Biophiliathrough Music from plants
Its now accepted that plants in homes and workplaces help toreduce stress, increase productivity and improve air quality. Being near trees andplants significantly improves our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
It is also increasingly recognizedthat plants are highly sensitive organisms that perceive, assess, learn,remember, resolve problems, make decisions and communicate with each other byactively acquiring information from their environment. The sophisticatedbehaviours plants exhibit reveal cognitive competences, which are generallyattributed to humans and some non-human animals.
Contact with plant intelligence provides deeper insight intoourselves and the world around us. A personal connection to nature inspires usto create a world where the environment doesn’t need protecting because it isan integral part of who and what we are.
In times gone by whennature was perceived as alive, and in indigenous cultures today, there is anatural connection and bonding with plants, akin to the relationship you wouldhave with your pets. Scientists are now calling this genetically encoded relationship,biophilia.
A device has been developed that can read theelectromagnetic vibration of a plant and translate it into music. Encountering this encouragespeople to go beyond traditional ways of thinking and expand their awareness ofhow they relate to plants, trees and nature in general.
Sensors put on the leaves read the electromagnetic vibrationpulse of a plant, this is received by a circuit board and the frequencies are encodedas raw data which is then put through a synthesizer, translating it into sound.
The plants learn to control their electrical emissions, sothey can modulate the notes, as if they are aware of the music they areproducing, resulting in music that is ever more ‘full’ and harmonious overtime.
They also respond to other sounds and music in the vicinity.It’s a profound experience to hear a melody that has been played to a plantbeing repeated back perfectly to the musician by the plant.
Plants are conductive and so are we, so when we touch theplant we affect the signal.
Studiesshow that audible resonance of plants and trees triggers the release of thehormone oxytocin in us. Sometimes called the love hormone, it initiates therestorative response in the body, bringing our entire system – physically,emotionally, mentally and spiritually – into homeostasis or balance.
Once homeostasis is achieved, biophilia – an innate love forthe natural world – is reached, and we can easily understand and know, from thecentre of our being, that we are part of a vital, interconnected web of life inwhich everything and everyone is connected.
Carol Sharp 2018