Plants and trees give us life. But the exchange isn’t one-sided. Through our breath, specifically the carbon dioxide we exhale, we also give them life. Because of our mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship, we share a primal and intimate bond with the plants that surround us. Our ability to communicate with plants is innate. We’re born with this knowledge. Why have so many of us in modern-day society forgotten?
Recently, BotanicWise had the pleasure of hosting a webinar with Pam Montgomery, “Plant Communication: Restoring Our Common Union with Green Beings.” This was a truly enlightening event. Pam is a celebrated author, international teacher, plant spirit healing practitioner, and online educator who has been investigating plants and their intelligent spiritual nature for more than three decades.
During her recent webinar, Pam reminded us that communicating effectively is one of the foundations in building a successful relationship, even with plants. But communication is so much more than just an exchange of words.
Pam cleverly breaks this word down for us, highlighting that the word ‘communion’ is part of the word communication. Break communion down even further, and you have ‘common union.’ So, when we look to communicate with plants, we need to find our common union, or common ground.
We know that plants don’t have mouths, so they aren’t able to speak in words like we do. However, plants communicate in lots of other ways.
One of the foundational pieces of this concept is that we can communicate through our breath. We breathe in oxygen, which the plants “breathe out.” We breathe out carbon dioxide, which the plants “breathe in.”
Pam calls this Green Breath.
We have this exchange with the plants all the time. We’re all born with this ability, and once you bring it into conscious awareness, that you’re actually breathing with the plants, that your breath is their breath, and their breath is your breath, it moves from being mundane and forgotten, into a profound experience.
At the base of our very existence is the most intimate of relationships with plants.
This bond with plants, known as biophilia, comes from our symbiotic relationship with plants, and our long-time association with them.
When communicating with plants, we do so through our heart, which connects to the heart of nature. The heart is the primary organ of perception. To connect with nature and with plants and trees, we give positive impulses to the heart, which helps move it into something called coherence. When our heart is in coherence, it sends the messages that we receive from the environment to our brain.
One of the most positive impulses is gratitude. Gratitude can be simple. It can be as basic as gratitude for the wonder of a dandelion.
Other positive impulses to the heart include forgiveness, innocent perception, non-judgement, and caring. Gratitude easily guides your heart into that place of coherence. Once we’re in coherence, we find ourselves having these euphoric moments with nature, with the plants and the trees, and a hormone called oxytocin gets released. Oxytocin is one of the ways we’re hardwired to connect with plants. It’s the bonding hormone, it helps you make connections internally and externally.
When we’re in that space of coherence, the oxytocin initiates what’s called a ‘restorative response.’ It restores everything back to the balance point.
At times like these (Pam calls them “wow” moments), your eyes are wide open to wonder. In those moments, we are connecting. Bonding is happening. We start with our exchange of breath, bring positive impulses into our heart, and find ourselves in harmony with the plant.
Two of the foundational ways in which we communicate on a biological level is light and sound.
We experience light through color. We see the color red because it’s a certain length wavelength and it has a certain frequency. That’s its vibratory resonance. We experience light as a vibratory resonance in our bodies.
This is a key piece in communication. Color influences your connection with the plant. In nature, when your heart is in coherence, a beam of light between you and the plant is created. That’s called light coherence, and through this, plants have the ability to tune into your unique resonance.
When we’re truly communicating, when we’re really making that connection, and we’re vibrating together, we’re on the same wavelength. We can do that through light.
Another form of resonance is sound. Still your body, quiet your movements, and expand your consciousness. Can you hear the plant sing? When listening with “big ears” for impressions, internal listening and external listening merge. Generally, we hear a relatively narrow band of the spectrum, but there’s more sound out there than what we hear with our ears. We may not be able to hear it, but we can feel it. We feel the vibrational resonance of those sounds in our bodies.
Are we on the same wavelength? Let’s dig deeper.
Have you ever heard of felt sensation? Felt sensation arises from the vibratory resonance of plants and trees. It’s not an emotion, it’s a sensation. We experience that vibratory resonance in our body. This could be felt in your head, it could be behind your eyes, it could be in your heart or your gut.
What do you do with this felt sensation?
Focus on it. Where is it located in your body? What does it feel like? Does it remind you of anything? If it were to look like something, what would it look like? When you experience this felt sensation, try to give it a name, or an image, or some sort of identifier that you’ll remember.
Now separate yourself from the felt sensation, and then come back to it. Is it there in the same way? If the same sensation returns, you are experiencing the vibratory resonance of the plant. Recognizing this vibratory resonance through felt sensation takes communication with plants out of randomness and makes it real.
When you remember that felt sensation, that connection, there’ll be an emotional response. Maybe you feel joy? Or maybe you feel sadness, fear, or even anger. One is not better than the other, there’s no judgement required. It’s simply an emotional response.
As you put all of these sensory experiences together, meaning starts to come. All of these different forms of communication are like puzzle pieces. As you put the puzzle together, a picture starts to take shape.
Let’s bring that picture into focus.
Expand your knowledge using sensory awareness. Through the use of our five senses (seeing, smelling, touching, listening, and tasting), plants communicate with us. Use deep observation, look closely at the plants. Then look at the bigger picture as well.
There’s so much you can learn just by observing the plant.
- Seeing: Color = wavelength + frequency –> light coherence
- Listening: Sound + “big ears” –> vibratory resonance
- Smelling: Tap into your ancestral memory in your reptile brain through scent of a plant’s volatile oils
- Touching: Rub your hand over all parts of the plant, note the texture, temperature, tensile strength, and level of moisture
- Tasting: Chew on tip of tongue to taste – Sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, salty (only with plants that you know are safe to eat!)
All of these concepts are just the tip of the iceberg. Pam Montgomery talked about these, and so many more during her webinar. Want to learn more? Check out the replay in the BotanicWise Community!