In a meditation today, we were asked to think of a plant.
I thought of Kim, my fiddle leaf fig.
Then Gabriel, my begonia maculata.
Then a rose. An iris. A sunflower. A daisy.
A hummingbird appeared, hovering, drinking nectar.
At first, I thought I was simply imagining plants I loved, but then I realized something else was happening. We were sitting in a (digital) circle, holding hands, hearts open forward, and I wasn’t just seeing my plants.
I was seeing the plants of the group.
It felt less like visualization and more like attunement, as if we were briefly speaking the same language.
I’ve been talking to plants for a long time.
That sentence still makes me pause when I write it. Not because it feels untrue, but because it feels vulnerable to say out loud. For years, I tried to turn plant care into a formula. A schedule. Water every few days. Rotate weekly. Sun at this hour.
But people who were deeply connected to plants kept telling me the same thing:
The plant will tell you what it needs.
And I kept resisting that. I wanted certainty. Instructions. Proof.
I don’t live in that world anymore.
I don’t always hear plants clearly, but I hear them. Loudly. They speak in sensation, in urgency, in presence. That’s why I name them, not because I invent names, but because they offer them.
Kim.
Gabriel.
Medusa.
Gabriel was the loudest.
I found my first begonia maculata in San Francisco. Red-backed leaves, deep green tops speckled with white, shaped like angel wings. I stared at her for a long time, and eventually, she told me her name was Ladybug.
I said it out loud, half-laughing at myself. My husband just smiled and said, “That’s cool.”
Later, Ladybug began to fade. Her edges crisped. Her color dulled. We sensed she was lonely. We went looking for another begonia, and then one day, at our local greenhouse, there he was. Separated from the others. Calling.
We both saw him at the same time. Raced to him. Took him home.
On the drive, his name arrived fully formed.
Gabriel.
It felt like someone was sitting in the car with us.
There have been others. A philodendron billietiae who spoke with command rather than softness. Take me home, she said. Her name was Medusa.
This isn’t about fantasy. It’s about relationship.
When I listen, I soften. When I soften, I remember.
During the meditation, my healer shared a Native story, that when humans began destroying what was given to them, the plants, animals, and insects gathered and said: We will help them remember.
And something in my body said, Yes.
These conversations with plants aren’t about escape. They’re about return. A remembering of something ancient and shared. A language older than proof.
I asked, quietly, what my purpose was.
The answer came immediately: To heal.
I asked how.
The response was almost gentle in its obviousness: By being you.
By sharing the way I experience the world. The curiosity. The play. The listening. The comfort in my own strangeness.
I don’t carry the title of healer lightly. I once told a woman at a party that I worked in healing spaces, and she looked me in the eye and said, “You are not a healer.”
I felt rage. Then sadness. Not for myself, but for her.
Because anyone who believes healing belongs to a select few has forgotten something important.
We are all healers.
Still, that moment planted a seed of doubt. Maybe I was pretending. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I needed permission.
But the truth keeps returning, louder than fear.
I heal by going through things. By being seen in the process. By telling the truth even when my voice shakes.
At the end of the meditation, my healer mentioned a hummingbird.
It was the same vision I had seen before she spoke.
I didn’t share it with the group. I was afraid someone would think I was making it up. That I was borrowing meaning instead of receiving it.
That fear is still here.
But so is the knowing.
I don’t need to be believed to speak the truth.
And I don’t need certainty to listen.
I am learning to trust the language that comes to me–through plants, through silence, through my own body–and to let that be enough.
That is part of my healing.
And yes, I speak to plants.
