Bi-Weekly Tarot Reading 6-01-14 through 6-14-14
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Blog #18: Do Plants Have Consciousness?
LEGACY OF THE DIVINE TAROT
5 OF CUPS: It is time to let go of negative thinking and focus on what is good in your life. This can be a month of success and joy if you allow it to be so. Whenever you recognize that your thoughts are negative or fear-filled, immediately stop them and replace them with something that is more uplifting. You will see a difference for the better in how you feel.
FAITH: This can be a time of spiritual growth and rebirth if this is what you want. Have faith and trust in yourself, and believe that all that happens is for your best good. Trust divine inspiration and follow your heart.
THE WORLD: The next two weeks will be optimistic and full of happiness and success. You have been working hard, and now is the time to start seeing the benefits of your efforts. Set a positive intention each day, and then let things develop just the way they were meant to--for your highest and best good.
BI-WEEKLY THEME: Release every negative thought that comes to you, and then in its place think of something positive and upbeat. Remember that thoughts are things, and you have the power to control them through your mindfulness. Believe in yourself and go with the flow, allowing things to unfold the way they were meant to. Enjoy the success and joy that is headed your way, for you deserve it. See your hard work and persistent efforts paying off.
Blog
#18—Do Plants Have Consciousness?
What
is consciousness?
Consciousness is
defined as: the condition of being
conscious; the normal state of being awake and able to understand what is
happening around you. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consciousness)
A recent article in The
New Yorker by Michael Pollan entitled “The Intelligent Plant” discusses new
research revealing that plants do have abilities to sense and react to the
world. In other words, they are able to
understand what is happening around them.
Even more amazingly, “they can sense, learn, remember, and even react in
ways that would be familiar to humans.” (http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants)
As also noted in the article cited above, plants are able
to process information they gather and then react to it. For example, research has shown that plants
react to the sound of a caterpillar eating leaves by secreting defensive
chemicals. In addition to the senses of
hearing and taste, they can also sense gravity, the presence of water, and
recognize when something is blocking their roots. They can actually shift directions to avoid
obstacles.
While this may
not be considered “thinking” by some scientists, plants still have an
unbelievable array of abilities that have been unknown to our modern
biologists, until recently.
Can plants feel pain? The answer to this is still unclear, although plants
do respond to anesthetics.
How plants are able to react is still unknown.
Although they don’t have nerve cells like we do, they can send
electrical signals and produce neurotransmitters (just like the human brain
uses to send signals, such as dopamine or serotonin).
Do plants have memory? Biologist
Monica Gagliano showed that plants have memory, i.e., they can learn from
experience. She dropped a mimosa plant every five to six seconds without
hurting it, and each time, its leaves collapsed in response to the
disturbance. After five or six drops,
they stopped responding, as if they “knew” that the dropping was irrelevant. As Pollan noted: “This is a very important part of learning—to
learn what you can safely ignore in your environment.” (http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants)
Although not all researchers would call this learning, plants can do
amazing things.
Another
researcher says:
“Plants definitely have several different forms of memory, just like people
do. They have short term memory, immune
memory and even transgenerational memory! I know this is a hard concept to
grasp for some people, but if memory entails forming the memory (encoding information)
retaining the memory (storing information), and recalling the memory (retriving
information), then plants definitely remember.” (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz/
Are plants intelligent? There are many definitions of intelligence, which
can refer to abstract reasoning or
judgment, or to problem-solving ability. While most scientists would agree that
plants do not have abstract reasoning, they may be able to solve problems
related to their survival. The
difference between us and plants may just be a difference of degree rather than
kind.
Another
scientist, Daniel Chamovitz, says too that, “A plant. . .can see, smell and
feel. It can mount a defense when under
siege, and warn its neighbors of trouble on the way. A plant can even be said to have a memory.” (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz/). He also discovered genes that are
important for a plant to determine if it’s in the light or the dark. Surprisingly, he found that these genes are
also part of the human DNA. He says,
“This led me to realize that the genetic difference between plants and animals
is not as significant as I had once naively believed.”
Plants are complex and live rich
lives thanks to their senses. For
example, plants are rooted in one place so they cannot get up and move
somewhere if the environment does not suit them. Therefore, they had to develop very complex
sensory tools that would allow them to survive in a changing environment. They need to see where their food is, feel
the weather, and smell danger.
How
can plants smell? As an example, consider fruit trees. When fruit starts to ripen, it releases a
hormone called ethylene, which is sensed by nearby fruits, causing the fruit of
a whole grove of trees to ripen at about the same time.
What
about hearing? Plants have
not really needed to hear, due to their evolution. In animals, sound is a fast
way to communicate back and forth, and to get moving in the face of danger. But
because plants can’t move, there has been no need for them to hear sounds.
However, some recent research does show that plants responds to certain
vibrations (and all sound is vibration).
At a basic level, plants do communicate with one another,
in the sense that they respond to cues from other plants and through signals
passed from root to root. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz/)
One author points out that in Africa
there is a species of tree that not only reacts to animals eating its leaves,
but also sends signals to other trees of the same species whenever a giraffe starts
eating its leaves. It was observed that
after a group of giraffes had eaten the leaves for 15 minutes, the leaves would
turn sour on the trees within a radius of half a mile.
This same author says there have been
many studies proving that gardeners with special connections to their plants
tend to produce larger and healthier plants, citing the Findhorn experiment (http://www.findhorn.org/) as a prime example. As unbelievable as it sounds, at
Findhorn vegetables are grown larger than the usual size, in “very inhospitable
ground, using the power of love and encouragement. Talk to anyone who loves gardening, who
spends time daily with plants, and you might be surprised to hear what
intelligent and well-educated people have to say about the consciousness of
plants.” (http://www.learnmindpower.com/articles/do-plants-have-consciousness/)
This author goes on to say that many
indigenous people from all over the world have a special connection with nature
and plants. Their traditions encourage respect and communication with
nature. He notes that “There is a
consciousness in every living thing.
Plants, animals and humans. Each
consciousness may be different from the other, but we are all plugged into the
same mystery of life. The plants are indeed our brothers and sisters, and we
have much to learn from one another.” (http://www.learnmindpower.com/articles/do-plants-have-consciousness/
Sources
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