Llegó de los rincones oscuros de la ignoracia, en un libro me demostró lo que es sentir el saber sin pensarlo —cruzando un puente al conocimiento— y cambió un paradigma que llevaba bien incrustado.

The opening of sensory gating channels beyond the current setting parameters dictated by our culture is a necessity. To think differently, we must actually think differently. And in this, intent is important.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Is not the tool that is crucial to the art but the ability of the craftsman.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Three capacities —self-awareness, intelligence, and the search for meaning— that have (erroneously) been ascribed as belonging only to human being, are in fact conditions of every living organism.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

In complex organisms the head, or anterior pole of the body, is the part that processes information, the posterior pole the part the engages in sexual reproduction and excretion of waste. From that orientation plats live with the heads in the Earth, their asses in the air.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

We are at root simply bacteria morphed through symbiogenesis into a more complex form in order to fulfill stabilizing functions within the self-organized Earth ecosystem.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

As with all self-organized systems, intelligence, awareness, the search for meaning, and the capacity for innovation in behavior is inherent in the the system and every part of it.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

We must learn to let the other life-forms of the Earth speak to us on their own terms. They have a destiny unrelated to ours that is just as important to them as our individual lives are to us.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Most often we see only what is in our minds, not what is in our eyes. Mostly we feel only what we have been taught to feel, no what we truly feel. With the attentive noticing of the soul, we step away from our programming and what we think we know. We feel something and then stop and genuinely look, identifying what has caught our attention. Then we being to really see it, noticing whatever it is as if for the first time. The senses begin to bring us tiding of invisible things, all of them filled with meaning.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Analogical thinking is the kind of cognition that occurs when you think though your synaesthetic perceiving, headed toward a goal.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Self-caretaking, deep interior analysis, a drive for rigorous self-examination, a genuine love of all the parts of the self, and importantly... the willingness to remain mutable, to have flexible perspective, the willingness to see what is true, not what you have been taught is true is essential in order to remain balanced.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

There is an innate tendency in Universe, within Gaia, for self-organized systems to vibrate in harmony, to share rhythms.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

All particles are in fact waves and those waves present themselves, to those who can hear them, as sounds, in fact, as composed melodies that generate form, shape, behavior.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Our function is ultimately neither social nor cultural, it is at last ecological —we are part of a larger system, not isolated bits thrown up through change by a blind universe.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Dissociated mentation has become the hallmark of the reasonable man.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

The moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

We can always tell the movement of the shadow side when literalisms become more important than invisibles.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Safety does not exists in the real world. It is an illusion. You can't «protect» yourself. That is not how the world works (even though all of us would like it to do so from time to time). The more functional approach is to: 1) prepare yourself for the journey as best you can, developing the skill base you need to minimize adverse events; and 2) learn how to take care of yourself so that when you do get hurt, you can competently tend to the hurt.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Siguiendo la intuición es que vamos.

Let your eyes wander around the room you're in until something catches your attention—desk, pen, cup; it doesn't matter what it is. It is just, for whatever reason at this moment in time, interesting to you. It appeals in some way.

Now. Look at it carefully, note its shape, notice its color. Really look at it; let your visual sensing take it in. Let your eyes touch the thing as if they were fingers capable of extreme sensitivity of touch. Immerse yourself in seeing the thing that has caught your attention. Now, ask yourself, How does it feel?

In the tiny moment of time that follows that question, there will be a burst of feeling, an "intimation of mood or feeling" as Goethe once described it. Your nonphysical touching has just felt a part of the exterior world. There's a specific and unique feeling experience that occurs whenever this question is asked about something that is acutely observed. What stands revealed is a dimension to things beyond height, width, and breadth. There is a feeling dimension to them. The secret kinesis of things.

Now, let your eyes be captured by something else, again focus on how it looks, its shape and colors, and when your are really noticing it, ask yourself, How does it feel? There will be, again, that immediate emergence of an "intimation of mood or feeling." The thing has a feeling tone to it. Even if you might not be able to say exactly what that feeling tone is, it's very distinct, isn't it? And this particular feeling tone will be unique to the thing itself. It's different from the one possessed by the last thing you felt. In fact, everything you touch in this way will have a slightly, or sometimes very, different feeling or kinesis to it.

Now, do it again with something else. Only this time after you ask How does it feel? just after the unique feeling tone emerges, savor it for a while as if your are smelling a unique but delicate perfume or tasting a unique and subtle flavor. Immerse yourself in what you are now feeling.

Now . . . shift your attention to yourself. Notice how you are feeling.

Interesting, isn't it? The state you are now in is different from how you were before this exercise began.

If you really have immersed yourself in this exercise, you will find that your physiology has shifted. Your breathing will have slowed and deepened, your body become more relaxed. Eye focus will be different, too, more soft-focused; peripheral vision has been activated.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Just take a look at anything you wish in the room you are in now, and focus on it visually. Really notice it through your visual sensing and then ask yourself, How does it feel? You again experience that instantaneous burst of the feeling tone that is a part of the object. Just stay with it a minute and let the feeling develop.

Now, take a break. Take a deep breath, perhaps strech a bit or move your body. Then . . . close your eyes and remember the thing your were just feeling. Remember how it looks in all the detail you are capable of and remember as well how it felt. Still with your eyes closed, keep seeing and feeling the thing. Now . . . reach out with your hand to the place where the image is. Now, open your eyes and look at where your hand is. It will most likely be out in front of your someplace, somewhere in the region of space in front of your chest.

Now, break state, that is, move a bit, stretch, or even get up and walk around, so you move out of the slight dreaming state you are in. Take a couple of deep breaths. Now . . . start thinking about something that you are troubled about, bills you have to pay, or a problem facing you, perhaps a goverment agency you are upset with. Close your eyes and see a visual image of it, of the people involved, and of you talking to them about it, and what you are going to do to attempt to solve the problem. Say all the things in that imaginary scene that you would say if you let yourself say whatever you wanted to. Let the scene unfold until it is clear. When it is, reach your hand out and put it in the place where that image is. Now open your eyes and look. Most likely your hand is up, either out in the region in front of your head or even higher—above it entirely.

This is an example of two different kinds of images—and two very different types of imagination. It is an example, as well, of two very different forms of thought, each of which works with images in very different ways.

The latter example is one that works through and with the brain. It works with the kind of imagination that most people define as something done in the brain, a mental fancy.

However that first imagining, the remembering of the thing you were seeing and feeling, is and example of what Goethe called the exact sensorial imagination.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.

Go into your yard or take a walk in a park and let you wander, just looking at this and that, until something catches your attention—a large tree perhaps. Then stop and let yourself really look at it and, when you are really immersed in seeing it, ask yourself, How does it feel?

In that tiny moment of time a unique feeling tone will emerge into your awareness, just as it did before. But, if you pay close attention, you will notice that there is a difference. There is a livingness to it, which the pen or cup or desk did not have (or perhaps did not have as much). And that livingness itself has a particular feeling to it. There is a secret kinesis to the natural world and it is perhaps the most important secret kinesis of all.

[...]

To make the experience even more distinct it helps to immediately compare the plant you have just felt with something else, so, after the tree, find something else that captures your attention, perhaps a blade of grass or a small flowering plant or even a stone. Focus on it and ask yourself, How does it feel? Again, an intimation of mood or feeling will emerge, one that is different from the tree. Yet, it, too, will possess that livingness, that unique difference, however slight it is, in feeling from the manmade things you perceived earlier.

Now, just stay in that state of perception and let your eyes pan over everything. Simply feel the world around you and ley the feeling tones of everything that you see wash over you. Nonphysically touch the world as a general mode of perception just as you do with your eyes when you see and your ears when you hear. There is something much more living about this than when you apply it solely to the human world.

— Stephen Buhner. Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.