To deepen my own study of plants and as a method of teaching students I have begun using a Planthenge. This is just a simple model that was inspired by the geometric layout of Stonehenge and the many other sacred stone circles of Celtic Europe, Carl Jung’s model of mandala consciousness, and Paul Bergner’s 4 directions model of studying plants.

Germ theory has been the major guiding force behind today’s biomedical research, practice and ambition. Germ theory evolved over centuries of philosophical exploration of the nature of human character and the origins of life. Humans have an inherent inquisitive longing to know and explain the source of their existence. At some point in the history of Western civilization and for many possible reasons, our collective paradigm adopted a reductionist perspective with which to examine the workings of the universe. Esteemed French philosopher, René Descartes (1596–1650), contributed the initial thoughts and writings on the philosophy of dualism. This binary system dissected the human organism into separated parts leading to the concept of the mind/body split and identifying the mind and body as contrary aspects; henceforth, ‘the dual’.  Scientific exploration began to utilize this mechanistic structure of reduction to observe the fundamental operating systems of life as individual pieces, zooming in and dividing physiological functions to study them. This paradigm continues to govern our cultural endeavors toward all aspects of human life, and in the words of author and herbalist Stephen Buhner, we are all living inside Descartes psychosis.