Ten Minute Conversation with a Plant

A large-scale, sociopolitical solution to global warming and the environmental emergency would be most welcome now. We can all get frustrated, though, if not heartbroken, with how slowly top-down solutions work, if at all. And not all of us can find the time to grow our own food or the money to buy a hybrid car, or even make it out to the farmer's market.

So here's something we can each do (or not-do) right now that takes no effort at all, and can help build the foundation for the shift of perspective necessary in our species to help us move forward.

It'll take ten minutes.

Go outdoors, into your yard, or to a park or bus stop. Sit. If the weather's unbearable you can look out a window. Look at the nearest bush or tree. Or cactus. Even a weed or patch of grass will do if resources are that limited. Something from the plant kingdom.

Do not attempt to “quiet your mind.” Let it chatter on if it wants to. In the midst of any and all chatter, observe the plant. Ask yourself the following questions:

In what ways has this plant grown? In other words...

Does it lean? Toward or away from the morning sun? Toward or away from the afternoon sun? Does it seem to be reaching for the shade instead?

Is it “legging out,” i.e. does it have limbs growing peculiarly long and skinny toward the sun or shade?

Are there “suckers,” or branches coming up out of the ground around the base of the trunk?

Is the trunk twisted in a certain way? Is it scarred?

What do the answers to these questions tell you about the way the plant lives? This requires no magical powers or intuition – use simple logic. Could the plant be reaching for something as it grows – sun, shade, water, other nutrients? Could it be competing with another nearby plant for any of these resources? Could it be twisting a little every day to reach somewhere? How could nearby animals, including humans, be affecting its growth?

How might this plant be growing in the wild, without human intervention? Would its leaves scrape the ground? Would animals be eating it? Would it be more dense, or spindlier?

Every plant needs a certain balance of sun, water, and specific nutrients to thrive, according to its genetic makeup. A desert cactus may swell up, rot and die with too much water. A northern vine may hide from the sun if it's too hot and intense. As well, many desert plants can actually suffer from sunburn, and some cooler-climate plants like tons of sun. Sun and water are the biggies, and any question about the health and/or growth patterns of a plant can usually be answered by some excess or deficit of one or the other, before even considering things like nutrients and soil PH. The actual survival of a plant of course also depends on its tolerance for freezing or excessive heat, and its natural lifespan, among other factors. But pardon my garden geeking...

Keep looking at the plant, and consider what kind of plant it is. Do you know its name? Do you know its normal habitat? If not, don't sweat it - it's easy to get hung up on titles and definitions. Plants have individual lives and stories as well as their genetic predispositions.

Consider the plant's characteristics:

If it's a leafy plant, are the leaves waxy, fuzzy, large, small? In what pattern do they grow – in rows or bunches? Are the leaves scrunched closed or splayed wide open? Are the leaves all alike, or are some different? What color are they? If green, is it dark, light, dusty? Look closely at the leaf shape. Could you memorize the way this leaf looks and draw or describe it later?

Leaves are primarily sunshine collectors. What do the leaves tell you, logically, about the plant? Does it want a lot of sun? Does it like to have the sun barely brush its leaves, and filter through? Is it happy with the sun it's getting? Might it be getting too much? Too little? What might any other characteristics, like fuzziness, waxiness, or peculiar shapes mean?

Look at the trunk and/or branches. Does it have bark, or is it smooth? Are there thorns? Look at the knots and places where branches have grown out and fallen off, or been removed. How has the plant healed from these changes? Is there a pattern to how the branches grow? Are there dead branches? If you were a sculptor and could sculpt the exact shape of the trunk, could you, from memory?

Is there fruit? Are there buds? Flowers? Where do these grow? How? Observe the details... How might your plant reproduce? Does it send out shoots that root? Are there insects? Birds? If so, what are they up to?

How is the weather? Humidity? Is there impending rain? How might these factors be affecting the plant, right now?

Is there wind? How does the plant move in the wind? Take a little time to watch this carefully.

What time of year is it? How could this be affecting the plant?

What are your other sensory experiences of the plant? Crush a leaf in your fingers and see if it has a smell. What does the bark feel like?

If you've been observing the plant this long, you're probably noticing many characteristics not even mentioned here. Think about them. Come up with your own questions and theories.

If you feel like sitting a little bit longer, allow your imagination to play a little. What would it be like to be that tree or shrub, standing there day in and day out? What might its roots be doing right now? How might they be growing, in relation to the water sources around? What do you have in common with this plant? What questions would you ask it, if it could speak? What do you think it would say?

Observe how you feel now.

If you've spent 10 minutes on this exercise, consider the possibility that you've done a service to the planet and yourself. Next steps: Do it again tomorrow, or in a week. Do it throughout the year and observe the seasonal changes. Do it for years and observe the longer changes. Do it with a variety of plants. Try it with the whole ecosystem of your yard. Come up with your own variations.

If repeating this exercise seems like a chore to you, then don't trouble yourself. Please consider, though, that there is a wealth of information in a single living form, and that the longer you spend with a living, changing being, the more you can learn about life. A tree will teach you more about itself than any book or nature documentary can, if you take the time to look and listen. And in taking this small amount of time, you are forming a relationship with a being from the plant kingdom and helping to reconnect our species to the web of life from which we've become alienated, or distracted at best. You are perhaps better equipped than you were ten minutes ago to deal with large-scale abstract climate news that can be so overwhelming. You are an ambassador.  

A New Choice: Does More Money Equal More Votes?

We’re winning. 

I think we all know that we can’t solve our problems merely by throwing money at them, or more pointedly, that more money does not necessarily equal more solution. Ironically, it has been the strong suit of old-school conservatives to point this out, ideally helping keep government programs and bureaus streamlined, efficient, and accountable. I say ironically – because the new-school neo-conservatives running the GOP are throwing money at their campaign like there’s no tomorrow. (Well, there obviously is no tomorrow in the Radical Right’s worldview, for example – its pathological lack of responsibility toward our planet’s environment and future generations.) I think it’s a promising sign, actually.

It means that their usual fight-or-flight mentality (which in its low-grade, day-to-day state merely keeps them unimaginative yet calculating,) is in full panic mode. They’re being just plain stupid now. Like the Chimera when she realizes Odysseus just isn’t falling for it. Or Mystique when the Wolverine has bested her.

The “omney yan” yard signs should be the first clue that something is out of balance. Have you seen them? So poorly designed that the “R”s are almost invisible. Maybe the campaign couldn't find a single graphic designer with an ounce of imagination who would work with them. Or perhaps some clever graphic artist sabotaged the logo by underdesigning it, and still brought home a good paycheck. (Kudos, if some artist pulled that one off!) The Republican Party can probably afford to dust every street corner in the nation with these yucky signs. But does more yuckiness mean more votes? 

The coup de grace, though, is the new spate of Republican ads on YouTube. Now, I’m not sure of the exact demographic that tunes in to YouTube, but I’m guessing it’s one that is generally more informed, creative, engaged, critical, and interactive than the one vegging out in front of The Tube at prime time. In other words, the Far Right is probably not going to find a large fertile field for its narrow, selfish platform here. On top of that, the ads they’re running are the obnoxious kind that can’t be turned off after a few seconds. I guess this type of ad costs more money. So of course they can afford it. And the ads are bad! The color schemes, the editing, the writing… just plain bad art, funded by people whose aesthetic sense is blinded by fear-based ideology. 

So what they’re doing is using their superior spending power to create an ugly and obnoxious presence on YouTube that will probably turn people already unsympathetic to their agenda even more strongly against them. Spend away, boys! Keep those big bucks rolling in to populist online information hubs! We can endure your ugly ads for another month, I suppose.

My hope is, of course, that this annoyance will get young YouTube watchers to actually vote.

What’s really exciting about this phenomenon, though, is that it’s a harbinger of a potential sea change in consciousness. The less it feels the need to hide behind a mask of average American values, the more the Extreme Right is showing us all what it truly is and who is behind it. It’s the same way the villain in an epic adventure takes off his disguise for the final confrontation, when he’s sure that he’s winning. It’s a sign of overconfidence and narrow vision. (For those who feel my references to fictional stories weaken my argument, remember that our mythologies are a reflection of real processes in our psyches. And our institutions are a macrocosm of ourselves. Or so Socrates implies.)

We may be coming to a point in time where the majority of voting-enabled Americans will be presented with a fresh new choice. And God knows they’ve been longing for one. The choice is no longer between two fairly reasonable political ideologies. As well, it is not between two puppets spouting differing policy stances but still in the pockets of corporate power - the "lesser of two evils." Please get over these old scripts; one is antiquated and erroneous and the other is debilitating to the spirit. 

The choice we have before us is between beauty and ugliness. Between love, music, creativity, intelligence, responsibility, care, compassion, diversity, fertility, aliveness, sexiness, and humor, and a pale, fearful, monochrome worldview that negates all of these. We are coming to a time where our survival as a democratic state may actually depend on the electorate going with their gut. The Right no longer feels accountable to factual truth. Yes, that’s another sign of pathological thinking and moral bankruptcy, but maybe there is a bright side; when facts become so clouded and inaccessible that rational choice becomes difficult, it forces one to go with feelings and intuition. (It’s the whole point of a Zen koan to confound the logical brain, hence opening the doors of the mind for spontaneous wisdom.) The overworked, underpaid, malnourished, ill-informed, frustrated majority of Americans with no time to research the issues is going to have to decide, on feeling, whether to go with those guys who are beating us over the head with excessive, ugly, divisive, negative ads, or the ones who can’t afford as much airtime. Since the life-affirming doesn’t get much voice in the mainstream, the average American may have to gamble on the ones not making as much noise, may have to step into The Unknown.

Yes, I’m talking about the Big Shift here. Most of those still reading this have done some sort of inner work that required them to step outside of their comfort zone for the sake of their souls, whether through mainstream therapy or through spiritual work. In the lives of most adults there comes a point where, for the sake of health, survival, or merely happiness, we are faced with a choice to let go of old destructive behaviors and beliefs. This process always requires surrender to feeling and intuition. I think we as a nation are coming to the same place in our collective story. (Remember Plato? The larger is a reflection of the smaller, and vice-versa.)

Will we make the step? It’s anybody’s guess. I think something else is being challenged, too. Our faith. It’s a sad side effect of critical thinking that it can lead to a pessimistic outlook on the future of humanity, or at least for America. So the challenge for critical thinkers is to stay positive, trust that one way or another we’re going to be ok, and remember that there is a younger generation of people not so hardened by disappointment; they’re the ones who got Obama into the White House in the first place, against all odds, purely on innocent faith and youthful energy. Remember that. Remember that the way Christians remember that “Pharaoh’s army got drowned in the Red Sea,” or the way Jews remember the Menorah candles staying lit. Try some faith. You don’t have to be religious.

What can we do on the ground? Encourage voting. Vote. It’s not just about the Presidency – we need a Congress that can work with Obama or we will suffer four more years of struggle and stagnation. We can’t afford that. And we need state governments that will not waste our time and resources bucking national policy based on localized bigotry. Work for progressive congressional candidates in swing districts. There’s one near you, no doubt, worth a few hours’ drive if necessary - here's a good place to find out: House races: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/house/2012_elections_house_map.html 
Senate Races: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/2012_elections_senate_map.html