A Trilogy of Talks: Plant Sentience and What it Means for Us – conversations with Pete Yeo
Recent scientific research is endorsing ancient Indigenous worldviews and inviting greater respect for the beingness and sentience of plants. In this trilogy, we ask if it was inevitable on the journey away from colonisation and supremacy that narratives concerning rights and sanctity for all beings would eventually turn to the vegetal realm. Since we’ve already seen a shift in this regard, plant rights, plant politics and plant ethics dialogues are active and growing globally, within academic spheres and without.
What, then, are the implications for our relationships with plants and our everyday lives? How might we ‘be’, both individually and collectively, so that the vegetal realm can be all that it needs to be, and perhaps even wishes to be?
Disclaimer: The speakers’ insights might radically change your view on plants, and hence your life, though this need not be feared!
Join reconciliation ecologist Pete Yeo and international experts, thinkers and feelers as they discuss plant intelligence, ethics and advocacy. Wherever you are, you can enjoy this exchange of fascinating thought by being part of the audience and putting your questions and ideas to the speakers during the interactive Q&A sessions. See below for information about each speaker.
Wednesdays, 7.30–9pm BST
3 May: Davyd Farrell joins Pete Yeo to discuss The new and ancient field of Plant Sentience
10 May: Michael Marder joins Pete to discuss The philosophical implications of Plant Sentience
17 May: Alice McSherry joins Pete to discuss Everyday embodiment of Plant Sentience
A ticket to attend all three online talks is £20. A ticket to attend an individual online talk is £8.
Please note that you can still sign up to all three talks even after one or two have passed, as you will receive a video of all the talks once the series is over. Videos are for ticket holders only.
All ticket prices include a booking fee.
Speakers:
Pete Yeo: With past chapters involving horticulture, landscape architecture, environmental activism, philanthropy and activism, Pete is now focused on serving his longstanding passion for plants, working with them to draw attention to our ecological relationships and inviting greater coherence within and without. As a reconciliation ecologist and Nature mentor, he gives talks, guides walks, engages in consultancy, writes and broadcasts in this spirit. He is enjoying collaborating with an increasingly diverse range of partners, human and other, in the co-creation of The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (quoting Charles Eisenstein). You can find out more about Pete at www.futureflora.co.uk
Davyd Farrell is a Quantum Plant Alchemist and healer. He helps heal clients at the energetic, spiritual and emotional level and works with the higher intelligence of plants and Nature. His training included working in the Amazon under a Kichwa teacher. Davyd created and co-founded Plant Consciousness, a ground-breaking event that explored the higher intelligence of Nature, before going on to co-found Quantum Plant Healing (www.quantumplanthealing.com), through which a system of global plant immersions was developed that allows people to actively participate and engage in plant diets that enable them to learn the language of the plants and their healing and wisdom. He also co-founded Wisdom Hub TV (www.wisdomhub.tv), and his podcasts include Web of Wyrd, Beyond The Flow, Food as Medicine, The Huachuma Sessions, and Moons and Mythos.
Michael Marder is Ikerbasque Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. His writings span the fields of ecological theory, phenomenology and political thought. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and monographs, including Plant-Thinking (2013); Phenomena—Critique—Logos (2014); The Philosopher’s Plant (2014); Dust(2016), Energy Dreams (2017), Heidegger (2018), Political Categories (2019), Pyropolitics (2015, 2020); Dump Philosophy (2020); Hegel’s Energy (2021); Green Mass (2021) and Philosophy for Passengers (2022). See michaelmarder.org for more information.
Alice McSherry is a doctoral student in human geography at the University of Auckland; Waipapa Taumata Rau, in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research focuses on traditional herbal healing lore from an animist worldview, and the decolonisation of botanical research praxis more generally. In particular she is interested in the intersections between embodied cognition, vegetal consciousness, biocultural heritage and herbalism as a vehicle for social and ecological justice. Alice is a practising community herbalist at her home on Waiheke Island, Aotearoa New Zealand, tending gardens, telling stories and making herbal medicines with her neighbours, friends and family.
This event will raise money for The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity (no. 1120414). www.resurgenceevents.org
REAL is a community interest company that aims to support citizens and organisational leaders to transition to carbon zero and sustainability, founded by Safia Minney & friends.
