Salicylic acid, a precursor in the production of aspirin, is extremely common in plants (from whom it was originally isolated). Like most plant chemistries, salicylic acid possesses scores of uses depending on dosage, location, and combination. In low doses, released into the ecosystem, it stimulates plant growth, but in larger doses it inhibits

Biognosis: bio—life; gnosis—knowledge or recognition, especially spiritual knowledge or insight. From the Greek words bio—life—and gignoskein—to know. In other words, to know life through the deeper spiritual and intuitive faculties of the mind; also the body of accumulated knowledge that comes from perceiving life in this manner.

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. —Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

She said, “Well mahn, lately I haven’t wanted to live.” And here she paused and took a deep breath. “But my granmamma, she come to me in my dreams an’ she tell me, ‘Chile! You got to get your fingers in de dirt.’”

Because biophilia is a natural, genetic, and evolutionary process, it will continue to emerge with the same tenacity as weeds breaking through civilization’s sidewalks. Its emergence will be greeted by reductionists with the same dismay that city planners greet those weeds—somewhat like a dinner host greets an uninvited, and rather unruly, guest at

Humanity did not soft-land into the teeming biosphere like an alien from another planet. We arose from other organisms already here.

[Our bodies] are not distinct from the bodies of plants and animals, with which we are involved in the cycles of feeding and in the intricate companionships of ecological systems and of the spirit. They are not distinct from the earth, the sun and moon, and the other heavenly bodies. It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health

The house there was a hand-hewn oak barn built a century before. My great-grandfather had bought it, numbered the pieces, disassembled it, moved it to their country farm, and rebuilt it. I remember visits there, lying next to him in bed and hearing his stories. It did not matter what he said but only the sound and rhythms of his voice, his arm

For human beings to sustainably inhabit Earth it is imperative to reexamine our approaches to healing and to medicine, as we are beginning to do with the rest of our technology. Just because medicine is intended to alleviate human suffering does not mean we are exempt from the environmental consequences of using it. Medicine needs to be reexamined