“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

If you remember what you know of the trance state — in a light trance, you are able to maintain awareness of self, your environment and your place in it. You simply behave somewhat differently, not bestirring yourself in any direction unless the suggestion to do so has been given. The awareness of plant life lies along these lines.

Now, in a deep trance the subject, though fully aware of what is happening in the trance, may remember nothing of it afterward. The awareness of plant life is also somewhat like that of the subject in deep trance. Except for the suggestion and stimulus received by regular natural forces on your plane, the plant life does not bestir itself in other directions. But like the trance subject, our plant is aware. Its other abilities lie unused for the time, and latent, but they are present.

A tree knows a human being also … by the weight of a boy upon its branches … by the vibrations in the air as adults pass, which hit the tree’s trunk at varying distances, and even by voices. You must remember what I said earlier about mental enzymes and my remark that color can sometimes be heard … The tree recognizes a human being, though it does not see the human being in your terms. It does not build up the image of a man, but it builds up a composite sensation which represents, say, a given individual. And the tree will recognize the same man who passes it by each day.

Neither should the ego react so violently that it remembers and reacts to past storms in the midst of clear and sunny weather. You can understand the analogy, Joseph. You know that such a tree bark would be death to the tree. What you must still understand is that the same applies to any individual and the ego. It applies to you. And Ruburt must learn that it is equally ridiculous to act as if it is a summer day in the middle of wintertime. The tree has enough sense not to show blossoms in a blizzard.