Sentience and Sensitivity

Sentience and Sensitivity
How the Natural World Reflects Human Nature

(Plus sensitive folks prevent overwhelm and overstimulation)

Further below I’ll share a bit about how the natural world reflects human nature, discuss spiritually sensitive folks and other sensitives. Yet first, when I was ten years old, my family moved from our small apartment to a subdivision where the developers had cut down all the trees and stripped away all of the meager topsoil. While the idea of a real yard and a room of my own was certainly appealing, the blighted landscape was very unsettling. (Of course, I hadn’t yet learned that land could be dispirited in the same way a person could and require a shamanic healing!)

Until that time, I had huge companion trees along my walks, enjoyed the enormous pool of shade that the Black Cherry tree in my paternal grandparent’s yard with the three-foot in diameter trunk offered on a hot day, and the one huge specimen Copper Beech that filled a local front yard.

At one point, my father connected with someone who offered him some mimosa trees. Now, that tree would not have normally thrived at our latitude, but the island was surrounded by the sea that kept the weather mild enough so that our planting zone was warmer than the mainland beyond our shores.

I had never met this tree before and was astonished by its unusual attributes. Firstly, these trees had a compound, fern-like leaf structure. Secondly, they had flowers that looked like delicate, frozen pink fireworks. The tree grew wider than tall, so it became an umbrella of fragrance!

The Mimosa was my first experience of plant sensitivity! Even the slightest brush of a leaf would cause it to close like hands in prayer! Even a breath on a leaf or a gentle shake of a branch could create the same effect.

It was clear that the Mimosa experienced and responded to the world differently than other trees I had known.

There are different kinds of sensitivities in Nature. For instance, the echolocation of bats that basically allows them to “see” with their ears. They can also perceive the Earth’s geomagnetic energy.

Platypuses have electroreceptors in their bills to detect prey and the little Star-nosed Mole is the most responsive to touch in the animal kingdom.

A Sunflower uses its ability of phototropic movement to turn its flower face toward the Sun when it is at its strongest in the day.

Dolphins are known to help creatures of other species, and to reach out to nearby humans for support in helping others.

Of course, human beings also have a marvelous range of sensitivities.


Physical sensitivity to textures, temperature, sounds, foods, and other physical environmental situations are documented quite well and are slowly becoming more widely addressed in the culture.

However, there is another classification of sensitivities that are less well addressed. That is the sensitivities of those individuals who are sensitive to energy (from other humans’ feelings and from electromagnetic sources such as broadcast Wi-Fi), those that can perceive spiritual energy that is imbedded in places and objects, those that can perceive wandering spirits, and those who can keenly read people’s and animals’ emotional energies.

This strongly empathetic capability can be difficult based upon how culture still doesn’t fully accept this way of being.

For empaths, who may also have more physical sensitivities, as well; it is necessary to learn how to protect themselves from their nervous system being overwhelmed by overstimulation.

Some strategies can include, having a calming tactic that can help in situations you may not be able to easily leave, taking time to just “be” with nature’s vitality, strengthening boundaries, (within and with others), being with plants, and animals, and making time to laugh and play!

If you can, reach out to those who share your energetic and spiritually sensitive gifts. And make taking even better care of yourself a priority.

With our blessings, love, and very best wishes from all of us at Spirit Passages Academy, Evelyn Rysdyk and Allie Knowlton