The Secret Teachings of Plants
Subtitle: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature
Publisher: Bear & Company
Published: October 27, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9781591430353
Subjects: Popular medicine; Traditional medicine & remedies; Materia medica, Vegetable; Medical Botany; Health & Fitness; Consumer Health; Health/Fitness; Herbal Medications; Nature / Ecology; Healing; Heart; Nature, Healing power of
First sentence: We in the West have been immersed in a particular mode of cognition the past hundred years, a mode defined by its linearity, its tendency to reductionism, and its insistence on the mechanical nature of Nature.
Description: 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.
Table of contents: label: A Note to the Reader
pagenum: xi; label: Introduction
pagenum: 1; label: Systole
title: Of Nature and the Heart
pagenum: 6; label: One
title: Nature; label: 1.
title: The Nonlinearity of Nature
pagenum: 16; label: 2.
title: The Self-Organization of Life
pagenum: 33; label: 3.
title: The Energetics of Life
pagenum: 49; label: Two
title: The Heart; label: 4.
title: The Physical Heart: The Heart as an Organ of the Body
pagenum: 70; label: 5.
title: The Emotional Heart: The Heart as an Organ of Perception and Communication
pagenum: 89; label: 6.
title: The Spiritual Heart: Aisthesis
pagenum: 116; label: Diastole
title: Gathering Knowledge from the Heart of the World
pagenum: 124; label: One
title: Veriditas; label: 7.
title: The Door Into Nature
pagenum: 132; label: 8.
title: The Necessity for Acuity of Perception
pagenum: 137; label: 9.
title: Feeling with the Heart
pagenum: 147; label: Two
title: The Taste of Wild Water; label: 10.
title: Gathering Knowledge from the Heart of the World
pagenum: 164; label: 11.
title: The Pregnant Point and the Mundus Imaginalis
pagenum: 182; label: Three
title: The Fruitful Darkness; label: 12.
title: Depth Diagnosis and the Healing of Human Disease
pagenum: 202; label: Interlude; label: 13.
title: The Importance of Rigorous Self-Examination and the Necessity for Moral Development
pagenum: 226; label: Four
title: Grains of Sand From Another Shore; label: 14.
title: Reading the Text of the World: The Geography of Meaning and the Making of the Soul
pagenum: 254; label: Epilogue
pagenum: 273; label: Appendix
title: Exercises for Refining the Heart as an Organ of Perception
pagenum: 275; label: Bibliography with Commentary
title: The Wisdom of the Earth Poets
pagenum: 290; label: Notes
pagenum: 308; label: Index
pagenum: 311