The Secret Teachings of Plants
The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature
eBook | 27 October 2004
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336 Pages
336 Pages
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NEW SCIENCE / ECOLOGY
""Of the truly great books appearing today The Secret Teachings of Plants is easily the most rewarding I have had the privilege of reading."" --Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Biology of Transcendence
""A 'must read' for herbalists, healers, gardeners, nature lovers, and anyone who has ever been moved to tears by the everyday miracles of life."" --Susun S. Weed, author of Healing Wise
Mankind cannot survive without the nutritional and medicinal properties of plants. The number of plant species on Earth has been estimated at around 400,000, with many of these species remaining unknown to humans. While only a fraction have been identified and categorized by Western botanists, it is safe to say that many of the plants unknown in the West are known to indigenous people living within the plants' natural ranges.
All ancient and indigenous peoples insist their knowledge of plant medicines comes from the plants themselves and not through trial-and-error experimentation. Less well known is that these plant teachings are at the basis of many of the modern discoveries in both medicine and in plant foods.
Throughout the world there is a tradition of direct perception of nature through the ""intelligence of the heart."" Recent discoveries in neuroscience have proven that over 50 percent of the heart is comprised of neural cells. The heart is, in fact, a brain in its own right. Heart-centered perception can be exceptionally accurate and detailed in its information gathering capacities, as indigenous and ancient peoples assert.
Stephen Harrod Buhner explores this heart-centered mode of perception in great detail. He includes leading-edge information on the physical mechanisms of heart-based cognition and explores the work of numerous remarkable people who perceived the world with their hearts, including Henry David Thoreau; Luther Burbank, who cultivated the majority of food plants we now take for granted; George Washington Carver; Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One Straw Revolution; and the great German poet and scientist Goethe, who studied the metamorphosis of plants. Buhner shows us how these great thinkers achieved a direct perception of nature using the cognitive abilities of the heart. He provides the knowledge and techniques necessary to develop heart-based perception, which is our birthright. He teaches us how to learn the medicinal uses of plants directly from the plants themselves and to understand the soul-making process that such deep connection with the world engenders.
STEPHEN HARROD BUHNER is an Earth Poet and senior researcher for the Foundation for Gaian Studies. He lectures throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, and the intelligence of Nature. He is the author of nine works of nonfiction and one book of poetry, including the award-winning The Lost Language of Plants and Sacred Plant Medicine. He lives in New Mexico.
""Of the truly great books appearing today The Secret Teachings of Plants is easily the most rewarding I have had the privilege of reading."" --Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of The Biology of Transcendence
""A 'must read' for herbalists, healers, gardeners, nature lovers, and anyone who has ever been moved to tears by the everyday miracles of life."" --Susun S. Weed, author of Healing Wise
Mankind cannot survive without the nutritional and medicinal properties of plants. The number of plant species on Earth has been estimated at around 400,000, with many of these species remaining unknown to humans. While only a fraction have been identified and categorized by Western botanists, it is safe to say that many of the plants unknown in the West are known to indigenous people living within the plants' natural ranges.
All ancient and indigenous peoples insist their knowledge of plant medicines comes from the plants themselves and not through trial-and-error experimentation. Less well known is that these plant teachings are at the basis of many of the modern discoveries in both medicine and in plant foods.
Throughout the world there is a tradition of direct perception of nature through the ""intelligence of the heart."" Recent discoveries in neuroscience have proven that over 50 percent of the heart is comprised of neural cells. The heart is, in fact, a brain in its own right. Heart-centered perception can be exceptionally accurate and detailed in its information gathering capacities, as indigenous and ancient peoples assert.
Stephen Harrod Buhner explores this heart-centered mode of perception in great detail. He includes leading-edge information on the physical mechanisms of heart-based cognition and explores the work of numerous remarkable people who perceived the world with their hearts, including Henry David Thoreau; Luther Burbank, who cultivated the majority of food plants we now take for granted; George Washington Carver; Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One Straw Revolution; and the great German poet and scientist Goethe, who studied the metamorphosis of plants. Buhner shows us how these great thinkers achieved a direct perception of nature using the cognitive abilities of the heart. He provides the knowledge and techniques necessary to develop heart-based perception, which is our birthright. He teaches us how to learn the medicinal uses of plants directly from the plants themselves and to understand the soul-making process that such deep connection with the world engenders.
STEPHEN HARROD BUHNER is an Earth Poet and senior researcher for the Foundation for Gaian Studies. He lectures throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, and the intelligence of Nature. He is the author of nine works of nonfiction and one book of poetry, including the award-winning The Lost Language of Plants and Sacred Plant Medicine. He lives in New Mexico.
Industry Reviews
“Buhner’s writings are a powerful call for people to work together to restore the sacredness of Earth.”
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A Note to the Reader
Introduction
Systole
Of Nature and the Heart
Prologue to Part One
Section One: Nature
1. The Nonlinearity of Nature
2. The Self-Organization of Life
3. The Energetics of Life
Section Two: The Heart
4. The Physical Heart: The Heart as an Organ of the Body
5. The Emotional Heart: The Heart as an Organ of Perception and Communication
6. The Spiritual Heart: Aisthesis
Diastole
Gathering Knowledge from the Heart of the World
Prologue to Part Two
Section One: Veriditas
7. The Door into Nature
8. The Necessity for Acuity of Perception
9. Feeling with the Heart
Section Two: The Taste of Wild Water
10. Gathering Knowledge from the Heart of the World
11. The Pregnant Point and the Mundus Imaginalis
Section Three: The Fruitful Darkness
12. Depth Diagnosis and the Healing of Human Disease
Interlude
13. The Importance of Rigorous Self-Examination and the Necessity for Moral Development
Section Four: Grains of Sand from Another Shore
14. Reading the Text of the World: The Geography of Meaning and the Making of the Soul
Epilogue
Appendix: Exercises for Refining the Heart as an Organ of Perception
Bibliography with Commentary: The Wisdom of the Earth Poets
Notes
Index
Introduction
Systole
Of Nature and the Heart
Prologue to Part One
Section One: Nature
1. The Nonlinearity of Nature
2. The Self-Organization of Life
3. The Energetics of Life
Section Two: The Heart
4. The Physical Heart: The Heart as an Organ of the Body
5. The Emotional Heart: The Heart as an Organ of Perception and Communication
6. The Spiritual Heart: Aisthesis
Diastole
Gathering Knowledge from the Heart of the World
Prologue to Part Two
Section One: Veriditas
7. The Door into Nature
8. The Necessity for Acuity of Perception
9. Feeling with the Heart
Section Two: The Taste of Wild Water
10. Gathering Knowledge from the Heart of the World
11. The Pregnant Point and the Mundus Imaginalis
Section Three: The Fruitful Darkness
12. Depth Diagnosis and the Healing of Human Disease
Interlude
13. The Importance of Rigorous Self-Examination and the Necessity for Moral Development
Section Four: Grains of Sand from Another Shore
14. Reading the Text of the World: The Geography of Meaning and the Making of the Soul
Epilogue
Appendix: Exercises for Refining the Heart as an Organ of Perception
Bibliography with Commentary: The Wisdom of the Earth Poets
Notes
Index
ISBN: 9781591439820
ISBN-10: 1591439825
Published: 27th October 2004
Format: ePUB
Language: English
Number of Pages: 336
Audience: General Adult
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company