Dr. Gary Cook

Spiritwalker

The true value of plant life on this planet is little realised by most folk who take it as a bounty to be harvested without any recognition of what this means to us. Plants do understand. They can listen to human voice and music instruments and respond.

In this video, you can witness an interlude between cello player Raeul Pierard and a young Kawakawa tree in a forest setting in New Zealand. Music of the Plants is a device that allows one to make a connection with the tiny bursts of electrical discharges and convert these impulses into musical notes. We are in fact able to give plants an instrument to play. 

And in this Facebook video, three plants in an office are hooked up to the Music of the Plants device and are playing a symphony together.

Through listening to plants, I have developed a deeper connection with nature. As I stand in a forest on an early spring afternoon, it’s the most incredible feeling that these connections are deepening all the time. As my comprehension and understanding grow, I just seem to know a little bit more each day - about the trees, the plants, the animals, the birds, the elementals, the spirits of the ancestors, the guardians of this land - the fairy folk. They’re all here. Often we hear "what we see without is within," but perhaps, what is within us allows us to see that which is without in a different light.

So if we have within us the propensity to connect and understand the finer aspects of nature and the wonderful world in which we live, this can only back up each and every one us to enable our mechanisms - or whatever we might like to call them - that would lead us to really understand and truly know who we are, why we are, where we are, and how we are. The “how we are” seems to change from moment to moment and day to day. But the true us, the true inner self - the spiritual being that resides inside - never changes.

We as humans affect change with an incredible array of emotions that we let hold sway over us at certain times. So it is very much a time that we learn to re-connect with nature. But we’ve never been disconnected with nature, for heaven’s sake! We are part of nature – we are nature. – so it is just to understand this and remember this. It is the time to remember who we are, why we are, where we are. 

If we can do this, just this little thing to contemplate or meditate on us as an aspect of nature, then I think we will truly embark on our chosen path to spirituality. As is often said in ancient mysticism, when the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. So when you are ready, watch out, the teacher’s there.

Find out more about our presenters and what's in store for the 2020 festival program