Juan Carlos Galeano

The eyes of the plants  

The ancestral desire to transform ourselves into other beings now allows us to feel the microscopic body of sacred plants. Jill Pflugheber and Steven F. White have listened to and presented the Amerindian wisdom of seeing with plant eyes. Where cold science has failed to understand nature, these artist-scientists offer an answer that transcends the divisions between the laboratory and the ceremonial, revealing cellular universes pulsing with spiritual life.

Each confocal image shows us that plant spirits exist even though our ordinary eyes cannot perceive them, and they function as windows to invisible thresholds that have always existed. Ayahuasca is transformed into cosmic portals because plants also observe us when we think we are observing them. Plants and humans recognize each other. In the past, we saw such recognition through modern abstract art, which revealed that painters were able to reinterpret the secrets of flora before they knew its microscopic intricacies. Pflugheber and White allow us to listen to those cellular songs with our eyes as well.

Plants were born to feel, not to be analyzed scientifically. Plants function as masters when they contain complete cosmogonies in every cell. When our thoughts become plants, we can finally contemplate the infinite beauty that resides in their microscopic forms. In times of planetary crisis, Microcosms offers visual medicine that acts as a morning breeze in the present. While many humans live in ignorance of the inner rivers that inhabit them, Microcosms invites us to discover our inner plant multitudes as well.

The website is transformed into a ceremonial space where natural elements have the ability to touch our bodies through the screen. Their contribution confirms that the technology used, in conjunction with sentient nature, becomes as sacred as the plants portrayed through the confocal microscope.  Pflugheber and White have opened doors where science and spirituality dance. 

Juan Carlos Galeano, Professor, Dept. of Modern Languages & Linguistics, Florida State University and author of: 

Yakumama (and Other Mythical Beings). Iquitos, Peru: Editorial Tierra Nueva, 2014. (Poetry)

Stories of the Wind. Ibagué, Colombia: Editorial Caza de Libros, 2013. (Poetry)

Amazonia y otros poemas. Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad Externado de Colombia, 2011. (Poetry)

Folktales of the Amazon. Trans. Rebecca Morgan and Kenneth Watson. Westport, CT, London: Libraries Unlimited, 2009 (Folktales).

The Trees Have a Mother (co-producer and co-director) Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities/Sciences, 2008. (Documentary film, Color, 70 Mins.)