Loving Plants

I have always loved plants, I love them in a protective and cherishing way. I especially love trees in a personal way, loving each tree as I meet it as if it were a wonderful person. I suppose I am indiscriminate in my love, loving any tree; whether it is grown majestic so that I want to join my fingers to its bark and commune; or ailing to the point of weediness and doomed so that I despair for it; or it is still a tender, vulnerable sapling whose leaves I barely dare to touch for fear of bruising it.

My household plants are cherished pets. I dither over each plant daily, monitoring and caring for their every need. I love them and must hold myself back from giving them names that they cannot hear.

A flourishing field of crops delights my eye and saddens my heart because I know that their fate is to be consumed; I know that a meadow suffers the same fate in the wilds.

I admire plants because they are the only beings that do not live by killing and consuming other life forms, there are exceptions sure, but this is fundamentally true. I admire plants for their sparse need of only healthy soil, space, light, and water, such a light footprint on the Earth. That living plants respire the oxygen that we need to breathe and live is just a bonus to their grace in my eyes. I sorrow that I am designed to consume them and other living beings. To plants I say namaste. And I am sorry.