moa defences

I'm in a forest in New Zealand and I'm standing by a particularly curious plant. I was reading about it the other day. I forget its name, perhaps I'll look it up later and write it on the website. But this plant in its early years has a strange form. It sends up a tall, slender trunk just a centimetre or so in diameter. And from this trunk, hang down – I guess they're leaves – but each leaf is very narrow and very long: 40 to 50 cm long and less than a centimetre wide, quite dark, a dark green with a brown line running down the centre of the leaf. And the leaves must be quite rigid because they hang out almost straight, hanging down at about a 45 degree angle to the stem. And these leaves have spikes on their side, not so many, but they are very sharp, very tough.

Later on, as this plant grows, it changes completely. It becomes a mature tree, with much more normal leaves, softer leaves, rounded leaves, leaves that are not afraid of being eaten. This younger phase in the plant's life is a purely defensive one: how to survive until I am big enough to stand on my own foot, or whatever the phrase is for a tree. And that's the theory that I was reading: pure guesswork, of course, but it is suspected that this early stage in the plant's life evolved as a defence against a moa – the large flightless birds that used to be very numerous in New Zealand. The moa have long since been made extinct by us humans, and our entourage of other mammals like the rats and the dogs. But this plant has not yet evolved to do away with its moa defences. Doubtless in time that will happen.

But seeing this, and thinking of this early stage of survival, reminds me of something Rafia Morgan often teaches in his workshops, and that is, as small children we develop defence strategies, survival strategies. We're too small to look after ourself independently. We depend upon our parents or caregivers. And so we have to develop some strategies, to ensure that they keep feeding us, keep loving us. And the strategies might vary, depending on the individual circumstances.

Some of us learned to withdraw when heated emotions were flying around. Others learned to scream and shout and create a big fuss, to get more attention, to get what they wanted, and so on. But the point is, those survival tactics were needed when we were children. As adults, we don't need them. And yet often they've become hardwired into our personality. So it takes a lot of work to bring awareness to our patterns of behaviour, and to let go of them, basically to mature, to grow up, to see that we are now adults, capable of looking after ourself.

And that's what this strange plant does: when it's bigger, it becomes a normal tree. And it just lets go of this rather spiky, unattractive, survival mode, way of being in the world. And of course, the irony is, if these sharp spiky leaves were a defence against the moa, then they are no longer needed even at this early stage in the plant's life. That threat has gone.

So, can we evolve ,or at least grow up, and stop needing spiky defences? Or are we going to carry on going through life, behaving as if we too are being threatened by a moa?