Leaf

the leaf doesn’t just push its way into optimal expansion and round itself out, occupying the most space possible for absorption of sunlight… The leaf takes on the specific shape of oak, maple or serrated cut-leaf birch because something in the surrounding emptiness governs the leaf’s shaping

Hillman, following Goethe, argues that the leaf’s species-specific form is determined by the negative space surrounding it, making emptiness — not internal drive — the governing principle of growth.

Hillman, James, Kinds of Power: A Guide to Its Intelligent Uses, 1995thesis

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Its death was inherent in its original coming into being, in all its growth and change throughout the summer. Nor does death end the transformation. The leaf is now returning to the earth to feed other plants.

Brazier uses the dying leaf as a Zen-therapeutic paradigm for continuous transformation, arguing that death is inseparable from the process of living and that the boundary between the two is always arbitrary.

Brazier, David, Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind, 1995thesis

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notice each of your thoughts as it pops into your head … then place it onto a leaf, and allow it to come and stay and go in its own good time … Do this regardless of whether the thoughts are positive or negative

Harris presents the leaf as the central vehicle in ACT’s cognitive defusion exercise, instructing clients to place thoughts on leaves floating downstream as a method of achieving mindful detachment.

Harris, Russ, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009thesis

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By a prick with a sharp lancet at a certain point, I can paralyse one-half the leaf, so that a stimulus to the other half causes no movement. It is just like dividing the spinal marrow of a frog

McGilchrist cites Darwin’s experimental evidence that the leaf possesses a nervous-system-like sensitivity, mobilizing the leaf as evidence for proto-consciousness in plant life.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting

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By a prick with a sharp lancet at a certain point, I can paralyse one-half the leaf, so that a stimulus to the other half causes no movement. It is just like dividing the spinal marrow of a frog

Darwin’s leaf-paralysis experiment, cited by McGilchrist, is deployed to argue that plant sensitivity mirrors vertebrate neurological organization, broadening the scope of consciousness beyond animal life.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting

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Leaf 5, for example, depicts the gods of the five sacred peaks; leaf 11 shows the celestial generals Tianpeng, Tianyou, Yisheng, and Yousheng with Cangjie

Kohn uses ‘leaf’ in its bibliographic sense to refer to individual folios of a Daoist iconographic album, cataloguing the divine figures depicted across successive pages.

Kohn, Livia, Daoism Handbook, 2000aside

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βαΐς [f.] ‘palm leaf’ (LXX, pap.)… Also βάϊον [n.] ‘id., measuring rod’… From Eg. b’j, Copt. bai.

Beekes traces the Greek term for ‘palm leaf’ to Egyptian etymology, situating the leaf-concept within the lexical strata of ancient Mediterranean plant nomenclature.

Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010aside

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