Greetings to my nature-loving readers! Happy Monday and Happy Women's History Month everyone! As always, may this blog post bring you what you need in the present moment. My love is extended to all who could use a little extra, and may my light exude positivity and kindness.
Because of my busy schedule, my blogs will start aligning with "A Monday Moment with Mal," my live-streamed episodes on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. Check them out at the aforementioned links!
Since March and spring is right around the corner, I felt compelled to talk about plants. I’ve been waiting to talk about plants forever, but there have been so many more things to talk about…just hadn’t gotten around to it. So here’s my chance!
Now, you know I love me a good definition, and I'm team #factsoverfeelings right? So, let’s get into it! Shout out to the blog on clickandgrow.com for providing ten mind-blowing facts about plants!
Plants talk to each other by secreting chemicals into the soil through the roots!
Plants recognize their siblings, and their root systems are more accommodating to their plant siblings than plant strangers.
Plants react to environmental sounds, and research suggests that sound can increase the yield of plants.
Plants sense gravity and will grow toward gravity if tilted toward it.
Plants use tricks to lure pollinators, like other animals, and are deceptive to get what they want.
Plants release distress signals when under stress. In fact, the smell of freshly cut grass is actually a plant distress call.
Plants know what time it is and are synced to a circadian rhythm. Next time you’re out, watch plants and leaves go to sleep and wake up (depending on what it is). It’s beautiful!
Plants know their season by sensing day length and temperature changes.
Strawberry is the only fruit that bears its seeds on the outside and is a member of the rose family.
Trees are the longest-living organisms on earth. They get healthier and more productive as they age. They store energy internally in their roots and trunks so they can recover quickly after trauma, and they also defend themselves against disease with chemicals they produce, deterring parasites and pets.
Nature is incredibly powerful!
Those of you who knew me two or more years ago know that in my life, I’ve refrained from purchasing plants of any sort because they would die in my presence. I mean, I would joke by self-professing that I have a literal and figurative Black thumb. I've even killed the plants that people say are hard to kill! However, in the past couple of years, I've taken a liking to plants, and I now have many houseplants. And I’m obsessed. Most of my houseplants have names, and I speak to them as I nurture them. And for me, a trip to the nursery is like crossing into the most beautiful dimension that has ever existed. I've even attempted a few gardens and grown vegetables and fruits! I was and am so proud of myself for even venturing into that space. Being a plant mom has changed my life. Those who have been in my life for my whole life know that I've never played around with nature. I've jumped out of cars and even left my car in traffic because flying objects with wings and stingers found their way into my space. Now, I work alongside the bugs when planting my gardens and spending time outside. I'll move away but not run away swatting. This is tremendous growth on my end. But I digress.
Nonetheless, I'm getting COZY being a plant mom. Still, the more I spend time connecting to the Earth, spending time outside on the trails, and observing the plants while taking care of them, I am starting to recognize their existence has significant parallels to life as a human. So, without further ado, here's 5 Life Lessons I've Learned from Plants:
Different plants (light beings) require different ways of care and nurturance.
After killing multiple plants, I learned that if one plant needs frequent watering, others don’t need much water at all. What you think is helping the plants is actually killing them. For example, I used basic garden soil to plant watermelon, but they weren’t growing as fast as I’d like them to. When I spoke with my friend, she told me her grandpa used sulfur in his soil to grow big, juicy watermelons. Lo and behold, I added sulfur to the soil for my watermelon and cantaloupe garden, and whoa, how they grew! How does this parallel to real life? I’ve learned that this directly relates to all living things because all living things require different methods of care and different conditions to feel nurtured and loved. This has a large implication in relationships because depending on how one is nurtured and cared for, which may or may not have been beneficial to them, they get into relationships where we have to give care and nurturance to others. And if we are deficient in the care and nurturance our souls require, then we can seek it in the relationships we are in or fail to be able to give others the care and nurturance they require, putting an unfair burden on the person we’re in the relationship with. That’s why it’s important to be intentional about learning what care and nurturance you need. That way, you can properly communicate what you need to others you’re relating to!
(Meet my really dramatic Peace Lily named Joy!)
There’s beauty in chaos.
When I started running the trails, I honestly never looked into the woods. My awareness was always of the people but not always the nature around me. But when I started tuning into the nature around me, I noticed the seemingly chaotic details of the greenery surrounding me. Fallen trees and limbs, cut branches, uneven grass spaces, growth on the trees, open green fields with the occasional brown patches, beautiful coves created by dropping branches...a lot of imperfections. But then, I started to look closer and realized there were so many beautiful events taking place: trees and plants growing in place of the ones that had fallen, vines creating pathways making it easier for squirrels to hop from one tree to the next, whole macro and micro-ecosystems of insects, animals, and other organisms using all the parts of the chaos to live in their every day, and eventually, new life will grow from the destruction. That has stark parallels to real life because, when we're in the midst of chaos, it's incredibly difficult to find any beauty in the trials and tribulations we experience. It can be painful and uncomfortable. But it's in spaces of pain and discomfort that we learn our greatest life lessons. And if while we're in the midst of the chaotic situation have the ability to focus some of that energy on the things that we can be grateful for, we will hopefully begin to seek the beauty in all the chaos we experience. Ultimately, being grateful for it all!
(This chaos was so beautiful and so full of life. I wish you could hear this picture!)
Energy never dies but always transfers, so protect and heal yours!
One day, I went to the park with my sorority sister to perform an Oracle Card session with her. She needed to gain insight from our guides, and I wanted to spend time with her and get out of the house; it was a beautiful yet windy day. Sounded like the perfect date for me!
We agreed to meet in a nearby park, which has majestic trees. We chose a tree we were drawn to and sat down under it. As we looked up at the tree, we noticed spikes growing from the bark. I can say that I was THAT MANY YEARS OLD before I ever saw a tree like that. It had some black seed pods surrounding us on the ground. A quick Google Lens search told us that this tree was called a Honey Locust, and the spikes may have been an adaptation to keep mastodons from feeding off its bark. The pods have a sweet, gooey substance that squirrels and deer love! The tree's wood is sturdy and resistant to rot, but the spikes are all over the tree, including the trunk and branches. Anecdotes about people being hurt by the spikes are crazy to read, including one who had to get surgery because a spike was lodged between his elbow joint and broke into 20 pieces.
What am I saying? This tree does an amazing job of protecting itself. And even though mastodons no longer exist, they never felt the need to drop their protection. The energy of the need to protect itself is residual in its existence. There are several micro lessons in this one example, but the one that rings loudest to me is this: Trauma is energy that attaches to the DNA of a living being and can transfer through generations of life. So, to change the course of the defense mechanisms attached to our DNA, we can do the work to heal our souls. Even then, the defense mechanism put in place for protection may need to exist because collective healing is not happening; the defense mechanisms may still need to exist. The collective trauma we've all experienced that comes to mind is racism. Whether we want to admit it or not, the traumas of our ancestors on all sides of the situation are written in our subconscious minds. And my grandparents, who lived through Jim Crow, and my parents, who were the early integrators of schools, are still alive. On the other side of the coin, there are people still alive who witnessed live lynchings as children who had no choice because it was normalized or learned to dehumanize others based on their skin color... That's traumatic, too. So, understanding that energy is transferred and never dies, we must protect our energies and be intentional about healing this energy. Love is the highest frequency and is a great healer. But you are only in control of your actions. So, by showing love for yourself by protecting and healing your energy, you create a larger energy of love.
(Look at the thorns on this Honey Locust Tree!)
As long as you have life, you live!
As I mentioned earlier, I've killed a lot of plants over the years, and as an official plant mom, I've killed more than I liked to say. But I've also saved a lot of plants that were on the verge of death. I changed their soil composition, propagated cuttings from the original plant, stopped watering the soil or soaked the soil, provided more sunlight by moving their position in the house, put them outside, or sang/talked to them with love or provided music for them...I've done it all. And they revive themselves and come back vibrant and happy!
I was also running through my neighborhood and saw a plot of land that someone had tried to clear, but they had left the stumps. I ran through there on a warmer summer day, and the stumps had grown into baby trees. Just because the trees were cut down doesn't mean that life was stripped from the trees. It was still a living entity.
Sometimes, life has a way of cutting us down or killing our spirits because it's hard. But know as long as you have life, you live! Don't give up just yet. Hold on for a little while longer. You may need to change something or need time to heal yourself. Whatever the case may be, give yourself grace through it all.
We are all one.
When I'm on my runs, I sometimes listen to music, but most of the time, I listen to podcasts. The podcast I listen to the most is Eckhart Tolle's Essential Teachings. Tolle, a spiritual teacher and self-help author, has the driest voice, but if you can get past that, his words provide so many jewels for the soul. In his book, A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose, he discusses the human ego's need to label things to create a structure. He says, "Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don’t know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label. Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg. Underneath the surface appearance, everything is not only connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all life out of which it came. Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you" (p. 20).
As humans, we used to be deeply connected to the Earth because we lived closer to the Earth. We looked into nature for healing, sustainability, and survival needs. Now, with all the modern technology and the hustle and bustle of life, we're so removed from nature. We mistreat and abuse her and don't recognize how plants and nature ARE us, and we ARE them.
Bringing awareness to the parallels of nature and human life will bring greater respect for nature AND each other. It will bring about a collective peace we have yet to experience in our current society. We're angry, and our bodies are overly acidic because of processed, low-quality, and fast foods, making us subconsciously angry because our cells are on fire. The song says, “Let’s get back to Eden, live on top of the world”! Eden literally means “place of pleasure,” it’s no surprise that in the creation story, the most pleasurable place to be on Earth is in a garden.
My call to action for you this week is to reconnect with nature. Get outside and take a walk. Mindfully breathe in some fresh air. Eat lunch outside without your phone, or if you must take your phone, set an alarm for when you need to return, put it down, and observe your surroundings. Take a moment to let all your senses heighten to what’s around you. Take off your shoes and put your feet in the grass. Just do SOMETHING to connect to the Earth.
And to wrap up, I leave you with a quote and an affirmation :
Well, that's all for me this week! Tune in next week for a blog post entitled “How to Spring Clean Your Life”.
Alexa, play Earth Song by Michael Jackson. This song will always be relevant until we get it right.
Bonus Lesson: I entitled this "5 Life Lessons My Plants Taught Me", but I left one out directly related to my current life. It's related to the quote, "Nature doesn't hurry, yet everything is accomplished-Lao Tsu." If you look at plants, they could care less how another plant next to them is growing. They live out loud and do what they're going to do. This directly relates to my personal life because of my son. I found myself making excuses for the reason he's developmentally at where he's at, largely connecting it to autism. I initially rarely compared him to anyone, but others around me compared him to other kids. The adults have a comparison complex because of the insecurities they harbor about themselves. It's amazing for him to be around other kids because they don't care and, most importantly, accept him the way he is. So take a note from the plants: live out loud, live boldly, and live as your best self! You are YOU all by yourself, and you're beautifully and wonderfully made!
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