Plant Minds

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1351730711
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (517 download)

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Book Synopsis Plant Minds by : Chauncey Maher

Download or read book Plant Minds written by Chauncey Maher and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-06-26 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that plants have minds can sound improbable, but some widely respected contemporary scientists and philosophers find it plausible. It turns out to be rather tricky to vindicate the presumption that plants do not have minds, for doing so requires getting clear about what plants can do and what exactly a mind is. By connecting the most compelling empirical work on plant behavior with philosophical reflection on the concept of minds, Plant Minds aims to help non-experts begin to think clearly about whether plants have minds. Relying on current consensus ideas about minds and plants, Chauncey Maher first presents the best case for thinking that plants do not have minds. Along the way, however, he unearths an idea at the root of that case, the idea that having a mind requires the capacity to represent the world. In the last chapter, he defends a relatively new and insightful theory of mind that rejects that assumption, making room for the possibility that plants do have minds, primarily because they are alive.

The Mind of Plants

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780907791874
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (918 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mind of Plants by : John C. Ryan

Download or read book The Mind of Plants written by John C. Ryan and published by . This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea that plants have a mind of their own has been a prominent feature of some Indigenous narratives, literary works, and philosophical discourses. Recent scientific research in the field of plant cognition similarly highlights the capacity of botanical life to discern between options and learn from prior experiences or, in other words, to think. The Mind of Plants offers an accessible account of the idea of "the plant mind" by bringing together short essays and poems on plants and their interactions with humans. The texts interpret the theme broadly--from the ways that humans mind and unmind plants to the mindedness or unmindedness of plants themselves. Authors from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences have written about their personal connections to particular plants, reflecting upon their research on plant studies in a style amenable to a broad audience. Each of the authors has selected a plant that functions as a guiding thread to their interpretation of "the mind of plants." From the ubiquitous rose to the ugly hornwort, from the Amazonian ayahuasca to tobacco, the texts reflect the multifarious interactions between humans and flora. These personal narratives, filled with anecdotes, experiences, and musings, offer cutting-edge insights into the different meanings and dimensions of "the mind of plants." Contributors to The Mind of Plants are key figures in the fields of ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology, plant behavior and cognition, and critical plant studies. Included are simple, thumbnail-style, black-and-white illustrations of the plants to enhance readers' appreciation of the narratives.

The Power of a Plant

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Author :
Publisher : Rodale Books
ISBN 13 : 1623368650
Total Pages : 359 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (233 download)

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Book Synopsis The Power of a Plant by : Stephen Ritz

Download or read book The Power of a Plant written by Stephen Ritz and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Power of a Plant, globally acclaimed teacher and self-proclaimed CEO (Chief Eternal Optimist) Stephen Ritz shows you how, in one of the nation’s poorest communities, his students thrive in school and in life by growing, cooking, eating, and sharing the bounty of their green classroom. What if we taught students that they have as much potential as a seed? That in the right conditions, they can grow into something great? These are the questions that Stephen Ritz—who became a teacher more than 30 years ago—sought to answer in 2004 in a South Bronx high school plagued by rampant crime and a dismal graduation rate. After what can only be defined as a cosmic experience when a flower broke up a fight in his classroom, he saw a way to start tackling his school’s problems: plants. He flipped his curriculum to integrate gardening as an entry point for all learning and inadvertently created an international phenomenon. As Ritz likes to say, “Fifty thousand pounds of vegetables later, my favorite crop is organically grown citizens who are growing and eating themselves into good health and amazing opportunities.” The Power of a Plant tells the story of a green teacher from the Bronx who let one idea germinate into a movement and changed his students’ lives by learning alongside them. Since greening his curriculum, Ritz has seen near-perfect attendance and graduation rates, dramatically increased passing rates on state exams, and behavioral incidents slashed in half. In the poorest congressional district in America, he has helped create 2,200 local jobs and built farms and gardens while changing landscapes and mindsets for residents, students, and colleagues. Along the way, Ritz lost more than 100 pounds by eating the food that he and his students grow in school. The Power of a Plant is his story of hope, resilience, regeneration, and optimism.

This Is Your Mind On Plants

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141997346
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis This Is Your Mind On Plants by : Michael Pollan

Download or read book This Is Your Mind On Plants written by Michael Pollan and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-07-08 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES, HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND 'It's a trip - engrossing, eye-opening, mind altering' New Statesman 'Fascinating. Pollan is the perfect guide ... curious, careful, open minded' The Guardian Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos. In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. This ground-breaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.

The Book of Minds

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226822044
Total Pages : 513 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book of Minds by : Philip Ball

Download or read book The Book of Minds written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1591438365
Total Pages : 548 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm by : Stephen Harrod Buhner

Download or read book Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm written by Stephen Harrod Buhner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A manual for opening the doors of perception and directly engaging the intelligence of the Natural World • Provides exercises to directly perceive and interact with the complex, living, self-organizing being that is Gaia • Reveals that every life form on Earth is highly intelligent and communicative • Examines the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and the human species In Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, Stephen Harrod Buhner reveals that all life forms on Earth possess intelligence, language, a sense of I and not I, and the capacity to dream. He shows that by consciously opening the doors of perception, we can reconnect with the living intelligences in Nature as kindred beings, become again wild scientists, nondomesticated explorers of a Gaian world just as Goethe, Barbara McClintock, James Lovelock, and others have done. For as Einstein commented, “We cannot solve the problems facing us by using the same kind of thinking that created them.” Buhner explains how to use analogical thinking and imaginal perception to directly experience the inherent meanings that flow through the world, that are expressed from each living form that surrounds us, and to directly initiate communication in return. He delves deeply into the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and, most importantly, the human species itself. He shows that human beings are not a plague on the planet, they have a specific ecological function as important to Gaia as that of plants and bacteria. Buhner shows that the capacity for depth connection and meaning-filled communication with the living world is inherent in every human being. It is as natural as breathing, as the beating of our own hearts, as our own desire for intimacy and love. We can change how we think and in so doing begin to address the difficulties of our times.

Plant Intoxicants

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Author :
Publisher : Inner Traditions / Bear & Co
ISBN 13 : 9780892814985
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (149 download)

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Book Synopsis Plant Intoxicants by : Baron Ernst von Bibra

Download or read book Plant Intoxicants written by Baron Ernst von Bibra and published by Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. This book was released on 1995-02 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering study of psychoactive plants and their role in society, initially published in 1855, is one of the first books to examine the cultivation, preparation, and consumption of the world’s major stimulants and inebriants. It presents a fascinating panorama of the world-wide use of psychoactive plants in the nineteenth century.

Parallel Minds

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Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 1913029514
Total Pages : 93 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Parallel Minds by : Laura Tripaldi

Download or read book Parallel Minds written by Laura Tripaldi and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insights into the intelligence throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and under our skin. Is there a way to understand the materials that surround us not as passive objects, but as other intelligences interacting with our own? In Parallel Minds, expert in materials science and nanotechnology Laura Tripaldi delivers not only detailed insights into the properties and emergent behaviors of matter as revealed by state-of-the-art chemistry, synthetic biology, and nanotech, but also a rich philosophical reflection that crosses the frontier between nature and culture, where the most cutting-edge scientific syntheses resonate with ancient myth. The result is a technomaterial bestiary full of unexpected encounters with “strange minds”—from cobwebs to kevlar and carbon fibre, from centaurs to amoebas to arachnids, from polycephalic slime to resonating plasmons, from viruses to golems. Parallel Minds reveals the intelligence at large throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and even under our skin. Full of lateral ideas and unexpected images, Tripaldi’s book imbues the study and synthesis of materials with a new urgency. For not only do the materials that surround us participate actively in the construction of the world in which we live, but harnessing their ability to interact intelligently with their environment could be the key to the future of our species.

This Book is a Plant

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Author :
Publisher : Profile Books
ISBN 13 : 178283799X
Total Pages : 151 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (828 download)

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Book Synopsis This Book is a Plant by : Wellcome Collection

Download or read book This Book is a Plant written by Wellcome Collection and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2022-02-24 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "INFORMATIVE AND ORIGINAL" Guardian, 'This month's best paperbacks' We've become used to thinking of plants as things for us to use: as food, tools, resources, or just as an attractive background to our own lives. But it's time to change our minds. New research shows that plants can think, plan - and may even have memories. We share our planet with beings whose potential we have only glimpsed. Featuring the writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Susie Orbach and Merlin Sheldrake, This Book is a Plant will be your handbook to the new reality: showing you a pathway to completely reimagine your relationship with a different kind of natural world. Delve into a world of moss and fungi: Sheila Watt-Cloutier transports us to the Arctic spring, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan discovers the pleasures of painting trees, and Rebecca Tamás puts roots down through earth and soil. This Book is a Plant is made from paper: it was once part of a tree. But it's also a seed: the first shoots of a radical new way of seeing the world around you. "AN ECLECTIC ANTHOLOGY GUARANTEED TO MAKE THE HEARTS OF EARTH LOVERS BEAT FASTER" Metro

Mind Your Garden

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781626601550
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Mind Your Garden by : Tony Taylor

Download or read book Mind Your Garden written by Tony Taylor and published by . This book was released on 2020-07-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if you could choose your thoughts? Would you want to learn how? If you said yes, thank you for being vulnerable. I created this story for YOU. MindYour Garden is about aligning your thoughts with actions that create the life you long to live!

In Defense of Plants

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Author :
Publisher : Mango Media Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1642504548
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (425 download)

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Book Synopsis In Defense of Plants by : Matt Candeias

Download or read book In Defense of Plants written by Matt Candeias and published by Mango Media Inc.. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Study of Plants in a Whole New Light “Matt Candeias succeeds in evoking the wonder of plants with wit and wisdom.” ―James T. Costa, PhD, executive director, Highlands Biological Station and author of Darwin's Backyard #1 New Release in Nature & Ecology, Plants, Botany, Horticulture, Trees, Biological Sciences, and Nature Writing & Essays In his debut book, internationally-recognized blogger and podcaster Matt Candeias celebrates the nature of plants and the extraordinary world of plant organisms. A botanist’s defense. Since his early days of plant restoration, this amateur plant scientist has been enchanted with flora and the greater environmental ecology of the planet. Now, he looks at the study of plants through the lens of his ever-growing houseplant collection. Using gardening, houseplants, and examples of plants around you, In Defense of Plants changes your relationship with the world from the comfort of your windowsill. The ruthless, horny, and wonderful nature of plants. Understand how plants evolve and live on Earth with a never-before-seen look into their daily drama. Inside, Candeias explores the incredible ways plants live, fight, have sex, and conquer new territory. Whether a blossoming botanist or a professional plant scientist, In Defense of Plants is for anyone who sees plants as more than just static backdrops to more charismatic life forms. In this easily accessible introduction to the incredible world of plants, you’ll find: • Fantastic botanical histories and plant symbolism • Passionate stories of flora diversity and scientific names of plant organisms • Personal tales of plantsman discovery through the study of plants If you enjoyed books like The Botany of Desire, What a Plant Knows, or The Soul of an Octopus, then you’ll love In Defense of Plants.

The Botanical Mind

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781907208942
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis The Botanical Mind by : Gina Buenfeld

Download or read book The Botanical Mind written by Gina Buenfeld and published by . This book was released on 2020-12 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity's place in the natural order is under scrutiny as never before, held in a precarious balance between visible and invisible forces: from the microscopic threat of a virus to the monumental power of climate change. Drawing on indigenous traditions from the Amazon rainforest; alternative perspectives on Western scientific rationalism; and new thinking around plant intelligence, philosophy and cultural theory, The Botanical Mind Online investigates the significance of the plant kingdom to human life, consciousness and spirituality across cultures and through time. It positions the plant as both a universal symbol found in almost every civilisation and religion across the globe, and the most fundamental but misunderstood form of life on our planet. This new online project has been developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis and the closure of our galleries due to the pandemic. 'The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree' was originally conceived as a trans-generational group exhibition, but has been postponed. In the meantime, we have launched this complimentary online programme of new artist commissions, podcasts, films, texts, images and audio, expanding on and enriching the ideas and issues informing the show over at botanicalmind.online ... During this period of enforced stillness, our behaviour might be seen to resonate with plants: like them we are now fixed in one place, subject to new rhythms of time, contemplation, personal growth and transformation. Millions of years ago plants chose to forego mobility in favour of a life rooted in place, embedded in a particular context or environment. The life of a plant is one of constant, sensitive response to its environment - a process of growth, problem-solving, nourishment and transformation, played out at speeds and scales very different to our own. In this moment of global crisis and change there has perhaps never been a better moment to reflect on and learn from them.--https://camdenartcentre.org/the-botanical-mind-online/

Brutal Minds

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Author :
Publisher : Humanix Books
ISBN 13 : 1630062278
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis Brutal Minds by : Stanley K. Ridgley

Download or read book Brutal Minds written by Stanley K. Ridgley and published by Humanix Books. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If you are scratching your head as to how radicals could have seized control in Washington, and of American media, while defaming American democracy as a ‘white supremacist’ nightmare, look no further than the left’s transformation of American universities into ideological boot camps for Marxist treachery. Brutal Minds is a model of clarity and straight talk about this national tragedy, whose destructive energies have yet to run their course.” —DAVID HOROWITZ, Bestselling Author of Final Battle Much of university life is controlled by subsidized paranoiacs, amateur psychotherapists, neo-Marxist totalitarians, “student affairs professionals” imbued with authoritarian mentality, and racialist thought reformers who run workshops that destroy family ties and traditional beliefs to clear the way for new relationships grounded in racialist ideology. These are the brutal minds who threaten and abuse students in the name of an academic fraud called “antiracist pedagogy.” In Brutal Minds, award-winning professor Stanley K. Ridgley exposes the dangers of radicalization, cancel culture, academic censorship, and the growing influence of socialists “boldly transforming” colleges across the country into reeducation camps of dull conformity. An educational charade masks activities and ideology as dangerous as those that inspired Communist China’s tragic Cultural Revolution. This book strips away the façade of the modern American university to reveal the malignant bureaucratic viscera inside the institution. It is a dark world, an anti-intellectualist sanctuary where brutal minds find purpose, protection, camaraderie, subsidy, and power. Dr. Ridgley’s book calls us to action to halt this anti-intellectual takeover of higher education and to restore the greatness of one of Western civilization’s most brilliant creations, the American University. “A tale of how one of history’s great institutions—the American university—is undergoing an infiltration by an army of mediocrities whose goal is to destroy it as an institution of knowledge creation and replace it with an authoritarian organ of ideology and propaganda.” —From the Preface to Brutal Minds

Plant the Tiny Seed

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Author :
Publisher : Greenwillow Books
ISBN 13 : 9780062393395
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (933 download)

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Book Synopsis Plant the Tiny Seed by : Christie Matheson

Download or read book Plant the Tiny Seed written by Christie Matheson and published by Greenwillow Books. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you make a garden grow? In this playful companion to the popular Tap the Magic Tree and Touch the Brightest Star, you will see how tiny seeds bloom into beautiful flowers. And by tapping, clapping, waving, and more, young readers can join in the action! Christie Matheson masterfully combines the wonder of the natural world with the interactivity of reading. Beautiful collage-and-watercolor art follows the seed through its entire life cycle, as it grows into a zinnia in a garden full of buzzing bees, curious hummingbirds, and colorful butterflies. Children engage with the book as they wiggle their fingers to water the seeds, clap to make the sun shine after rain, and shoo away a hungry snail. Appropriate for even the youngest child, Plant the Tiny Seed is never the same book twice—no matter how many times you read it! And for curious young nature lovers, a page of facts about seeds, flowers, and the insects and animals featured in the book is included at the end. Fans of Press Here, Eric Carle, and Lois Ehlert will find their next favorite book in Plant the Tiny Seed.

Plant Whatever Brings You Joy

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0981557007
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (815 download)

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Book Synopsis Plant Whatever Brings You Joy by : Kathryn Hall

Download or read book Plant Whatever Brings You Joy written by Kathryn Hall and published by . This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Deep Minds Anonymous

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Author :
Publisher : Independently Published
ISBN 13 : 9781549932427
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (324 download)

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Book Synopsis Deep Minds Anonymous by : Madiha Batool

Download or read book Deep Minds Anonymous written by Madiha Batool and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2017-10-09 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deep Minds Anonymous by Madiha is a thought provoking debut collection of poetry, poetic prose and quotes. Her words aim to bring women goddesses to light and appreciate their beauty that is overlooked . The women who so often go through the shadows of darkness and still fight like brave warriors, conquering over the battles of life. The women who endure so much and get so little admiration and love for all that they are and for all that they have endured in life. Those Brave Goddesses should be celebrated and that's what many of her poems endeavor to achieve.Her soulful poetry aims to touch the hearts and penetrate through the very souls of her readers because poetry doesn't have to rhyme; it only has to touch one in all the places where hands can't reach. She believes in penning down words which hold the magical power to cure and heal the deepest of cuts. For Madiha, words can change one's life; they have the ability to make one rise from the ashes of their own life. She wishes to inspire her readers through inspirational poems and quotes to become who they want to be in life. Her words hope to arouse and motivate her readers to rise like a sun and shine like a moon. Her mind runs deep; thoughts run wild inside her head and the only escape they can find is poetry, words that can no longer stay caged inside force their way onto paper and into people's heart.

This Is Your Mind on Plants

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593296923
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis This Is Your Mind on Plants by : Michael Pollan

Download or read book This Is Your Mind on Plants written by Michael Pollan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller | A Washington Post Notable Book | One of NPR's Best Books of the Year “Expert storytelling . . . [Pollan] masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways.” —New York Times Book Review From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants—and the equally powerful taboos. Of all the things humans rely on plants for—sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber—surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea: People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a “drug”? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime? In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs—opium, caffeine, and mescaline—and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings? In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, as well as participatory journalism, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively—as a drug, whether licit or illicit. But that is one of the least interesting things you can say about these plants, Pollan shows, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. Based in part on an essay published almost twenty-five years ago, this groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.