Embodying the Gentle Persistence of Plants

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

Albert Einstein

I experience plants as sentient. Because of this, I like to imagine how they feel and experience life. And this imagining itself, I'm convinced, is a part of the plant's own sentience.

According to Dineh (Navajo) philosophy, a flower (like all creatures) has three different forms. First is the "outer form," which is the aspect that a botanist can study. The "inner form" is the conscious, communicative aspect of the plant - standing behind or indwelling it archetypally - that a shaman or vision quester is able to contact. Finally there's the "secret form": the Pasqueflower as it becomes conscious of itself within human thoughts and feelings.  We experience this form of sentience when the flower or other creature grasps ahold of our imagination and emotional life from within.

When this Pasqueflower appeared today within my own feelings and thoughts, I imagined pushing up through the darkness of the soil, only to encounter MORE darkness and resistance - in the form of a cottonwood leaf covering the ground - and how discouraging this discovery might have been. But then I envisioned gently yet persistently boring through the leaf - so gently, in fact, that the leaf remained on the ground rather than being hoisted up into the air!
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May all of us find the faith and courage to push past all obstacles to our vision and calling, both bravely and with gentle persistence :)

Photo: Pasqueflower and Cottonwood leaf, Hewlett Gulch, CO, March 16, 2016
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