Empathy does not only involve other human beings, in my experience at least.
I am certain I feel it with animals and since having my own garden to tend to I also suspect I have had some kind of interaction with plants. I was always aware that I felt connected to animals and seemed to understand them, but there is nothing especially out of the ordinary about that. Millions of people form strong bonds with animals of all kinds.
One of the most moving experiences I had of experiencing a non-human beings' feelings was in 2012, visiting an aquarium which was integrated into an amusement park. My eyes landed on a small tank in the middle of the room, a tiny, beautiful seahorse was just floating near the bottom of the tank. It was the only one in the tank. I was truly mesmerised by its beauty and perfection in a rather blissful state my self.
When my gaze met with the tiny eye staring back at me, as I was looking at it sideways on, just like always a random powerful emotional rush took over which was seemingly unrelated to my thoughts at that time. The moment our eyes met my blissful state of appreciation turned to an intense sadness, a yearning for company, a pit of loneliness. In that moment I knew it was the seahorse that was feeling that way, I actually started to cry and had to step outside. In the time it took me to get outside logic had kicked back in, don't be so stupid, the seahorse isn't feeling like that, and if it was it didn't just send those feelings to you, you are really ridiculous, get a fucking grip.
I gathered my self together, and went on with my day. When we got back to the hotel that night and had wifi access, I googled seahorses and how they live, and learned that they prefer not to be alone, and are very social creatures. They can often refuse to eat after loosing a mate and can die from loneliness in captivity. Oh my God......that poor creature, suffering that way all so we can satisfy our need to admire it. Half of me wondering if that poor animal really did feel so horrendously lonely, and the other half of me telling the crazy half of me to stop being so ridiculous. So I filed it away, as normal, not to be discussed.
The suspected connection with my plants is a recent experience. Perhaps two months ago, I was out in the garden re-potting some seedlings into bigger pots. One of my close friends had recently had a heart attack and was having a really rough time. I was feeling calm and peaceful then suddenly this sense of urgency came over me, I had the feeling of help me, that someone needed help. A bit bewildered I brushed it off and carried on with my mission of not accidentally killing any of these seedlings. But the feeling grew stronger, and with age I have learned to pay attention to my intuition and feelings. I am often wrong, but very often right, and so these days I tend to act just in case.
My friend immediately sprung to mind and so I went inside and called her to see if she was ok, asked her if she had been feeling weird, dizzy, faint, everything. She assured me that she was absolutely fine. So I went back outside and just thought ok, one of those times it's just me. Sometimes it will be just me, I am a human too. I feel all the emotions too, and this is where the lines get so blurred, and what the most difficult thing about this all is, finding those lines, what is yours, and what is someone else's.
I am back gardening and it hit me again, stronger this time. I knew it wasn't me. Something is wrong with someone near by. I walked out the back gate to the lane, down to the main street to see if there was someone fallen over or something, nothing. I couldn't see any injured animals either. I was rather confused.
Back in my garden, I can't stop thinking about this now, this feeling is just getting stronger, it then occurred to me- Is it one of the plants?
I immediately laughed out loud and dismissed it. But after a few minutes I just could not excrete this idea from my mind. Where do I start? We have so many, what on earth am I looking for? No one's drooping so no ones thirsty, no one looks like they are baking to death in the sun, I've given them some feed recently so it shouldn't be that, so I just started examining them.
My partner and I are novice gardeners, and although we had been watchful of the obvious stuff like slugs, caterpillars and pests in general, I had no idea that plants are susceptible to parasitic type of infestations and fugal infections. A few plants in I saw it, I had this pot of beautiful purple flowers that looked somewhat like daisy's, but bigger. The flowers were in full bloom so all the heads were hiding the leaves underneath. Some type of white worm thing was visible through all of the leaves, every single one, and I then noticed that several of the stems were dying.
I checked everything else and found a few that were in poor shape, riddled with what I now know to be leaf miner, and noticed a few other infestations of different kinds too. Summer was in full swing now and I suppose these pests and parasites thrive in the summer. It had not entered our minds to look for it, and so the subconscious does what it does best, it filters out the information it thinks you do not need to pay attention to, as to not overwhelm your conscious mind.
Neither my partner or I had noticed these infestations at all, to the point where some of the plants were clearly fighting for their lives. I felt so guilty, how could I not have spotted it? I didn't feel so stupid about pondering if my plants were trying to communicate something to me now, I was convinced that they did. We dealt with that and managed to save all but 1.
It's an ongoing battle as the summer continues to keep on top of these outbreaks. But I feel as though those plants brought it to my attention, and I am much more mindful when I walk in nature now than I ever have been. I used to always listen to music on my walks, I don't anymore, I walk in a receptive manner. I feel like tending to my little garden has given me a new layer of perception on the different forms of life, it has helped me mentally and spiritually, to realise some things about life and broadened my perspective.
Not only have we nurtured those plants into life, they have nurtured us back into real life too. This is what's real, not your Instagram following, not your job title, not your flash home or car. Connecting back to nature, and remembering our innate ability to interact and communicate with her, is what's real. Granted not everyone will have the same experience that I did, but everyone most certainly has that potential. And the longer we deny or dismiss that potential, then what reason is there for her to sustain us?
She provides everything that we need, if we cant listen and give back in return, then we're just the same as the infestation that riddled my garden, on a much bigger scale.
If you found this interesting and have some time on your hands you can check out Part 1 here which portrays how I experience Empathy on a Human to Human level, & Part 2 here which portrays how I can even experience this through a TV screen.