How has the Semiosis series changed me?
Shepherd’s purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris
I’ve been growing houseplants for a half-century, and before that, I lived in a house filled with my mother’s plants. She also kept a garden. I’ve always liked plants.
Now, I don’t just like them - or even love them. I respect them. And I have opinions.
According to a work attributed to Aristotle but is probably by Nicolaus of Damascus, On Plants, “the plant is not a living creature, because there is no feeling in it.” That kind of thought has permeated Western philosophy since ancient times: Plants rank one step up from rocks, capable of reproduction and growth, but not movement or sensation.
A lot of people still think that way, and to them, plants are valuable only insofar as they provide some benefit to us such as food and medicine, or habitat for a charismatic animal like monarch butterflies, or inspire easy awe like giant sequoias. If not, that particular plant species has no interest or value.
Plants, of course, make our lives possible on Earth. They produce the oxygen and food we need from sunlight. But thinking that way can still fall into the trap of anthropocentrism.
After all these years of living alongside plants at home and after all the research needed for the novel series, for me every plant has become a miracle. Shepherd’s purse, a common weed growing in vacant lots and cracks in sidewalks (see photo), has seed pods that explode! In the soil, the seeds exude mucilage to capture and digest nematodes and insects to provide nutrients for the seedling - the seeds are protocarnivorous!
Plants have so much drama in their lives, and we walk right past as if these “weeds” were little more than rocks. (As if rocks weren’t also awesome.)
Every plant is fighting for its life, and they are all remarkably equipped to win the fight under ordinary circumstances. But we live in extraordinary circumstances, and many species can’t adapt fast enough to the loss of habitat, invasive species, poaching, the rapid spread of disease and pests using human transport, over-foraging, and climate change.
Plants need friends. I hope I’m a good friend, and I hope I’ve convinced you to care about plants, too. They’re not here to serve us. We are all in this together, and our task is to share this good green Earth.
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The official launch of the novel Usurpation, the third book in the Semiosis trilogy, will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 30, at Volumes Bookcafe, 1373 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago. Everyone’s invited! More details here.