Plant teachers ?

[Noname]

what have plants taught you? I drank a strong cup of coffee and I feel more in tune with my emotions and myself ina very intense and In your face kinda way. Idk if they have came
Up to the surface or my ego is down or maybe both but i feel emotional

 

[Krunkie McKrunkface]

Since I started drinking kava I dropped my two cups of coffee in the morning to one cup, but I enjoy it twice as much.

I've learned a lot from my various plants and the soil in my vegetable garden. One thing in particular I learned was it's often better to work with than fight against. I let some plants become weeds so that when I am cultivating between rows, I am also harvesting. Good plants for that are arugula, rapini, cilantro, dill, mustard, lambsquarters, purslane. So this way even the "bad stuff" is good stuff. I also learned that often it is all good, e.g. with beets, they are great when very young, say 4 or 5 inches tall, you pull the whole plant root and all and eat it. Later you can eat the root, but also the leaves and the stems, it's all good. With some beans, like favas or blak eyed peas, you can eat not just the beans, but also the pods, and also the whole plant. And cauliflower leaves and their ribs, and the center of the planstems are even better than the flower heads that you get in stores. I've learned to rethink things, challenge all assumptions, adapt, learn to see the good in everything.

 

[Groggy]

what have plants taught you? I drank a strong cup of coffee and I feel more in tune with my emotions and myself ina very intense and In your face kinda way. Idk if they have came
Up to the surface or my ego is down or maybe both but i feel emotional

I have read some really great insight from a couple different members here on this, so I'm tagging them for you.
@violet @Bwiggy

 

[kavabala]

The poppy has taught me that not all plants have your best interested in heart. Some are very, very deceitful, like the best lover you've ever been with who is ready to stab you in your back and kill you.
I'm not very trusting of plants anymore, besides plants like kava. I do think that consumable plants all have unique personalities, metaphorically, but that doesn't mean you should learn from all of them.

 

[violet]

Most all plants have something to offer to somebody, and they all have something to say. Sometimes they get really loud if we don't give them enough attention (a lot of "weeds" make excellent medicine).

As far as being teachers, I think all living things have the ability to hear what plants say without having to ingest them, no special "gifts" needed. Animals and other non-humans do it adeptly. Over generations, many humans have lost touch with the ability to perceive (seemingly subtle) energies; being open to practicing and refining the ability makes it useable again.

Plants have greater wisdom and intelligence than anything we could consciously construct. The right plants taken for the right conditions make the best teachers, as they will be helping you to a better place as long as they are needed.

 

[chandra]

Plants make beautiful teachers. In my experience, you have to treat the plant as you would a valued teacher to truly learn from them. This means getting to know them and building a relationship with them, and treating them with respect and appreciation. The most important thing plants have taught me is that they do have something to say. That they are alive and in some way conscious. It's helped me to see what I define as the divine spark of God within everything in nature. It's also taught me that we are all parts of the same whole, whether you define that as God, nature, or universal consciousness, we all came from the same source, and we are all connected.

 

[gork]

Hmm for what it's worth Pouni Ono is helping remind me how to lighten up, be in the moment and laugh.

 

[lonnyzone]

My succulents whisper things to me in the night. Awful, terrible things...

Seriously though, I'll opt out of going into detail about my own life to post about learning from plants in general:
If you're interested in really taking lessons from your use of psychoactive plants, I highly reccomend checking out The Teachings of Don Juan. Great book, relevant subject matter. The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss is another good and relevant one if you can sit through a beginning couple chapters of kinda boring family history of the author. It also helps to just read a lot in general.
Also relevant is an episode that I have yet to listen to of a podcast called Occulture, but know is relevant. Episode 74, "The shamanic art" with Julian Vayne. Again, take that reccomendation in particular as one that I haven't actually bothered checking out in full as of writing this.
Also, obligitatory: DO YOUR RESEARCH AND BE CAREFUL.

I don't mean to come off as preachy, I just figured this may all be useful stuff for you to check out.

 

[lonnyzone]

The fact that you mentioned caffeine does make me want to talk about it, though. For a while now I 've found that Caffeine has a tendancy to ampify/increase the frequency of some pretty seriously negative psychological habits that I've been exhibiting since at least pre school, among other later developed ones, which used to scare me away from it (after I kicked my addiction to it, that is; but this realisation wasn't come to until some time after that) until I realised that I could use that to practice catching myself exhibiting those habits and nipping them in the bud. Interestingly enough, and relevant, Caffeine significantly increases dopamine bioavailability while active in your brain (provided you're not consuming it so often that that effect plummets as it does in the case of chronic consumption), and I've heard (but not verified) that dopamine surges are great for state-dependant learning (like if you wanted to teach yourself to kill off instances of bad mental habits as soon as you notice them for example).
Caffeine also makes it so that I can bring myself to go the gym when I know I should, and has a funny habit of reminding me how much I love Techno.