🌿 What the Plants Are Trying to Tell Us

On root wisdom, sacred boundaries, and remembering how to grow

I didn’t set out to propagate plants.

But somewhere in my early spring season, I started channeling my latent creative passion into my family’s short term rental setups, and discovered I had a knack for creating cozy, welcoming places. This led to a fetish with plants as living decorations, and then an obsession with tying knots into macrame plant hangers. And in order to have enough plants to go into the plant hangers –without going broke– I decided to try my hand at propagating.

When a small army of baby philodendrons and spider plants began to overtake my window sills –and, thanks to the macrame plant hangers– my walls, and ceiling, I noticed something:

The plants weren’t just surviving.
They were sensing. Adjusting. Remembering.
And in their quiet way, they were asking a question I had long forgotten how to ask myself:

What do I need in order to grow?

In our culture, we’re taught that intelligence lives in the head.
That logic is king. That healing is linear. That transformation is a 5-step checklist, and if you don’t transform “properly” you’re a failure.

But the Wildwoven Way—and, it turns out, a whole new wave of plant cognition research—whispers something different.

“Where there is life, there is already mind.”

That’s Paco Calvo, founder of the Minimal Intelligence Lab in Spain.

His research on plant behavior suggests that what we think of as “cognition” isn’t something that happens in the brain alone (or even at all), but something that happens in the relationship between an organism and its environment. 

In the sensing. The adapting. The timing. The flow.

Which sounds a lot like the Wildwoven Framework to me.

So what if we let plants remind us not just of who we are, but how we change?

Below are three plant-inspired metaphors—paired with the Wildwoven seasons they reflect—and a few gentle invitations for each one. They’re not steps. They’re not to-dos. They’re threads to follow if it feels right to you.

❄️ WINTER | Root Apex ↔ Root Medicine

Stillness. Deep sensing. Restoring the roots.

The root apex is the sensitive, subterranean tip of a plant’s root system. It’s where sensing and adaptation begin—detecting moisture, nutrients, gravity, and even kinship. It’s how the plant knows where to grow, even in the dark.

But here’s the thing: the root apex lives underground.
Unseen. Slow. Quiet.

Just like the Winter season of transformation.

This is the season our culture tells us to skip—when everything visible seems still, –and therefore, according to western culture, unimportant—but everything essential is happening beneath the surface.

It’s where gut-level clarity begins. 

Where the soul whispers instead of shouts. 

And we stop performing to start listening.

🌾 Winter Invitations:

• Honor your need for quiet before clarity.
• Notice what your roots are reaching for—and what they’re pulling away from.
• Resist the urge to “make meaning” too soon. Just sense.
• Trust that the dark is fertile, not empty.

What if your next chapter is already germinating… but just isn’t visible yet?

🌱 EARLY SPRING | Sensorimotor Intelligence ↔ Emergence

The first green shoots. Tender yeses. Gentle experiments.

In early spring, plants don’t explode into bloom—they explore.
They sense. Shift. Respond. Pause.

What plant cognition reveals is that plants aren’t passive or predictable. They don’t simply react—they interpret. They remember past threats. They anticipate the sun. They adapt their growth based on current and changing conditions.

This is the sacred intelligence of early spring:
Tiny movements with massive wisdom behind them.

When you’re in the early spring season of transformation, it’s easy to doubt yourself. You’re fragile but stirring. You may feel like you’re “not doing enough.” But emergence isn’t performance—it’s a series of conversations with the world.

🌾 Spring Invitations:

• Let your growth be guided by sensation instead of pressure.
• Try one small, brave thing—then pause and listen for feedback.  Not external feedback, internal feedback. How did it feel? What would you adjust?
  
• Trust your ability to adapt in real time.
• Begin before you feel 100% ready.

What if readiness is revealed through the doing, not before it?

🌼 LATE SPRING / EARLY SUMMER | Photosynthesis ↔ Creative Expression

Unfurling. Play. Wild bloom. Voice.

Photosynthesis is how plants turn light into nourishment.
Creative expression is how we do the same.

Your poems, your voice, your rewilded joy, your full-body laugh in the middle of a hard day—these are not “extras.”
They’re how your soul eats.
They’re how you metabolize aliveness.

And just like plants don’t photosynthesize in darkness, we can’t keep creating from a place of depletion, shame, or silence.

In the Late Spring and Summer seasons of transformation, expression isn’t just allowed—it’s essential.

🌾 Late Spring and Summer Invitations:

• Let something bloom without apologizing for it.
• Create from joy, not just urgency.
• Let visibility be a form of nourishment—not a transaction.
• Say what you actually want to say.

What if your creativity is how the light gets into the world?

🐦‍🔥 ROOTED SUMMER | Shade Avoidance ↔ Boundaries as Direction

Embodiment. Discernment. Deep aliveness.

Plants can sense when they’re entering crowded territory.
They absorb red light but reflect far-red light—so if the far-red increases, they know they’re surrounded and can choose to grow in a different direction.

This is called shade avoidance.

They’re not avoiding out of fear.
They’re discerning where they can thrive.

What a beautiful reframe for boundaries.

In the rooted Summer season of transformation, we don’t set boundaries to shut the world out—we set them to grow toward the light.
 

We’re not avoiding people—we’re attuning to where our energy is best invested.

🌾 Rooted Summer Invitations:

• Let your boundaries be data, not drama.
• Notice where you’re shrinking—and redirect.
• Ask: “Where is the light now?”
• Practice saying no with compassion and conviction.

What if your boundaries are the blueprint for your next evolution?

🌾 So… What season are you in?

If you’re reading this and nodding, maybe you’re already on the Wildwoven path.
Or maybe it’s been calling to you for a while now.

This isn’t about plants, really.

 It’s about remembering how to be a living thing in a world that treats us like machines.

Hi. I’m Transformation Coach, Kristin Halberg.

My work is rooted in story, nervous system wisdom, and nature’s blueprint for transformation.

I don’t offer 10-step programs—I offer companionship, reflection, and a map made of seasons.

If you want to explore more:

🐦‍🔥 Book a Compass Call to explore options for working with me.

🌿 Take the Seasonal Assessment to find your current season

✨ Explore my other blog posts for more poetic rebellions like this one.

📖 Or sit with this post and let it work on you like good compost

Because you, too, are a living, sensing, wildly intelligent thing.
And it’s not your job to force the bloom.

It’s your birthright to grow in your own time.