Plant  Intelligence  And  The Imaginal Realm

Beyond The Doors Of Perception Into The Dreaming Earth

          

Stephen  Harrod  Buhner

This book is a user’s manual about the techniques and states of perception necessary for directly interacting with the Gaian system, perceiving the deeper patterns in Gaian movements, and understanding the meanings within those patterns. In many respects it is a manual for becoming a nondomesticated explorer of the natural world, something that used to be called, long ago, a natural philosopher, what might now be called a wild scientist as opposed to a domesticated one.

Unlike the majority of books being written about the state of Earth/human relationship and the problems that face us, this book does not list all the troubles and then, at the end, call for more regulation, urge you to write your congressional representative, insist you recycle or buy an (absurdly expensive) environmentally friendly car, or plead for you to give money to nonprofits. As Einstein so eloquently put it—We cant solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. So, this book is about how to actually think differently, the processes involved, and how they will alter your perceptual frame if you use them. It then urges you to do one thing: whatever it is that you think you should do in response. It is in your own individual genius that the answers lie, not in the pronouncements of experts who have no conception of the local environment in which you live every day of your life. Letting the experts run things is how we got into this mess to begin with.

Thus this book is specifically meant for those who understand what it means to look with glittering (i.e., luminous) eyes. For that is the understanding that binds us together, that lies at the heart of thinking differently. If you are a mechanicalist or die-hard reductionist (or even someone who thinks humans are somehow innately different, i.e., more special, than all other life-forms on this planet) this book will only irritate you, upset your stomach, and cause you to mutter over and over again, “Wrong! Wrong!” Please read Richard Dawkins instead.

Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm is the fourth in a series of five (or perhaps six, or seven, or eight) books that began, long ago, with Sacred Plant Medicine (Inner Traditions, 1996), and which also includes The Lost Language of Plants (Chelsea Green, 2002) and The Secret Teachings of Plants (Inner Traditions, 2004). (Note: Lost Language contains a depth look at chemical communication among plants and their ecosystems; Secret Teachings a depth look at heart perception, synchronization of heart fields, and EM field dynamics.) As with those latter two works, some of the material in this book, especially in the first half, is somewhat technical. That density exists as part of a long-term project to create a map of human interaction with the natural world that actually has something to do with the real world, an area in which our current maps, inherited from the late nineteenth century, are tremendous deficient. You don’t have to read those parts—you can just skip around if you wish. In fact, I urge you to have fun and from now on take in what has relevance to you and to ignore the rest. After all, it’s your life, you should spend it how you want.  Stephen Buhner  The Gila Wilderness, 2013

Stephen Harrod Buhner is an Earth poet and the award-winning author of twenty books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine. He comes from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, has been his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began work as a physician in 1911.

Stephen's work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman's Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. Stephen lectures yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth. He is a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society—especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.

www.gaianstudies.org

youtube videos

some  books  by  Stephen  Buhner

        

    

www.gaianstudies.org