Reciprocal Feeding, Resplendent Love: A Circulating Intelligence -- 1
- Rhonda Smith
- Jun 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 2
I. In Giotto’s fresco cycle of the life of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, there is a panel showing St. Francis returning his expensive clothing to his father; he has stripped down to nothing, a potentially humiliating event as it is witnessed by others. This action is his vow of poverty. In St. Francis the embracing of poverty and his great empathy to animals, even the wolf of Gubbio, are two qualities that wed and manifest as charity.
II. In the tradition of Gurdjieff’s teachings, we talk of receiving from above as if we might partake of an energy greater than us if we can open to it. There is likewise that which comes from below. In the Earth’s beginnings, plant life laid the way for human life. To plants, daily, we owe our existence.
III. In photosynthesis in a plant leaf, light, water, and carbon dioxide turn into sugar, water, and oxygen. The photons, or light particles, undergo a conversion where energy becomes matter. The process resembles the action of a differential axle, but is profoundly more complex. Photons hit the chloroplasts of a leaf. This excitation of energy then splits the water molecules therein. Then there is a second action that forms the glucose or food for the plant.
Photosynthesis can be summarized:
6CO2 + 6H2O + light/energy --> C6H[12]O6 + 6O2
carbon dioxide water glucose oxygen
6CO2 + 6 H2O + light/energy + C6H[12]O6 + 6O2. You can see where this is going: oxygen, a byproduct not needed by the plant but needed by us, is released into the atmosphere. This is how the planet was gradually oxygenated to make way for fauna.[1] So there are two expressions here—one making food for the plant, and another making oxygen-rich air for the animal world, and all from this ubiquitous bath of light from far away.
IV. But in this magic of light/ energy turning into matter, there are two more phenomena to ponder. Scientists at MIT discovered that when light hits the proteins in the plant cell, the photons “jump” amongst proteins until they land on a place called the reaction center or harvesting center. During this process there is almost perfect use of the energy, nothing lost or wasted. The reactions happen in a time scale we live parallel to but cannot comprehend, that of picoseconds (WHAT!!). But further, the energy/photons coming in, (and producing the electrons that become food) are far more efficient when the leaping to and fro is onto proteins that are randomly placed, not symmetrical.[2]
V. At last, scientists are approaching the subject of plant intelligence; it is a touchy subject. Trees, for instance, which supply us with food, medicines, and atmospheric qualities essential to our good health and which contribute greatly to river, ocean, and planetary well-being, make sometimes complex “choices” when faced with entirely new situations not stored in their DNA information bank. Plants, if not intelligent, are far more sensitive to the planet’s subtle changes than we are. For example, boreal forest trees (don’t forget that plants don’t move) have been expanding northward into Arctic areas at a rate of 4% more forest density per decade, and in that time have moved 6 to 25 miles in distance.
How do trees know to “move” (and indeed how do they do it, in tree-time, no less) when temperatures, and perhaps other conditions we humans do not detect, have changed over a long period? We have invented instruments to measure, but we don’t know this in “our bones.” Trees must have noted this change; they have gotten their progeny moving rapidly, a speeded up “tree-time” that seems to be an emergency response. Every species has its intelligence and, as Gurdjieff said, expresses from its own level of being and scale.
In the quote below and indeed over and over Gurdjieff stresses the stupendous diversity of the planet and cosmos.
“’But his creations—in this case people--must not abuse this All-Gracious and Everywhere-Penetrating Goodness of His; they must not only care for, but even maintain all He has created. …Every being according to its nature and to the gradation of its Reason attained by its ancestors and transmitted by heredity, occupies its definite place among being of other forms … a good example for clarifying what I have just said, is the difference between the already definitely crystallized presences of the psyche of your dog and your cat.
“‘If you pet your dog a little … it will become obedient and affectionate to the point of abasement. … But … your cat! What do you think? Will it respond to your indignities as your dog did, and cut the same humble capers for your amusement? Of course not. …It will remember this attitude of yours toward it for a long time, and at some time or other will get its revenge. …The cat will stand up for itself, it knows its own value, it is proud, and this is merely because it is a cat and its nature is on that gradation of Reason where according to the merits of its ancestors, it just should be. …One must give it its due, as one occupying a higher rung on the ladder of the evolution of ‘consciousness of self.’” [3]
We are enjoined by Gurdjieff to “love everything that breathes.” [4]
Plants, from below, have supported everything that breathes. The tiniest ant supports the "survival of life”. We understand this on an instinctive level but finding a broader, deeply felt empathy is difficult to evoke in ourselves. In the Gurdjieff literature, the universe flows with love.
VI. Gurdjieff, throughout his writings, speaks directly or indirectly of reciprocal feeding.
“This transformations of substances in two directions, which is called evolution and involution, proceeds not only along the main line from the absolutely fine to the absolutely coarse and vice versa, but at all intermediate stations, on all levels it branches aside. A substance needed by some entity may be taken by it and absorbed, thus serving the evolution or involution of that entity. Everything absorbs, that is eats something else, and also itself serves as food. This is what reciprocal exchange means. This reciprocal exchange takes place in everything, in both organic and inorganic matter.” [5]
Reciprocal exchange is the engine of the universe, the circulation pump. Gurdjieff’s understanding for us is that to take our proper place in this great movement, we must learn love.
“…. I [did} finally understand to which end both Great Nature herself and the Most High and Most Saintly Individuals always patiently adapt themselves to everything …”
“That if these favorites of yours would at least properly ponder over this and serve Nature honestly in this respect, then perhaps their being-self-perfecting might as a consequence proceed automatically even without the participation of their consciousness and in any case, the poor Nature of their ill-fated planet would also not have to ‘puff and blow’ in order to adapt Herself to remain within the common cosmic harmony.” [6]
[1] Brookshire, Bethany. Science News Explores. “Explainer: How Photosynthesis Works,” 2020.
[2] Trafton, Anne. MIT News, On Campus and Around the World. “Chemists discover why photosynthetic light-harvesting is so efficient. The disorganized arrangement of the proteins in light-harvesting complexes is the key to their extreme efficiency.” July 3, 2003.
[3] Gurdjieff, G.I. All and Everything, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. Harcourt Brace: New York, 1950 edition, p 198-200
[4] Gurdjieff, Tales, p 198
[5] Gurdjieff, G.I. Views from the Real World, Early Talks of Gurdjieff. E.P. Dutton: New York, 1973, p 210
[6] Gurdjieff, Tales, p 1107