Plant thinking

In April 2022 the SeedsValues team members participated to a 4-day intensive course in Oaxaca, Mexico, with Craig Holdrege, Director of the of The Nature Institute in New York. In 2013, Craig Holdrege published a book entitled Thinking Like a Plant where he “presents an organic way of knowing modeled after the way plants live. When we slow down, turn our attention to plants, study them carefully, and consciously internalize the way they live, a transformation begins. Our thinking becomes more fluid and dynamic; we realize how we are embedded in the world; we become sensitive and responsive to the contexts we meet; and we learn to thrive within a changing world. These are the qualities our culture needs in order to develop a more sustainable, life-supporting relation to our environment . While it is easy to talk about new paradigms and to critique our current state of affairs, it is not so easy to move beyond the status quo. That's why this book is crafted as a practical guide to developing a life-infused way of interacting with the world.

In Oaxaca he offered an interactive class entitled What Plants Can Teach Us. Through morning walks, sensitive teaching, collective conversations, vegetal dissection, and more, we explored how can we learn to perceive, think and act in ways that are imbued with the vitality, dynamism, and interconnectedness that the natural world itself embodies. This course engaged in careful observation of plants and work with a variety of exercises that can help us to develop the requisite openness and flexibility of mind to perceive and understand — to enter into dialogue with — the living and dynamic qualities of nature.