Gwendolyn Soper

I have a small African Violet on my kitchen windowsill that I've tended to for many years. We talk and listen to each other and I believe a reciprocal healing vibration occurs. With every human-plant communion like this around the Earth I believe a thrilling something also emanates beyond these connections that may lower collective negative pressures (which affect the health of human beasts, non-human beasts, and our botanical world). 

A while back, I navigated years of chronic illness. There were extended periods when I couldn't spend much time in the natural world. It was excruciating, for many reasons. My poem "Go Out in the Woods, Go out" in this 2025 issue of PHQ describes the lengths one may go to in order to experience healing exchanges with plants if they're unable to have frequent access to the out-of-doors. 

Perhaps we're much like a stalk of asparagus growing beneath loamy soil. It has the urge to "go out", to grow upward, to find sunlight, and become the fullest measure of itself. Sometimes it has limitations and remains un-green under the soil. Sometimes a human has limitations and remains indoors more than they'd like. 

During those years of illness, a medical doctor shared an opinion with me that was not helpful. He said, "I often share this with patients like you: some people are born weak. If you were a sheep in a flock, you'd be the first one a wolf would come for." I replied, "You're not considering the strength of the human spirit." He apologized and said he'd never use that analogy again.

It is my hope that, when needed, the human spirit can defy limitations of the physical body and find some measure of healing by exploring the botanical world as it interacts with the psyche.