If Flowers Are Sentient, Can I Still Cut Them?

This question is so often the elephant in the room, the one people are afraid to ask. If we admit that flowers and plants are sentient, conscious beings, how can we cut them, eat them, pull them up or outright kill them without feeling bad? We have these discussions around animals all the time. We think that we can’t possibly take on worrying about what a plant feels.

But before I answer this question, I must answer another question you might be asking. Why is this question even important in a world on fire?

At the core of our heart’s desires is our vision of the world we want to live in—a longing we are afraid to fully feel, because it seems impossibly huge. And yet, holding this vision is the most important thing we can do.

We are gradually beginning to understand what our ancient ancestors knew innately—that all life is conscious and in relationship with us. Even our science is beginning to circle back to this understanding with the latest findings in plant intelligence. But it is hard to know what to do with this awareness in a culture that is so used to looking at the natural world as simply resources at our disposal—to not only feed us and shelter us, but drive our monetary economies. Seeing flowers, plants, animals and all life as sentient is a radical vision that can restore our reverence for the natural world around us—a simple, but potentially world-changing perspective as it becomes widespread once again.

So, can we cut our flowers? YES! With a few considerations.

We are in deep relationship with our flowers, whether we know it or not. We have evolved together—a million-year evolutionary love story, as I talk about so often in my writing. Flowers want to share their love with us, and reverently cutting a few to take into our home is an offering the flowers freely give. Thanking them for their gift though, is important, and even asking them first if they are willing to share sets an exchange between you and the flowers that allows reciprocity to flow.

Flowers and plants are not really individuals in the same way we think about ourselves. Since plants cannot move the way animals can, they have adopted a wholly different approach to survival. They can lose up to 90% of their entire body and still survive and regrow, whereas an animal will die when any major body part is damaged. Flowering plants evolved to share themselves with animals and insects as food, who in turn, spread their seed. The flowers’ life cycles, too, move easily back and forth from one side of the dirt to the other—from a living seed below the ground, to a living plant above the ground—blurring the lines between living and dying.

It is helpful to remember that setting boundaries for the plants and flowers we live with is more than ok. Their abundance can be overly exuberant and it is ok to find our balance with them—to cut them back, to trim them, to harvest them for food, to add them to our compost pile and return them to the dirt where they will continue to feed new life.

Seeing plant and flower life as alive and sentient does not mean we can’t harvest them for our needs. It does mean that we should do so with reverence, striving for harmony. While this seems like a small distinction, it is ultimately huge. This small shift in perspective starts in our own backyards, and hopefully spreads not only to more regenerative farming, permaculture, restorative ways of collaborating with our Earth, but also to the outlook and policies of the leaders of our communities and countries everywhere. And it starts with us, one flower at a time.

I have had so many people tell me that since reading my posts, or taking my workshops, they see flowers differently, more reverently. These are the words that keep me writing—and being a voice for the flowers.

Would you like to step into a more conscious relationship with the flowers in your life?

To move beyond uncertainty or hesitation, and learn how to listen, respond, and receive what they offer with clarity and reverence?

In my upcoming five-week workshop, we’ll slow down together and let them teach us.

Five Sessions beginning April 16th, 2026,

Thursdays, 2:00–3:30pm Eastern

Online

More Details and Registration are Here

“This is a powerful and unique workshop. I really welcomed this opportunity to follow my intuitive passion for flowers. Mary provides a space for didactic information, group discussion and experiential learning... I wanted more!” – Merryl

Mary Porter Kerns is the author of the forthcoming book, The Flowers Are Speaking: Listening to Nature’s Ancient Wisdom (Tarcher-Penguin Group, April 2027) that is an intimate journey into the entwined evolution of flowers and human beings—weaving together science, history, stories, and earth-based mysticism to offer a radical vision of how we can best reconnect with the intelligence of plants and the ancient guidance of the earth. In fall of 2022 she self-published the first edition of her oracle cards, also called The Flowers Are Speaking, that sold out in three months.

Her highly acclaimed workshops teach participants how to experience the flowers as she does through their own senses, intuition and imagination.

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