What Does It Mean to Be in Two-Way Communication With the Living World?
One afternoon my mind was spinning. I had too many things on my mind. Too many decisions to make. I got on my bike and rode to the park. I knew exactly where I was going. I had seen the tree in my mind before I left.
I sat near it for a while, thinking through everything — what I was weighing, what I was afraid of, what I hoped for. Then I closed my eyes and felt into nature all around me. I felt the tree in front of me.
We had a conversation.
I shared my fears. My hopes. The different threads of what I was trying to decide. And somewhere deep within me, the answers arrived as feelings, as felt words. I stayed with that tree, debating, pacing, speaking out loud, feeling all the feelings, until I felt settled. Until I felt ready to move forward.
I rode home with clear answers, grateful for the trees wise counsel .
This is two-way communication with the living world.
And it is available to everyone.
What two-way communication with the living world actually is
Two-way communication with the living world is an active, felt exchange between a person and the intelligence of the natural world — a tree, a plant, a body of water, the earth beneath your feet.
It begins with presence and intention. You bring your full attention to a living being in nature. You bring what is alive in you. A question, a feeling, something you are carrying. And then you become receptive. You quiet the thinking mind, go within and feel into what arises. What arises is sensation, as a shift in the body, as an inner knowing that has a different quality from your thoughts. They are clear, still and certain.
This is the felt sense of nature responding. And it is distinct from simply feeling peaceful in nature. Two-way communication is the experience of something specifically meeting you. Of bringing a question and receiving an answer. Of feeling, unmistakably, that the living world is paying attention.
The practice of Flower Essence Shamanism is built entirely on this capacity. The flower essence opens a pathway into direct relationship with the plant's intelligence. The shamanic journey state is where that relationship becomes conversation. But the capacity itself, the ability to feel the living world communicating, is something every person can already do. It simply requires attention and practice.
Why this feels unfamiliar — and why it is not
Most of us were raised in a worldview that positions nature as backdrop. As a beautiful, passive setting for human life, but not an active presence with its own intelligence and awareness.
This is a recent and particular way of seeing. It is not the way most human cultures across most of human history have understood their relationship with the living world. Indigenous traditions across every continent have understood nature as alive, communicative, and in active relationship with human beings. The animist worldview, the understanding that the living world is intelligent and responsive, is not a belief system. It is a description of something that can be directly experienced.
When people first open to the possibility that nature might respond to them, two things happen. Some feel immediately at home, as though it is something they have always sensed but never tried. Others feel uncertain, even silly. Both responses are understandable. We have been taught to distrust exactly this kind of knowing.
What I tell the people who feel uncertain: the feeling that arose was real. The knowing that came through the quiet was real. The sense that it came from somewhere within you is real.
What the communication actually feels like
Two-way communication with the living world rarely arrives as the voice of a tree speaking in sentences. It is more subtle, more reliable.
It arrives as a feeling in the body. A calming, a clarity, a warmth felt in the body. Sometimes a specific image arises in the mind. Sometimes a memory surfaces and it seems highly relevant. Sometimes you simply feel an inner knowing, an answer to a question you’ve been asking for days, weeks, even years.
The quality that distinguishes it from ordinary thought is stillness. Your own thinking has a texture, it moves, generates, controls, circles, and argues with itself. What comes through in genuine communication with the living world is different. It arrives already complete. It simply is and it feels whole.
I have watched this happen with clients and students more times than I can count. They come back from time with a plant, or from a moment in a garden, or from a session in Flower Essence Shamanism, and there is something different in their face. A glimmer. A curiosity and aliveness in their eyes. They are slightly amazed and a bit confused. They say things like I just knew. I felt it. I don't know how to explain it but something answered me.
And then sometimes, in the same breath, they question it. They wonder if they made it up. If they were just telling themselves what they wanted to hear.
This is the moment I love most. Because I get to say: it was real. It arose within you because you ARE nature. human-nature, one word. The communication was real because you are in relationship with the living world at all times. What you experienced was a conscious moment of that relationship.
And when they hear that, something shifts forever. A sense of wonder returns. A curiosity, an aliveness, a desire to go back and listen again. Something that had felt inaccessible turns out to have been available all along.
This changes everything.
How to begin experiencing it yourself
Two-way communication with the living world begins with one simple practice: bring your full conscious attention to one living thing and feel into it. Not with your mind, with your heart.
Sit or stand comfortably and feel into nature. Take a few breaths, relax your body and softly close your eyes. Feel into the nature around you. Become aware of your thoughts and let them go like clouds. As they release feel the space around you through your senses - the air on your skin, the sunlight on your face, the smell in the air, the birdsong in your ears.
Recognize that you are aware, consciously observing.
Gently open your eyes and bring your attention to one plant or tree. Focus your conscious awareness on this plant. Introduce yourself. Feel into the space between you and it. Notice felt sensations in the body, sense how the air shifts. Listen. Stay in this awareness for awhile.
Ask a question. Maybe something you have been carrying or need help with, maybe ask about the plants life and experiences. Stay open and receptive to a shared experience.
Feel rather than think. Stay with felt sensations, messages and guidance that arrive from within you. You can close your eyes if it helps. Breathe slowly. Continue to let your thinking mind soften. When you open your eyes, do so with loving awareness, gazing gently at the plant and the space between.
Trust what comes. The first feeling is usually the truest one. The mind will try to doubt, evaluate, write it off… release all of that. Trust the communication and your felt inner knowing.
This practice will deepen with repetition.
The first time you do this, you may feel uncertain. The tenth time, you will trust. The hundredth time, you will integrate this experience into your every day life. You’ll find yourself walking past a tree or pausing near a plant and feeling into that particular moment. You will feel, know and trust that the living world is present, speaking to and witnessing you.
Two-way communication and Flower Essence Shamanism
In Flower Essence Shamanism, this capacity for two-way communication is the entire foundation of the practice.
Flower essences hold the vibrational frequency, the song, of a living flower in water. When you take a flower essence or tune into its frequency by going within and feeling it, you are attuning to the particular quality of intelligence that flower carries. When you then move into shamanic journey, that frequency becomes a living presence to meet and speak with directly.
The session is not guided visualization. It is genuine communication. It is a two-way, responsive experience specific to you. What the flower brings forward in your journey is not scripted, it is direct guidance from the living intelligence of the flower itself.
This is the most structured and supported context I offer for developing the capacity for two-way communication with the living world. But the capacity itself is not something you acquire. You bring it with you. The practice simply opens what has always been within you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is two-way communication with plants and trees a spiritual belief or something that can be experienced directly?
It is something that can be experienced directly, and the experience is what matters, not the belief. Many people who come to this practice carry some skepticism, and I welcome that. What I ask is simply this: set the question of belief aside for the duration of one genuine attempt. Bring your full attention and feel what arises.
How do I know if what I feel is genuine communication or my own imagination?
Generated thought and inner knowing feel different. Your mind circles, argues, dictates. What comes through in genuine communication with the living world feels still, complete and clear. The doubt that follows is almost always a product of the thinking mind reasserting itself after the fact. The first response, before evaluation, is consistently the most accurate one.
Do I need to practice Flower Essence Shamanism to experience this, or can I begin on my own?
You can begin entirely on your own. Go outside and bring your conscious attention to to one plant. Use the practice described in this post. Flower Essence Shamanism offers a structured, supported context for going deeper and developing this capacity over time, but the capacity itself begins the moment you bring genuine presence to the living world.
Why do some people feel silly or uncertain when they first try this?
Because we have been taught, very consistently, to distrust this kind of knowing. The rational, analytical mind is valued in almost every context we move through. The felt, receptive, relational kind of knowing that two-way communication requires has been systematically undervalued. The feeling of silliness is not evidence that the practice is wrong, it is evidence of how thoroughly we have been trained away from it. It passes quickly once the first real experience of communication arrives.
What if nothing seems to happen when I try?
Bring less effort and more stillness. Two-way communication with the living world responds to receptivity and feeling, not to trying harder. If you are concentrating intensely, analyzing your sensations, or evaluating whether the practice is working, you are in the thinking mind. Go back to the breath. Soften the effort. Let the attention rest rather than reach. And return another day if needed. The living world is patient. It has been waiting a long time for this conversation.
The living world is already in communication with you
The tree I rode to that afternoon did not begin communicating when I arrived. It was already present, already available, already carrying exactly what I needed. What changed was my quality of attention. My willingness to bring what was real in me and feel for what came back.
That is all this practice requires. Presence and the willingness to trust what arrives.
The living world has been waiting for this conversation. It has always been waiting. And it will meet you — exactly where you are, with exactly what you need — the moment you get quiet enough to feel it.
Flower Essence Shamanism Series offers live sessions in-person in Jupiter, FL and online to go deeper into the practice of two way communication with the living world.
Gina Kearney is a Registered Herbalist (AHG), Flower Essence Practitioner, and Shamanic Guide based in Jupiter, FL. She has been in clinical practice for over a decade and is trained and mentored by Sandra Ingerman, world-renowned shamanic teacher and author. In September 2026, she will co-lead a live global class on Flower Essence Shamanism with Sandra Ingerman on The Shift Network. She works with clients in-person in Jupiter, FL and via Zoom.