Life sensing life
We’ve built our understanding of intelligence around ourselves.
Consciousness requires language, we say.
Awareness needs abstract thought and complex planning.
But these assumptions crumble when you sit still long enough to notice what’s happening around you.
Watch a bindweed spiral up a garden fence.
It has no eyes to see with, yet it finds every gap in the wire mesh.
It has no brain to calculate angles, yet it moves with a purpose that seems almost deliberate.
The vine doesn’t bumble about randomly, it explores, pauses, and redirects.
It finds the most efficient path upward as if studying the structure for weeks.
Or notice how wild garlic pushes through the soil at exactly the right moment, not too early, when frost might kill the tender shoots, not too late, when the tree canopy closes and steals the light.
These plants emerge with timing that would impress any meteorologist, yet they work without weather forecasts or calendars.
This isn’t mysticism.
It’s basic biology dressed up in wonder.
Plants respond to light gradients, chemical signals, gravitational pull, and countless other cues we’re only beginning to understand.
They communicate through underground networks, warn neighbours of danger, and remember seasonal patterns.
They decide when to flower, where to grow, and how to allocate resources between roots and leaves.
What we call consciousness is just one expression of something far more fundamental: life’s capacity to sense, respond, and adapt.
Every living thing participates in this awareness, from the bacteria in your gut to the oak tree in your garden.
We’ve just forgotten how to recognise intelligence when it doesn’t mirror our own.
The plants have been paying attention all along.
We’re the ones learning to listen.
Have you read Braiding Sweetgrass? This aligns with Kimmerer's teachings.