The Plant People are all plants, including trees, the Standing PeopleStanding People. The Trees. More about this: the second oldest and wisest of the PeoplesThe Peoples. The Animal People, Plant People, Standing People (the Trees) and Stone People: our elder kin, of whom the Human People are the youngest and least wise. A family, not a hierarchy. Read the full answer after the Stone PeopleStone People. All physical matter: mountains, sea, rivers, clouds, sun and stars: the oldest and widest of the Peoples. As some animist cultures put it, ‘we are just the Stone People, dancing for a while’. Read the full answer. Calm, slow and without agendas, they have a collective rather than self-aware consciousness, and each species carries its own healing gift. Taken together, Plant’s great gift is to heal one of the deepest wounds of modern times, the idea that “up is good and down is bad”.
What are the Plant People? #
They are one of the great families of beings, older and wiser than the Animal People. “Hunter-gatherers say that the oldest and wisest of the Peoples by far are the Stone People. Next oldest and wisest (but still vastly younger than the Stone People) are the Plant People.”1 Hunter-gatherers did not see plants as lesser than animals: “Plants were recognised as being what they are”, conscious beings with their own kind of intelligence and part of the Peoples, and people honoured and respected them and gave thanks when gathering them.2
Their nature, drawn from hundreds of homeopathic provings, is very different from Animal’s: calm, slow, grounded, receptive and adaptable. “Being Animal is complicated. There is so much stress involved in being Animal, so much to do, so many places to be, so many drives, so many complex relationships to navigate. By contrast, Plant is chilled and relaxed.”3 These differences are relative: compared with a rock, plants are not slow at all, and they do compete for space and resources, just far less than most animals.
Why are plants so different from animals? #
Because they make their own food. Animals cannot photosynthesise, so all animals are predators, and the predator-prey dynamic shapes everything about them. Plants have no need to hunt, and so no need to move: “gaining mobility was the great trade-off that us motile animals made in giving up the ability to photosynthesise.”4 Without that struggle, Plants have no agendas: “They do not deceive, seduce, manipulate or keep secrets. Simply put, Plants never play politics.” They also operate at a much slower pace, which is “essential to grasp in trying to grok Plant”. In a Star Trek image, “we are the aliens, moving too fast most of the time to realise the sentience of plants.”
Are plants conscious? #
Yes, though not in the way we are. “This difference is not because Plants are any less conscious than we are. Far from it. Rather, it is because they have a different kind of consciousness.” Think of a continuum with self-awareness at one end and collective-awareness at the other; humans sit at the self-aware extreme, and Plant towards the collective end.5 An individual plant is a little like a single cell in a body: the whole species shares one awareness. “All the individual grass plants on the planet are part of one single consciousness.”
This is why Lower-World work with a Plant is with its OversoulOversoul. A branch of Mother Earth representing the whole of a species: the single being all the individuals arise from. Lower-World work is always with the Oversoul, never an individual; environments are composite Oversouls, wheels within wheels. More about this, the species as a whole, not with an individual plant (see What is an Oversoul?).
What gifts do the Plant People bring? #
Every Plant has its own healing gift and teaching. In the traditional story of the great council of all the Peoples, “every type of Plant, Animal and Stone agreed to take on a healing gift and teaching, and to give this freely to any human who asked for it.”6 Each species is different: “Daffodil has its healing gifts, Dandelion has other healing gifts, and so on.”7
Dandelion is one example. After a journey in which Dandelion appeared, research showed that as a flower essence it is for people who push too hard and become rigid and tense: “Dandelion’s medicine can help release the mental and emotional issues that create this tension, helping people to relax and let go.”8 Plants also give us food and medicine, and some, the poisonous “Power Plants”, have especially deep medicine and are “great teachers about death and transformation.”9
How much do we depend on the Plant People? #
For every meal we eat. Every single meal you have ever eaten, directly or indirectly, comes from the Plant People: either you are eating plants directly, or you are eating animals that ate plants. Every meal, in this sense, is a gift from the Plant People.
Why can Plant People heal our deepest wound? #
Because Plant cannot live by the story that has done us the most harm. “On top of each species’ individual gifts, taken as a whole, Plant has a great gift, one of the most important gifts of all. It is a gift and teaching that can heal one of the most fundamental wounds of our modern times, the Taker society idea that ‘up is good and down is bad’.”10 That idea, which ranks Spirit above matter, sky above earth and humans above everything else, lies at the root of the Fall.
A plant that believed it would not survive: “If a plant bought into ‘up is good and down is bad’ then it would die. It would have shallow roots and instead pour all its energy into reaching upwards and growing taller.” Plants live by keeping a balance between their connection to Mother EarthMother Earth. The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: “The Earth is indeed our Mother.” More about this and Father Sky. “The story that ‘up is good and down is bad’ is a sickness. It leads to death.”
The healing is not an argument but an experience. When we slow down enough to grok Plant, “we find that Plant teaches us how to hold this balance between Father SkyFather Sky. The sacred Masculine pole: pure consciousness, from which the Upper-World arises. Paired with Mother Earth. ‘Father Sun’ is the older name for the same pole, found in the first three books. More about this (Sun) and Mother Earth.” It “is a somatic thing, an energetic thing. It is something you feel in your body, and which changes your centre of gravity.” Not everyone needs to listen to plants for this teaching to reach a culture; in hunter-gatherer societies it was the shaman’s role to bring it back to the tribe.
Who are the Standing People? #
Trees. “Shamanically, Trees (the Standing People) share all the characteristics of Plant. As members of Plant, they have a highly collective awareness.” But because they live so long, individual trees acquire middle-world stories, a history and a personality, so that “the older a tree is the more it acquires an individual-consciousness.”11 Deeply rooted and reaching high, they connect the realms, which is why the axis mundi is often pictured as a great World Tree.
The Standing People have particular gifts. They are teachers of Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer themes such as ethics and acting for the greater good, and of groundingGrounding. Returning fully into the body and physical reality; the bedrock of safe practice, and how every journey ends. More about this: their medicine brings “a knowing that one belongs, and that one is loved, supported and welcome here.” Because a mature tree is home to dozens or hundreds of other species, they are teachers of generosity, cooperation and community, and of the right use of power. Like an Animal, a Tree can become a close Guide, and a person can have a Power Tree: “Yew Tree is my Power Tree and I have a close and personal bond with it.”
How do people work with the Plant People? #
By journeying to meet a Plant’s Oversoul, by researching it afterwards, and by spending time with the physical plant. Finding Your Deep Soul includes a published exercise for journeying to meet a Plant Oversoul. Another way of connecting is that “a powerful way to connect with the medicine of a Plant or a Stone is to make an essence of it”, transferring its healing properties into water.12 It is wise not to project Animal or human qualities onto plants, since they have no agendas and no politics.
