Humans are wired for deep communication and connection with plants and the earth. However, for many of us, this skill is a little bit dormant or wasn’t nurtured when we were growing up. Let’s explore one simple method for how to communicate with plants and trees.
Thousands of students in my Plant Wisdom Online Course have had success with this technique, and you can use it to open communication with plants in your garden or anywhere around you.
For some people, communication with the plants can seem elusive and or it might be called “weird” or “crazy” or “out there.” We’ll also address some obstacles that many of us must work through to be able to talk to plants and really connect with the earth.
What You Need for Plant Communication
Two things go into this simple technique for communicating with plants: your hands and sound.
Your Hands
Just take a minute and look at your hands. Our hands are powerful receptor sites full of energy. We interpret the world by our ability to perceive impulses through our nerve endings. It’s like when somebody touches you, it can completely change your disposition.
Sometimes we forget about our ability to perceive and transmit through our hands. When people talk about “healing hands,” you might think, “Well, I’m not a healer.” However, there’s so much that you can do with your hands even if you haven’t been trained.
Sound
Sound carries frequencies of all kinds of emotion. That’s why the way somebody talks to you is so much more important than what they say. It’s how they say it. Our sound carries our messages and love. The earth and the plants perceive those feelings.
Many cultures and traditions sing to their seeds. I didn’t grow up in a culture that sang to our plants when we harvested or planted them. That would have been considered weird. But once we recognize that the earth is alive and perceives the energetic frequency of our voice and feelings, then it becomes a doorway.
We’re going to put those two things together, but first let’s talk about obstacles…
Obstacles to Communicating with the Earth
If this is new to you, what I’m going to say is just fake it ‘til you make it and begin feeling the communication of the plants. It’s in all of us to be able to do this, but maybe it’s a little bit dormant or wasn’t nurtured when you were growing up. Most of us got more attention when we said our ABCs than when we were getting downloads from plants when we were two years old.
I’ve been teaching and working with this for 30 years and have helped thousands of people reactivate this capacity, but the feelings that come up are that this is weird. This is kooky, out there, hippie, fill in the blank. What have you been called? My students have been called these names for the past 30 years.
One of the reasons why we’re in so much trouble with the earth is because we’ve invalidated this innate human capacity. When it gets invalidated enough, then it shuts down. We start to not trust it and then we don’t know if it’s our head or the earth or who’s talking. The doorway gets shut.
There’s so much cultural invalidation for being deeply connected to the earth. We have to go to bat with being shamed or put down. How do you feel when somebody hears you speaking out loud to your plants? That can be a big obstacle.
A Simple Technique for Connecting with Plants
Now, here’s the technique for communicating with plants. When you go to plant, you want to first ask, “May I be in your presence? May I work with you? May I be here with you?” It’s polite to ask before you step into somebody’s aura.
Then put your hands on the ground around the plant. Take some time and slow your frequency down. Put your hands on the ground and just breathe for a minute — three breaths, ten breaths, however long it takes to clear the chatter in your mind. Close your eyes and just be there on that piece of the earth.
Plants don’t cruise around. They stay in one spot. Put your hands on that spot of the earth and see how that it feels. After you feel like you’ve let go of some of your to do list and your chatter, then here is what you do…
Let any sound out that comes.
I know, it might feel strange. This is something that people all over the world do, but in the culture that I was raised in, plants were considered inanimate objects and you don’t communicate with them. In reality, plants have feelings and they feel your feelings.
So, you wait, you breathe, you calm yourself down and then you just let out the simplest melody or rhyme. It could be something like, “I’m so happy to have you here.”
In the video above, I share a very simple melody that I sing to new plants that come into my garden. This is a kindergarten song, and I’m not a very good singer, but it helps to transmit how I feel. The plants feel that, and they feel welcome.
I put my hands on the ground. I take some time to let go and feel into this spot on the earth that the plant is going to be in and sing my simple song:
Welcome to my garden
Welcome to my garden
Welcome to my garden
How simple is that? I just sing that over and over until I feel relaxed, and I can really feel it in my heart that I’m saying “welcome” to this plant.
This isn’t just about planting a garden. You can do this with any plant that’s in the ground or with a tree. Again, you don’t have to be a singer. It’s just getting to that place in your heart and singing a little, “I’m so happy to see you” or “Your flowers are beautiful” or “I can’t wait ‘til you grow, and I can eat you for a salad.”
When you let your voice sing even just a kindergarten song, eventually it opens a pathway where the plants go, “Hmm. She’s listening. I think there’s something going on here.” The earth responds to what we do and give. When we walk out our door, the plants know our rhythm. They’re aware of us. This one simple technique takes just a few minutes and helps us humans to be more aware.
Standing Up for Our Relationship with the Earth
We have to go to bat with the cultural premise that communicating with plants and the earth is something “out there.” It’s actually a very grounded and innate thing that humans do, but it wasn’t nurtured when we were little. We need to reawaken what’s already there.
Remember the two things that go into this: your hands and sound. Also, just notice, culturally, the impact of the shaming, belittling, and name-calling. Name-calling like “woo-woo” and “kooky” is a form of bullying. Let’s stand up for ourselves and not be bullied out of our relationship with the earth.
I would love to hear from you! What plant would you like open the doors of communication with? Have you experienced any obstacles in deepening your connection to the earth? Please share in the comments below.
Hi Kami, I love this! I live in Cornwall UK and I visit a hawthorn tree in a field near my house most days. I talked to it frequently and it seems amicable to greeting the four directions with me. The other day I was pretty sure it was encouraging me to take my boots off and squelch my toes in the mud by its trunk. Its cold here but I did it and I felt a much stronger connection to the tree. I must give it a name ‘it’ seems a bit rude! I will also have a go… Read more »
Awww…yes, do name her!
I have been saying for many years that plants talk to us, we just have to listen. To learn their language. I believe that plants have souls. Now science is starting to prove that plants do communicate with each other. Keep loving your plants and talking to them. They talk back.
I’m going to share this practice with my granddaughters. They love to garden, forest bathe and eat their home grown bounty. This will add to the wonderful experience of thanking Mother Earth.
Thank you Kami for sharing with us. 😎
Even though I walk thru my garden and touch the plants and talk to them already I feel I need to do more often and on a bigger scale. Need to tell them how much pleasure they give me. Thank you for reminding me about this valuable connection.
When I go to the back field to collect usnea, i find it when I sing my request to it to reveal itself.
Thank you for this, Kami. I love your passion. I can’t wait for spring and planting season.
Yes, we are connected with nature. It is our Life force. When do not believe, nor understand, it is to our own demise. When we injure nature we injure ourselves. Nature will be sustained without us.
Great article and video, I’m curious to create future bonds and connections with the earth.
Thank you for this post Kami. As a little girl I would interact with plants and tell people the colors I saw. I was seeing their aura but was told I was wrong when I’d say this flower has purple but it was a yellow flower. I didn’t know what I was seeing and they didn’t see it. I had no idea how to explain it and I was very shy. I shut a lot of that down but have wanted and waited for the right time to open it all up again. People are starting to remember their special… Read more »
I only now was able to take the time to read this – lovely! Thank you Kami, for re-enforcing my tendency to touch plants, Now i’ll be encouraged to sing to them too , , , I generally just softly whisper to them, or ‘think’ to them : )
Me too, especially when I’m collecting wild ones like St. Johnswort or elder flowers and berries. I always ask for permission to take, and leave something, like strands of my hair.n
I always talk to my plants. The hubby will say, “Who are you talking to?” When I say, “my plants.” He rolls his eyes. But my garden grows and prospers. He can’t argue with that!
I was always taught to talk/sing to the plants and trees, but never to place hands on the ground as described. I will do that from now on. I, too, will show my grandchildren the way to connect.They are both young enough to teach without them thinking this is weird..
I try and talk to my plants all the time. I also learned from a friend of mine to give trees a name. She names all of her trees a Saint name. I got a small German prune tree from my husband for my birthday last year and I named him St. Ephraim.
Or one might say, “Welcome to the neighborhood.” I didn’t grow up with gardening or plant love, but I can model for my grandchildren now.
My favorite line here is “Let’s stand up for ourselves and not be bullied out of our relationship with the earth.” Thanks for sharing simple ways of communicating with our earth!