Plant whisperers versus plant listeners

What if I told you that your plants might be much happier if you honed your listening skills? Save the singing for the shower and shower your plants with attentive listening instead.

Those who know me understand that I can find a life lesson in just about anything. Sometimes it isn't readily apparent if the flowers in my stories are really flowers at all. The garden is always teaching me tidbits about myself, my world, and my place in the world.

Flowers don't speak. That doesn't mean they don't have something to say.

“He can call me a flower, if he wants to.” (Bambi, 1942)

I've had the extraordinary pleasure of always having a little place to grow things. All of my adult life I've been blessed to live in places where I could press seeds into the dirt in planters, pots, or straight into the ground and cultivate a magical place for myself and my children. Into the garden they would go with me and my gloves, spades, floppy hats, and plastic wagon. The wagon would enter the gates with a cargo of laughing, happy children and emerge full of different treasures: stones, lizard or turtle skulls, colorful leaves, lots of dirt, and sometimes tomatoes, carrots, radishes, potatoes, and whatever else might be growing at the time.

When she was a toddler, my baby girl would find a soft spot in the shade and plant herself. Before she could form full sentences, she would grab a spade and dig a shallow hole around herself and cover her stubby little legs and her springy caramel curls with garden soil. We called her the little flower. She couldn't say the word, yet. But her eyes danced with joy at the thought that her people thought that she was indeed a little flower. It always reminded me of that sweet scene from the Disney movie. My Flower would eventually shake off the dirt, toddle to the strawberries and inspect every single plant. If there was a blushing berry, any shade of pink or red, she would pop it into her little mouth and giggle with delight. Berries never left the garden in the wagon. But every now and then, a single beauty might catch a ride in her chubby hand into the house, and then the kitchen, and then the kitchen counter for daddy when he came home from work.

Go to the garden to listen.

“The first duty of love is to listen.” Paul Tillich

There is a tendency, when tending to tender things, to try to teach every possible lesson. That is a parent's job, after all, right? We are their first teachers. And so, we start with simple sounds --- dada and mama. Sounds become words and words become sentences. And before you know it, you are lecturing on everything from the importance of eating veggies to every socially acceptable behavior. It is love (hopefully) that drives our behavior (maybe love and fear). We talk so much when they are little and then become distressed when they have stopped talking in their teens. Yet, as they grow, children are very capable of expressing their needs, too. I learned not to be so engulfed in teaching them what I think they need to know, that I fail to allow them to tell me what they know they need to grow. Did you know that different children need love expressed in different ways? And only they can tell you what that expression looks like for them.

I offer you these magic beans for your garden. Plant them and trust me and watch them grow. When you speak less, the flowers speak more. And maybe it isn't even that they speak more. Maybe we simply become more attuned to the way they speak. I don't know about you, but my flowers don't communicate with words. It is the turn of a stalk, the drooping of a vine, the wither or changing color of a leaf, or even the presence of a particular parasite that speaks volumes to me about what my plants need from me.

Paul Tillich said that "the first duty of love is to listen." This resonates deeply with me. Knowing starts with listening. How can I know you if I don't listen to you --- your needs, wants, nightmares, fears, and dreams? I'm working on listening more to the people that I love. It is more than a duty; it is my desire to love this way. I love my garden and when I am in the garden, I listen with all of my senses. I see the colors, I touch the textures, I inhale the fragrances, and I hear the sounds of the winds, birds, insects, all of it! I don't tell the flowers what they need to flourish. The flowers tell me. If I am wise, I won't be put off by their silence. I'll attend to it and all the other methods they use to show me what they need from me in order to grow. Are we still talking about flowers? Children? Friends? Lovers? I believe this principle holds true for any love. Whispers and singing are perfectly fine expressions of love, too. However, listening is a necessity.