is the way of isolation, despair and death.

 

So this is what I've been thinking.  Blue Eyed Snake definitely made an astute comment.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Nikolai1

[blue eyed snake]

So this is what I've been thinking.  Blue Eyed Snake definitely made an astute comment.

 

 

You're welcome, i meet my mirrors too 

 

But stay here, both of you. Kiss mother earth, she will nourish you, when you let her.

there's still much to be enjoyed on this world, and your family-members need you.

I've been able to live through it and finding back reasons to stay, and you both will be able to do that too!

[DreamBliss]

While off-topic, I just read this, and it is the clearest explanation of the subject of others being mirrors of ourselves I have read so far:

 

“The particular egoic patterns that you react to most strongly in others and misperceive as their identity tend to be the same patterns that are also in you, but that you are unable or unwilling to detect within yourself. In that sense, you have much to learn from your enemies. What is it in them that you find most upsetting, most disturbing? Their selfishness? Their greed? Their need for power and control? Their insincerity, dishonesty, propensity to violence, or whatever it may be? Anything you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you. But it is no more than a form of ego, and as such, it is completely impersonal. It has nothing to do with who that person is, nor has it anything to do with who you are. Only if you mistake it for who you are can observing it within you be threatening to your sense of self.” - Eckhart Toll, “A New Earth”

Edited June 20, 2015 by DreamBliss

[Yasjua]

I want to relate three stories regarding plants and their voices.

 

Rain, rain, rain

Once upon a time, approximately four years ago, I was deeply and very intensely into meditation and other spiritual practices. During this time I lived in a little room. It was just me, a meditation cushion, a mattress, and a few plants together. I really cared for the plants and loved having them live with me.

 

One day as I closed my eyes and went into meditation I heard a choir of angelic voices, three or four in total, singing the most beautiful acapella music in a pitch I had never heard voices in before. They were singing in a really joyful manner, "Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain," as if in celebration. I opened my eyes and noticed that the slightest drizzle of rain had started and the first few droplets of the storm had formed on the window pane. I had no conscious awareness of the rain and it was frankly too light and too early for me to have noticed myself. I believe it was the plants.

 

10, 9, 8...

Another morning, living in the same bedroom I was fast asleep and in limbo between dreams. Out of the nothing came a choir of poly-tonal fairie voices, four or five in total, singing syncopated and arrhythmic words in the most charming and beautiful manner. They were singing "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1" but would skip up and down while inclining toward 1. When they all reached one, they went, "BOOM!" and at that very instant my alarm clock went off. I believe it was the plants having fun with me as they knew my schedule.

A Conversation with Flowers

One day under the influence of magical friends of the Earth, with whom I was having a detailed conversation about the relationship of plant life and human beings, I was offered the opportunity to talk to flowers as I was walking by them. The fungus, with whom I was talking already, quite literally asked if I wanted to talk to the flowers, and I said yes. The flowers spoke telepathically, as if from a common source (Mother) where language and knowledge had not yet separated - so the information they gave was integral, whole, and true in a deep way. They basically told me that humans have more in common with flowers than we imagine. Like flowers, we all bloom in time and produce a "scent" which is unique to ourselves, and this scent is an offering of our true self to the world. We are effectively just uprooted plants and have the same connection to Mother Nature as anything else. I asked if Mother was mad at us, and they said no, that Mother nourishes and supports and nurtures all of her creations no matter what, and that the human race is her greatest source of pride. She guides us through intuition but being uprooted we have the option, unlike any other creature, to negate our intuition and experiment. She supports our experiments and has no ill-will or anger or sadness regarding us as a species.

[Oneironaut]

Does the ability for plant communication have anything to do with fusion of the five elements?

 

Also can the same method used to communicate with plants (I'm assuming it's telepathic communication) be used with humans AND animals as well?

 

To the OP:

 

Try this book. In the book description it mentions Qigong for communication with plants and animals.

[forestofclarity]

A lot of qigong books talk about doing qigong with trees. I'm something of a skeptic with a lot this stuff, but plant gong is something I often play with because it generates fairly powerful feelings. 

 

My procedure (similar to the experiment below):

 

1. Feel the body. This tunes me in at a somatic-feeling level. 

 

2. Relax 

 

3. Feel into the plant. Sometimes I put my hand on the plant, or hover my palms around it. 

 

4. Open up and allow it to come. 

 

Try this experiment...have a plant in front of you which you like. Get a sense of how your body feels in general...kind of like the atmosphere around your skin. Feel free to think of other thoughts for a moment...such as contemplate your grocery list. Notice how that feels to do (in terms of your vibe or skin sensation). Then pay attention to the plant in front of you, and notice how the feeling changes drastically. Stay focused on that feeling, because that's how the plant spirit is beginning to communicate with you. It's how you're aware of the spiritual aspect of the plant...because of course, a feeling is not something entirely physical.