The telephone at the Botanic Garden rang, splitting the silence into tiny crystal pieces.

- Hello – a nervous female voice sounded through the receiver. – Is this the Botanic Garden?

- Yes, it is…. Who are you looking for?

- Could you help me, please? … I have this problem … I was given an azalea as a gift. It looked lovely with its big, beautiful flowers. But a little time passed, and then it suddenly withered. I got pretty upset because I liked it so much, and, on top of everything else, it was a gift from my daughter. Could you tell me why that happened and what I could do to avoid such things in the future?

- Was it planted in a peat pot?

- Peat? What is that?

- The mixture it was planted in, did it feel soft on touch?

- Yes, it did!

- And it was dark brown, right?

- Right!

- Then that was peat.

- What difference does this make?

And here the same thing started, all over again. Like so many other times before, I explained that most flower shops sold extremely beautiful, attractive flowers that had been taken care of in a very special way. More specifically, for a rather short period (economically profitable), exceptionally favourable conditions are provided to plants shockingly: temperature, air humidity, water, NPK, vitamins, microelements, growth substances, and hormones. Thus, very soon they have a selling appearance and are put behind the counter. It is too bad ordinary people do not know that. In fact, they are not obliged to be interested in the latest fads in plant growing technologies. Eventually, when conditions change abruptly and no additional nutrition substances are fed, the plant dies.

A way out is to replant the flower in a suitable natural soil mixture. Normally, following replanting the flower would suffer a little, but it would then revive and its life course would continue successfully.

Now I am getting lost in thought….

I remember an elderly lady who would so enthusiastically speak about the forty Pelargonium species she grew on her balcony:

- In the morning, as soon as I get up, the first thing I do is go and have a look at them. If I happen to notice anything wrong has occurred to any of them, I feel as if I am getting ill….

Why do we develop such a strong attachment to the plants at out homes? Could we, for a moment, imagine life without flowers, trees, and shrubs? Is there anything else in this world capable of growing, developing, and reproducing owing to light?

On our way forward and upward, we have found ourselves backwards and sideways. Within just a century the scientific and technological revolution changed everything. And what is a century compared to eternity? Just a sigh. We have broken down the genome and now we eat genetically modified foods. We have broken down the atom and have been irradiated. We have broken down the ozone layer and now we reckon with magnetic storms. We live our closed lives in our panel flats, between heaven and earth. And no more than some one hundred years ago, people used to live in villages, closely bonded to the land that fed them. We live at bay, in dirt. We do not keep hygiene in the space around us; neither do we keep hygiene in our souls …. We have entangled ourselves in the invisible web of the Internet which is supposed to be giving us more and more possibilities and yet we have been feeling lonelier and lonelier. We wage senseless wars for more power, more petroleum, more influence and in fact are cutting the branch we sit on. The consumer society we live in invented tons of expensive “gadgets” which allegedly facilitate human labour so much. But we do not realise that our bodies have been made to bear considerable burden. Supposedly, we buy these products to make our lives easier and easier, and actually we live harder and harder because it takes more and more efforts to get them, and for some – to simply make ends meet. Supposedly, we live better but we are becoming more and more ill. And more and more evil….

In reality, we have proved unable to overcome this unnatural leap. Though we may not fully realise this, somewhere deep inside we still long for the Mother Nature that we have been linked to for so long. The Mother Nature where plants have always been our companions – from birth to the grave. From which we have obtained food and cure, the plants that we used to make shelter for our families and ourselves. That we decorated the space around with. The plants that our beliefs, customs, and culture have been deeply imbued with for centuries on end. What would Christmas be without the cornel stick and St. George’s day without the beech twig? What would it be like, wishing a soldier good health without giving them a bunch of wild geranium? What is it telling someone “I love you!” without giving them, at least once, even a small flower?

That is why, convenient as it may be to resolve this or that problem by just pressing a single key, we shall always gaze at the plant sitting on our window sill and enjoy it.

That is why, as much as our brains are apt to search for causality in everything, we will still hope and look for the thrill which we feel somewhere there, to the left, in our chests, aroused by a beautiful blooming flower, a tree or shrub. Because this is the thin thread connecting us to the divine Mother Nature.

Because this is a small miracle of God.

I shall never cease being amazed by God’s miracle …

How come a small seed, as tiny as a crumb, grows into a huge tree? I have studied plant physiology, I have watched this hundreds, even thousands of times, bit I always find that fascinating. I know that when the time for germination comes, certain substances in the seed turn into other substances and provide the energy for the seed to germinate. The embryonic cells enlarge and the seed coat breaks open. A tiny, white radicle emerges. It infallibly runs into the soil, straight downwards. Day by day, it becomes larger, eagerly following its way downwards. It branches out and one becomes several. If these reach any dry soil, they ingeniously go round it, advancing towards damper parts… They make their way through secret little passages. All cells designated to penetrate deep down recover very quickly if they stumble upon any hard obstacles; when they find their “lunch”, however, they die fast and get replaced by the ones that dissolve mineral salts and suck these in. Mineral substances are then passed on, from one cell to the next, up towards the branches and leaves….

At the same time the other miracle is happening. The plant neck makes it possible for the embryos to get above the soil. The seed coats burst open and the seeds “fledge”, transforming into the first “baby” leaves. Out of these, the first “real” ones emerge, coloured by the magical green substance called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll turns light into organic substances and in a sense compares to human blood in us, people. Then the second and third leaves appear…. The stem rises, going straight up. Even if we bend it to and fro, it unfailingly chooses the direction “straight up, towards the sun”.

And so rises new life. Might and strength accumulate to endure heat and cold, storms and winds. Year after year. Sometimes, for thousands of years on end…. One day, flower blooms cover the rough branches. The blooms open up and make someone’s heart happy. Then come the bees – the most sophisticated laboratories on the earth, and they pollinate the blooms while searching for nectar. And thus the male and female merge again. Then the fruit start getting bigger and bigger, holding so much energy. Fruit colour up at the exact time when the seeds are ready to sprout. Fruit provide food to people or animals and many of them fall on the ground. Seeds fall into the earth which enwraps them as a womb. And then new life rises again.

A true miracle…

I am a small boy. My granny and I are cleaning dead leaves from the garden. We have made a fire and burn them. As I am throwing in the dead leaves, a bunch of fresh green grass gets in my hand. Without second thoughts, I throw it in the fire….

- Do not do that, love! – my granny tells me. – Do not throw greens in the fire! This is sin!

This has stayed with me ever since. It somehow was hammered home and for years on since that episode I have never disregarded it. I have not had a moment of hesitation about it. Back then, I did not know yet that my whole life would be connected to plants. It was only recently that I remembered this incident. Of course that is sin! Even after it has been torn out, the grass is still alive. To root a plant, one has to cut a young branch and make cuttings out of it. Each cutting is indeed alive! Otherwise it would not grow into a whole new plant. Each single blade of grass is alive. At least until the moment it dies, due to one reason or another. Throwing it in the fire, one throws something living and thus causes it torture and pain…

Who knows how many similar things were buried as “old wives’ tales” some time back in the past? .…

On the night of 1 June 2005, the Little magic garden suffered a flood. It had been raining for at least two weeks. A horrendous storm was raging that night and Neli had not been able to set a foot outside. What is more, she had been struck by a lightning.

On 1 June, she called me and I went there.

It was a devastating picture. The little garden looked like a huge puddle of muddy water. As I arrived the water was still draining away. Roughly, we lost between 15 and 20 per cent of all containers we had. It was fortunate that Luchko, Lyudmila, Gergana, and later Svetleto from Vratsa came to the rescue. They helped us a lot.

The storm had hit the back of the supporting wall that Straho had erected and the wall was now crumbling in pieces, domino-like. We had just re-planted more than 200 ginkgo saplings in containers (black plastic bags). These were brimming over with water, which had first washed away the still loose soil mixture. And then the saplings and containers themselves. “Throngs” in their roots were visible all over the place. A sad picture it was….

The picture was indeed sad but there was a lot to do. All saplings that had been scattered around needed to be washed and replanted. And that was too much ….

The water flooded the place in the early morning hours on Wednesday; on Saturday, the sun somehow managed to pierce through the ragged clouds and lit up. Like laughter through tears…. The battlefield was now lit up but the situation was not rosy in the least. We went on and on and kept on finding all sorts of “young kids” in their naked roots.

Neli and I were walking around the garden, fumbling in the mud and shrubs, finding a tree or small shrub here and there. Many had entangled themselves in the stronger, well settled shrubs. At a point, holding a midget of a thuja, Neli exclaimed:

- I say! Look what is going on here…. Can you imagine how much of my energy this is swallowing up! This is very intense! Wow, my hand is burning!....

And she ran her hand along, from one end of the sapling to the other.

- It is the roots! Here! Nothing happens further up. The roots!…. They are beginning to wither and it is suffering…. Poor little thing…. Swallowing up so much of my energy….

When she showed me her palm, the spot where the two lines were getting together was indeed red.

- Let’s see if this will happen with a dry stick too…

She bent down to pick up a withered willow sprig which the water had dragged along from who knows where. Then she slowly ran her hand along the whole length of the sprig.

- No, nothing!.... So this happens with living plants only. But not with my right hand, it does not.

Memories of Vanga are still vivid today. Many people have loved her and continue to revere her. Her love for living plants is well known; anyone who has had contact with her knows how much she enjoyed receiving living plants as gifts. The book written about her claims she was able to hear the voices of flowers. That they are very talkative, just like small kids are. That if you were a master of their language, you could learn many things from them. Vanga herself used herbs for healing. The fact that so many people have loved and respected her means that she coped well.

In 1996, an American, a lie detector expert, was invited to train police officers and security specialists from all over the world (Tompkins P., Bird Chr., Savremennik magazine, Issue 1/2003, The Secret Life of Plants). At a point, he had the rather spontaneous idea to connect the electrodes of one of his devices to the leaves of a dracaena plant located in his office. While the plant was greedily absorbing some water, the instructor was surprised to notice that the galvanometer did not read any drop in resistance which could be expected at heightened electroconductivity. Instead of going up, the nib went down and marked a saw-like line. Here is the logic behind this: as the plant is being watered, it absorbs the water and its water content increases too, accordingly. That brings about an increase in electroconductivity, hence, a drop in resistance. The researcher’s name is Cleve Backster and the experiment described above has changed radically his life and people’s understanding about plants in general. Simply put, the dracaena reacted just as a human in a state of extreme emotional upheaval would.

Has the plant actually demonstrated feelings?

A galvanometer’s needle shows the highest jumps upon registering human reaction to physical threats. Backster decided to apply the same to the plant – he immersed one of the dracaena leaves in a cup of hot coffee he was holding. Nothing happened.

But things did not stop here. The researcher decided to go farther and burn the leaf that the electrodes were attached to. As he imagined the flame and before even going to fetch some matches, the curve changed abruptly. The pin displayed a long upward swing.

Has the plant read his mind?

The initial experiments were repeated along with some other colleagues of his, using different devices and other locations. Observations were very similar in terms of results, which has given an opportunity to see life in a different way. Until then, there had been disputes concerning extrasensory perception (ESP). It used to be assumed that ESP represented a type of perceptive ability superior to and transcending all forms of the five established senses – touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. As plants do not have any eyes, ears, noses or mouths and because botanists from the time of Darwin never credited them with having a nervous system, Backster reached the conclusion that perception is more fundamental than the individual senses [http://createwhatyouwant.blogspot.com/2006/03/plants-dont-lie.html].

Further to a number of fascinating and diverse experiments with various plants, the following has been proven:

- plants experience some semblance of feelings;

- they react to physical pain;

- they distinguish between real and fake pain. That is, they are able to think.

- plants have extrasensory perception (ESP), which is more fundamental than the individual senses in humans;

- man’s five senses are restricting factors;

- maybe plants see better than people with their eyes do;

- plants do not expect any other plant to attack them but they react to both deliberate threats and dangers;

- when threatened by an insurmountable danger or injury, plants “lapse into unconsciousness”;

- plants and juicy fruit wish to be eaten but only through a love ritual, during genuine communication with the eater.

Nowadays, there is a lot of evidence proving that plants are living, breathing, communicating creatures, endowed with individuality and spiritual qualities.

A qualitatively new stage in this field has been reached by Marcel Vogel. He has been enchanted by supernatural phenomena and “psychic energy” in particular. Together with his girlfriend who has supernatural abilities they have found that even leaves that have been torn away are capable of perceiving this energy and responding to it. What is more, by sophisticating his experiments, Vogel has proved that a spiritual relationship may be created between plants and man:

“It is fact: man can and does communicate with plant life. Plants are living objects, sensitive, rooted in space. They may be blind, deaf, and dumb in the human sense, but there is no doubt in my mind that they are extremely sensitive instruments for measuring man's emotions. They radiate energies beneficial to man. Man can sense them. They reinforce his own power field which, in its turn, returns energy to the plants.”

But things did not stop herе. Influenced by a German mystic of the XVIth century, Jakob Böhme, Vogel has carried out experiments where, mentally, a man and a plant merge. A girl from San Hose, Debbie Sapp, helped him. Having merged with a philodendron, she managed to see inside the plant, feel its juices flowing, feel it growing bigger. It even warned one of its leaves had been burned by the electrode. Eventually that did prove to be true. The most interesting thing is that children handle this task much better than adults. And this is fully understandable: they have pure souls and are closer to God than adults are. Further experiments have proven that a plant can “read” a man’s mind and, by acting as a retransmitter, help people read each other’s minds…

Today, these experiments are regarded as a very interesting, curious fact. Modern science has turned its back on them and is confidently going other ways. Otherwise I would have studied about these in Plant Physiology in my university days. Modern science tackles the creation of varieties resistant to a certain disease or herbicide, of fruit that have larger sizes, look better, and can be stored in a better way for a longer time. What our grandparents used to eat is now ancient history. Old varieties are dying out, slowly but methodically… Today, marginals fell service trees. As firewood…. And 15 gram of service tree fruit provide a daily dose of all vitamins and minerals necessary to man. Until recently, we used to have the oldest service tree in Europe. Some treasure hunters dug it out because they thought there was a treasure underneath. In Germany, on the other hand, 500 000 service tree saplings have been planted in a year ….

As significant as Backster’s experiments may be, they are also rather naïve. Some things cannot be proven empirically. There is no need for that. Because how could one measure the soul, a thought, the intellect? In Ohms? Kilogrammes? Metres? By what device? The electrogalvanic device looks like a Neanderthal instrument.

Can two eyes see the infinite? Can two arms embrace the vast? Can one claim to be the discoverer of something God has created so ingeniously?

Is it not enough to just never cease being amazed? Never cease being amazed at

GOD’S MIRACLE