Plants represent some kind of entire other dimension of existence of which we view the topological manifestation of the form,
 but are completely occluded as to the network of energy and information that this represents.
 And like the zoological kingdom, which has thousands of forms of expression and progressively more complex forms which culminate in self-reflecting primates,
 the vegetable kingdom seems to have intelligent species and gradations of awareness in the world,
 so that we are opening a dialogue at the end of history with this other form in the biosphere,
 which we are just beginning to cognize as our own understanding about what the world is really about falls into focus.
 And certainly a hundred years ago, no one would have thought that this was in the direct line of historical development of the high-tech civilizations,
 that they would have to explore the mind of the vegetable plant goddess,
 who was the only force contending with them for control of the planet.
 That's what it's come down to.
 So, with that kind of idea in mind, the notion of plant and planet, which is a phrase of Anthony Huxley's, which is wonderful,
 Kat, maybe you would want to talk about this, if this is good.
 Yeah. I was thinking last night and this morning about plants particularly, because of our talks that I anticipated.
 Back at the tent a little while ago, I had a gnawing feeling that I was ignoring the animals too much,
 and then I arrived here and they all began to gnaw on me. I just got about 14 ant bites just sitting here.
 You see me scratching all over. So I feel grounded again.
 I don't know about having a dialogue with the end of history through plants, actually. I don't know about that.
 But I do think that they are this obviously great and ever-present mystery which we ingest all day long,
 without thinking of those as plants, without thinking of them as sacred plants in the way that we do the sacred ones.
 Their chemistry, their input is influencing us all the time, whether we eat meat or not.
 We eat plenty of plants and we breathe from them and we soothe our nerves by seeing them and being near them.
 We go out into places like this and see kinds we've never seen before and marvel at how they can survive.
 They're real models of graceful survival, aren't they?
 In the jungle where we've spent a fair bit of time, the competition it seems is for light and for protein, I guess,
 for organic matter, the animals competing. Here it's obviously for water.
 They have a kind of a deal. If you look around under the bushes, you know, you see wonderful wildflowers.
 Right now the rains have just held on, the moisture's held on long enough that many things are going,
 short life cycle plants are going through their short intense life cycle and they often need shade to do it.
 So you can see, we found something that we were sure was an African violet under a bush yesterday, you know.
 You can see wonderful things if you look carefully and don't bother anybody else who might be under there.
 The question I've been asking of myself recently and of a few other people,
 now I have many of you to ask it, I hope I get some answers, is how can a plant be a teacher?
 I asked this of someone the other day who was deeply involved in neuro-linguistic programming
 and he got way off on a tangent about what does this kind of question mean, you know,
 and just broke down every part and phrase of it. It was wonderful, you know.
 We never got to anything like what he thought about the answer, but it does assume all sorts of things.
 You have to have an image of what you think of as a plant, which although we have a sort of language verified easy answer,
 doesn't really touch on the reality. And then you of course have to think what you mean by teacher.
 Well, I know there's at least one biologist, serious biologist in the group here, so I'm hesitant to define a plant.
 I guess from my point of view as an observer, I've done botanical illustration and I really value the opportunity I had to learn to really look at them.
 And then when you think you've really looked, look closer, you know, and you can just keep on learning from them just visually that way.
 But they are organisms like us that draw in all the elements, fire in the form of the sunlight and water and air and earth.
 This moment right now is when they're doing that most energetically for the year.
 They're taking that moisture in there. You can look at each one, you know, I mean, the leaf tips are new and the tissue is soft and the colors are bright,
 as well as the blossoming and all that. They're also laying out the structure, as I understand it, for that growth to become more permanent, more woody,
 the perennials anyway, so that next year they'll, well, during the year they'll fill that out, next year they'll come from that place.
 They're doing this, envisioning the future, what they'll have to deal with, how to move to make their interface with it, and then how to reproduce.
 And their little messages are going into the seeds coming from pollination of other plants.
 So it's always like with us, when you choose a mate, it's your choice for how you'd like the future to be, right?
 My genes, your genes, here it goes, down the line.
 Really, all I have about this is questions. I hope you don't mind if I just throw questions up.
 If anyone wants to say anything, please do, including you.
 One thing I wonder is, we regard ourselves as such individuals, we don't think of ourselves as a species much.
 Terrence talks about that a fair bit, but in our daily life we really identify ourselves as individuals,
 as some of us having more power, more clarity, more energy, more talent, whatever, we divide that way.
 With plants, we tend to think of each plant on a species basis, you know?
 I wonder if, how much that's true.
 Plants we're familiar with, like ayahuasca, Banisteriopsis coffee, in the South American jungle.
 If you want to make this visionary drink, you go and find a member of that species,
 but different members have different potencies and different takes on the same kind of message.
 This gets to the teacher part.
 A friend of ours, Eduardo Luna, interviewed a number of shamans in the jungle.
 They used this term "plant teacher" in Spanish, as we've come to use it too.
 He asked them, "Do you think that all plants have a plant teacher in them, or do you think that some do?"
 And they were divided on this question. Some people think that only the sacred plants do, right?
 Other shamans said, "No, all plants do, just some of the spirits."
 They call them the mothers, the mother of the plant, or the spirit, or the teacher. Some are stronger.
 So that implies that every time we eat any plant, we're taking in that teacher.
 They mix these plants with ayahuasca, which already provides the vision,
 then they take a new plant that they don't know so well, or that they want some particular aspect of,
 and they mix it in with that and take it, and feel that they're irradiating what is that plant,
 what is the personality, whatever you want to call it, of that plant,
 and that they can take on the qualities of that plant.
 I think the Indians in this area, as I understand, did that too with their plants.
 They wanted to take on the quality of the peyote, is a good one, you know?
 It lasts a very long time in a very subtle way, doing who knows what all that time,
 when it's not being eaten by something which is metabolizing the teacher in it.
 Is the teacher in it when it's just sitting there all that time?
 Is it experiencing the visions that come into the animal organism that ingests it?
 I mean, I don't know.
 And I guess on the species and individual thing, I wonder as an adjunct to that,
 you know, when you grow your own plants, anyone who gardens,
 you grow your own vegetables, how they taste different than vegetables that,
 obviously at the store, the ones that probably have not been grown with
 even the same kind of physical care, but certainly not the same kind of attention.
 It's the question for me, or what always astonishes me about it,
 is where does the information come from?
 I mean, the peyote plant or the ayahuasca vine or the mushroom
 growing there in the jungle or on the desert,
 how did it manage to tap in and become filled with a universe of alien platonic beauty?
 Why is that there?
 All the rules of orthodox evolutionary theory conserve only what is necessary,
 is conserved.
 So it's very hard to understand how, why a plant needs a library card,
 the intergalactic library,
 because it's just sitting there in the desert of some planet alive and living.
 But each plant is different, too.
 I mean, their library cards don't take them to the same libraries, even.
 Each one of these visionary plants provides something distinct,
 and sometimes you can see how it's a cousin of that one,
 and sometimes you can't see that they're related at all.
 Well, isn't it that mind is somehow, at the reflexive level, chemical,
 and that when you change the chemistry of the engine which is giving the pictures,
 the pictures change.
 Sometimes it seems almost like a biological radio that you tune into very strongly broadcasting stations,
 some of which are, you know, alien, high-tech, insectoid, science fiction places.
 Others are jungle worlds or things that you can't even English.
 Giant human teachers.
 I met one. He was 40 feet tall, you know,
 and took me by the finger like I was a little child and led me through.
 What was that doing in the plant?
 Yeah, what is it for?
 [laughter]
 Sure.
 Yes.
 So hard to do this.


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