Plantalk

It’s good to commune with planty things. They sing wallows at your knees. They snangle to the breeze. They gobble up the sun and dance in the rain. They help out bees and live on trees. They know shit. In our world of synthetic caves where we dwell, eating honey and pawing at salmon, we have more control over the elements we experience, and our bodies are keeping an eye out for dinosaurs (I know I know) and staking out territories and mates. Sure our minds are incomparably different from the other creatures but our bodies are not so different. There are a few unique physical attributes of the human being. Upright, good at throwing, etc. Those made it advantageous to become super smart over the next however many thousands of years. The platypus’ situation back in primordial times made it advantageous to be an egg-laying mammal with a duck bill and a poison foot. All in all I like our deal better, though I can think of more than a few dicey situations that would have been solved by a poison foot.

Our bodies may know flora and fauna in ways minds don't. To minds, poison feet belong in punchlines and comic books. Plants supposedly slurp up CO2 and produce O2. I guess that makes them pretty C removers. Bodies ain’t so wordy-termy-mathy. Human bodies have relationships to the other beings that may be disfigured by over-labeling. That doesn’t matter as long as you can put those words in the laundry hamper long enough to talk. That’s a good way to wash off potentially infectious meanings. It's enjoyable maintenance