Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm by Stephen Harrod Buhner

Author:Stephen Harrod Buhner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nature/New Science
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Company
Published: 2014-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

Developing a Perceptual Database

Creating a database of feeling perceptions builds over time. You accumulate, as you continue, thousands upon thousands of feeling experiences. And what brings each of them into focus, what brings their innate meaning more into conscious view is comparison. This plant feels slightly different from that one. It is by comparison that humans perceive differences. So, as you do this, remember: it’s always more effective to feel this thing, then that one. (Always do two at least.) This comparative process brings their differences into focus and by so doing illuminates the essential nature of each. And, again, the process, while inherently enjoyable to those who are drawn to it, can be tedious. Sophistication in its use demands constant practice, every day. In other words: How does this feel? How does that feel? How does that feel? Eventually, such perceptual sensing becomes second nature. Over time, a library of feelings is crafted and you begin to have a sense of the world through a much deeper perceptual framework than existed before. Like Twain’s knowing of the river, the world begins to get inside you. You begin to know it as well as you know your hallway at home, the back of your hands. And you begin to know, far deeper than words, what the subtle feelings that things possess are telling you about the world through which you move.

You are moving along a river, too, just as Twain did, but your river is the whole world. And the tiny signals that your feeling sensing are sending you tell you about the depths you are encountering, about the terrain that is approaching, about any particular part of the journey. As Twain relates . . .

“What is the height of that bank yonder, at Burgess’s?”

“How can I tell, sir? It’s three-quarters of a mile away.”

“Very poor eye—very poor. Take the glass.”

I took the glass and presently said:

“I can’t tell. I suppose that bank is about a foot and a half high.”

“Foot and a half !” That’s a six foot bank. How high was the bank along here last trip?”

“I don’t know; I never noticed.”

“You didn’t? Well, you must always do it hereafter.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll have to know a good many things that it tells you. For one thing, it tells you the stage of the river—tells you whether there’s more water or less in the river here than there was last trip.” . . .

“Do you see that stump on the false point?”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“Well, the water is just up to the roots of it. You must make a note of that.”

“Why?”

“Because that means that there’s seven feet in the chute of 103.”

“But 103 is a long way up the river yet.”

“That’s where the benefit of the bank comes in. There is water enough in 103 now, yet there may not be by the time we get there, but the bank will keep us posted all along.” . . .

“But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got

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