Although the view from my window today is mostly muted gray, this episode is all about the green.
Plants are usually relegated to the background when it comes to both philosophy and theology, but philosopher Michael Marder is one of the thinkers who takes a different, vegetal perspective. What would it mean to think with plants? What could they teach us about life, interpretation, communication, philosophy? And could it be that we humans are more vegetal than we think? Michael explains,
Plant thinking is not only the thinking of the plants themselves… but it’s also the vegetal heritage of our own human thought. If we dig deep enough into our psyche and even into our physiology, we’ll find that the human being is not only a kind of animal. …We’re also kinds of plants. These mobile, wandering, errant plants, but plants nonetheless.
I first heard about Michael’s work several years ago when a friend sent me his book about the ecological theology of St. Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard was an abbess and mystic living in Germany in the 1100s, and was such a polymath that I’m finding it hard to provide a brief description that would really do her justice. She was a prolific composer, inventing entirely new kinds of music. She wrote books on plants, minerals, and herbal remedies and was an experienced healer. She had visions that she wrote about extensively, which provided the foundation of her philosophy and theology. She exchanged letters with many of the influential figures of her time; Michael calls her an intellectual superstar of the Middle Ages, made all the more unique because she was a woman.
Stepping into Hildegard’s world, we see plants and the language of plants everywhere. Central to her theology was viriditas, literally the “greening green”, meaning the capacity for self-renewal, of vitality, fecundity and life that is manifested in all living things. It is through the natural world of plants that we can more deeply understand the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the Holy Spirit, even Mary and Jesus. In the conversation, Michael and I explore both Hildegard’s work and how plant-thinking might inform us today.
Come join us for this leafy walk to explore what is germinating in the ever-changing, ever-greening world of plants.
This is the last episode of 2025, and I’ll be taking some time off to properly enjoy the darkest days of the year. Looking forward to sharing new episodes with you in January. Sending you best wishes for a joyful and restful holiday season!
Ingrid
PS: I had the opportunity to meet Michael in Stockholm thanks to his contributions to a book/audio project by the artist duo Lerin/Hystad called Electronic Flora, which documents the artist’s explorations and music making with more than one hundred different plants. They created a beautiful publication, including texts by Michael, my dear friend Elisabet Yanagisawa, Timothy Morton, Emanuele Coccia and others. Here’s their book, and the site in which they share their musical plant collaborations.
