Plant Sentience

A first lesson in botanical medicine

by Brother Harmonius

December 20, 2007

The specimens arrived in a crowded box in eleven-inch sections. Two were of large girth, the two largest with diameters of four and three inches. These would be relegated to internal medicines.

Two of the sections I had just received were nearly perfect tops, with that classical gentle round probe-end of San Pedro, but no more than two-and-one-half inches in diameter. These were potted forthwith in five-inch terracotta pots, with rich humus potting soil. These I call "external" medicines, because their power derived in their continued growing.

It is man's absurd arrogance that sentience is a fact only where communication is perceived. When the perceiving mechanism is so throttled in its normal state, as is the human's, it is the height of hegemony that we presume to know which species are of what worth in the earthly network.

I sliced through the calloused lower end of each of the two, and slightly placed them in the center of their pots, upright. I also pushed into the limbs of their pots a couple of other cactus (two species of selenicereus) and succulent species (crassula falcata), knowing their rooting systems would probably not interfere with each other.

My transplants are so often successful. Usually I pat myself on the back, and take great pride in my green thumb with houseplants. The two new transplants-now family members-looked smart sitting on a window table with southern exposure, crowded among a couple of Christmas cactus, and a previously transplanted Peruvian torch (trichocereus peruvianus). The torch was by now sufficiently rooted, and gave all the appearance of contentment in its adoptive home. Its three and four inch needles are wicked, and the seller referred to the variety as "macho."

Then it occurred to me, watching the cactus, the adapted peruvianus, the Christmas cactus, and the two new t. pachanoi medicine plants: Their success was a product of community. Not so much the community of myself and other humans of the house, but the botanical community. I faintly heard them sing, and the singing came from the older, more acclimated plants. The two new medicine plants listened attentively, being reassured by the sounds of happy plant life near by. I realized in a flash that the key to the successful transplant was the community building among several plants, and many, if at all possible.

Like new puppies that have arrived from abused circumstances into the loving embrace of a new family with lots of pets, these two sit cautiously back, unobtrusive and humbled by their scars. Sore, confused, sad, but not for long. They listen to the whispers of their new family.

The Christmas cacti sing a shrill contralto, like the chorus of a hundred castrati crickets. The peruvianus hums a monotonous baritone with a significance only it knows. There is also an amaryllis growing on the table, it notes long as its leaves, rising slowly and crashing like the surf. An ivy plant with tiny pointy leaves ti-teetely-ti, ti-teetely-ti. A curly lavender tucked into the shade of a lower shelf was reciting sonnets to itself, while donkey's tail succulent next to it crooned sonnets to the lavender.

This riotous orchestra, spontaneous and unpretentious as a playground of imagining school kids was as subtle as a hypnogogic reverie. I had not heard it before, but I heard it now. The fabric of psychedelic reality was just as opaque, but now slightly less transparent, such that the patterns behind the scenes revealed themselves to the ashen background of a cloudy December's day through the one window.

Now I became aware of the nuances in the dimensions of life. Like elephants and whales bellowing to other members of their groups in sub-sonic call and answer, like apes grunting simple acknowledgments that delineate the geographic perimeter of their wall-less cities, these plants sing and are sung to. Their species are different, so their music is disorganized. There is not central conductor, genetically tuned to produce pecking order of the group.

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