THE LITTLE GUAVA

Each morning once it's light enough to see the ground, before I start jogging down the little forest trail, I do some stretching exercises. To steady myself as I reach behind me and pull a heel up against my butt, the open hand of my free arm presses against the trunk of a tree we've called the Little Guava, beside the gate. It's the same Little Guava tree profiled at http://www.backyardnature.net/mexnat/psidium.htm

I've done my stretching there for hundreds of time, but for the first time this week it began occurring to me that each morning I look forward to having the palm of my hand against the tree's trunk. On our Little Guava's page you can see that the trunk is smooth, handsomely splotchy, and shallowly furrowed, like muscles beneath a strongman's skin.

As I jog I think about this pleasant feeling. The tree is a member of the Myrtle Family, along with eucalyptus, Allspice and other fragrant species, and if you scrape its trunk very shallowly with a fingernail, it smells like dry cinnamon powder. Could it be that subconsciously I'm smelling the tree, and the fragrance brightens my spirit along the line of aroma-therapy principles? The tree's crushed leaves smell even better, a kind of sweet, sparkling spiciness.

Maybe that's part of it, but when I remember the feeling of having my completely open hand firmly against the trunk's smooth surface, it's definitely the touching that's most meaningful. Somehow the touch seems to convey to me a feeling of friendliness, a welcoming...

Back in the flower-power days of 1973 when I was still at the university a popular book was published entitled The Secret Life of Plants. Among its many claims was that plants respond positively to classical music. Science soon debunked the book's most wayward assertions, but since then in the public mind the topic of "plants thinking and feeling" has been lumped with UFOs and Ouija boards.

However, the study of plant perception has come a long way since 1973. You can prove that to yourself by Googling the keywords "plants feeling intelligence." There's plenty on the topic out there, some of it as off-base as the 1973 book, but much that's very serious and real science. A good overview of current scientific thought about the matter can be read for free in a BBC story entitled "Plants can see, hear and smell -- and respond."

Some scientifically confirmed facts that article mentions include these:

For my part, I have no problem with the idea that plants have feelings, perceive their environment, and are graced with some kind of intelligence. I remember that about 95% of the Universe appears to be "dark matter" and "dark energy" that humans can't perceive or measure. To me it seems clear that in that hidden 95% there's plenty of room for agencies that might enable parts of the Universe, besides us humans, to think and feel.

At age 70, in a good place for reflecting about things, and taking the time to do it, each day as I look around and see more and more I grow increasingly comfortable with the notion that I, all that's around me, and the Spirit behind the whole Universe, constitute just One Thing. And that we things of the Universe -- from galaxies to subatomic particles and sandgrains to people -- are merely ephemeral coagulations of variously configured packets of energy. However, we coagulations very intimately interrelate with one another -- whether we're aware of it or not -- in profound, unimaginable ways.

Moreover, it seems right to me that we variously configured ephemeral coagulations of energy would mean less to the Universal One Thing than the eternally evolving, ever refining network of interactions between all us coagulations.

When I feel welcomed by the Little Guava beside the gate, as we share our fragrances and the mutual delight of feeling close to one another, maybe I'm tapping into the network of the One Thing's ever-refining interactions. Maybe the good feeling I get when touching the Little Guava's trunk is a little "jolt", as with electricity, from touching the circuitry, and it's meant as an ecouragement to touch some more of this Universe around me.