The Forest knows Your Name
Esteemed Friend, dear Reader on the Path,
In this week's Soul-Letter, I want to share with you a topic that once again reveals how deeply the illusion of separation shapes our perception of life, and which contemporary research increasingly supports, that the sense of separation arises from perception, not from reality itself.
There is a quiet re-membering happening on this planet.
Not new. Not revolutionary. Simply ancient truth re-emerging through modern language.
For as long as man roams the planet, indigenous cultures speak of "The Plant People" - and of trees as "The Standing People.", of "Mother Trees and Father Trees".
Not as poetry. Not as metaphor. As reality.
They were never seen as objects, but as relations. As beings. As kin.
Only now, very slowly, science is catching up with what indigenous and spiritual people have always innerstood:
Life does not begin with humans, and intelligence does not require a face that looks like ours.
Plants perceive.
They sense light, smell, touch, moisture, vibration.
They respond. They remember. They communicate.
They are not passive decorations of the planet, they are participants in the living web.
What science now observes through instruments and experiments by having plants and flowers playing music, ancient wisdom always knew through listening.
Plants do not have eyes, yet they see.
They do not have brains, yet information moves through them as electrical-chemical signals, strikingly similar to our own nervous system.
Life speaks in currents, not in organs.
And perhaps this is the deeper invitation hidden in this realization:
Intelligence is not centralized.
Consciousness is not hierarchical.
Awareness is not owned by humans.
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness."
First Nation People did not call trees "the standing people" by accident.
They noticed presence.
They felt relationship.
They innerstood that a tree is not standing there, it is standing with.
And when we slow down enough, we can feel it too.
A forest does not shout.
It does not convince.
It does not need validation.
It listens.
It remembers.
It responds to those who approach with reverence rather than extraction.
What if plants do not merely support life, but actively participate in the intelligence of Earth itself?
What if the planet is not a backdrop for consciousness, but a conscious organism expressing itself through countless forms?
"When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky."
This changes something fundamental.
Not just how we treat nature,
but how we see ourselves.
If plants perceive…
If trees communicate…
If the land remembers…
Then the separation we were taught collapses.
We are not visitors here.
We are not rulers.
We are not outside observers.
We are cells in a living body called Earth.
And then one Realization is made:
The Earth, and nothing else, would exist without You.
All is perfect.
You are perfect.
And maybe the real crisis of our time is not ecological, but relational.
We forgot how to listen to those who do not speak in words.
The standing people are patient.
The plant people are forgiving.
But they are not unconscious.
They are aware, quietly, constantly, waiting for humanity to remember how to be in right relationship again.
And perhaps the most spiritual act available to us now is not another belief, ritual, or concept…
…but learning to stand still long enough to be sensed back.
"May we remember how to walk gently.
May we learn again how to listen without needing to reply.
May we honor the plant people, the standing people, and all unseen intelligences that sustain this world.
May we live as relatives, not as conquerors.
And may our presence on Earth become a blessing again."
With love and standing presence,
Bear Saorin
The One Mind Sanctum
P.S.
Next time you pass a tree, pause.
Not to think, but to feel.
Something ancient may recognize you back.
P.P.S.
Reverence is not belief.
It is a way of relating
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