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| The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines for Life on Earth | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 20 reviews)
Sales Rank: 98483
Category: Book
Author: Stephen Harrod Buhner
Publisher: Chelsea Green
Studio: Chelsea Green
Manufacturer: Chelsea Green
Label: Chelsea Green
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 1890132888
Dewey Decimal Number: 615.32
EAN: 9781890132880
ASIN: 1890132888
Publication Date: March 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This could be the most important book you will read this year. Well-known author, teacher, lecturer, and herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner has produced a book that is certain to generate controversy. It consists of three parts: A critique of technological medicine, and especially the dangers to the environment posed by pharmaceuticals and other synthetic substances that people use in connection with health care and personal body care. A new look at Gaia Theory, including an explanation that plants are the original chemistries of Gaia and those phytochemistries are the fundamental communications network for the Earth's ecosystems. Extensive documentation of how plants communicate their healing qualities to humans and other animals. Western culture has obliterated most people's capacity to perceive these messages, but this book also contains valuable information on how we can restore our faculties of perception. The book will affect readers on rational and emotional planes. It is grounded in both a New Age spiritual sensibility and hard science. While some of the author's claims may strike traditional thinkers as outlandish, Buhner presents his arguments with such authority and documentation that the scientific underpinnings, however unconventional, are completely credible. The overall impact is a powerful, eye-opening expos' of the threat that our allopathic Western medical system, in combination with our unquestioning faith in science and technology, poses to the primary life-support systems of the planet. At a time when we are preoccupied with the terrorist attacks and the possibility of biological warfare, perhaps it is time to listen to the planet. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the state of the environment, the state of health care, and our cultural sanity.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
I just want to add my personal take... August 16, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I won't go into what the other reviewers have already said about the beauty and sensitivity of this book. (I have had experiences in the garden with certain "weeds" seeming to beckon to me to eat them, and that is why I bought this book, to see if there might be something to this.) I was blown away by how incredibly SMART plants are!
But I just have to say that I am literally trembling now after having read the sections on the preponderance and endurance of pharmaceutical drugs, medical wastes, and antibiotics in the environment.
I am one of those who must take several of the top ten drugs "for life," but I tend to have extremely bad reactions to drugs of all types. I am disabled now, I'm convinced, in large part due to pharmaceutical drugs and ubiquitous chemicals that have seriously undermined my health. I know that it takes a very long time (a) to get over the damaging side effects of drugs that don't agree with me and (b) to find drugs that will work for me. I would not take any drugs if I could find a workable alternative, so bad have my experiences with pharmaceuticals been.
Now I am concerned like I never have been before about the effect of all these drugs polluting our environment. I have tended to think in terms of those pills ending with me, even if it might take years to get over the terrible effects on my body and brain. Now I know that every single living thing on this planet is affected by these drugs...and not just one of them, ALL of them mixed together! Any pharmacist will tell you that the more drugs you combine, the more likely you're going to get seriously bad reactions.
And then I think of all the people I've known personally who have been addicted to benzodiazepines, Ambien, Xanax, and the like who were stark raving bezonkers half the time from withdrawal effects and didn't even know it. My sister and I were at the point of strangling our other sister until she went through several years of very difficult work to withdraw from the very small dose of Xanax she was taking each night.
It is seriously worrisome how really messed up these drugs can make people, and yet they are advertised on TV and prescribed (and upped and upped) like they are candy.
And the weight. I look around at all these obese people (I am one of them), and I am reminded of what several doctors have said to me: "As long as you are taking X drug, you aren't going to be able to lose any weight." When the author of "The Lost Language of Plants" mentioned that many drugs are designed to work only in the presence of fat, and that they concentrate in fatty tissues all up the food chain, I couldn't help wondering what's going on with the human species (not to mention every other living thing) that we are growing larger and larger. It can't be just exercise plus calories or levels of sugars and fats; I know, I've counted them all religiously.
I have to ask: Are our bodies adaptively packing on weight to allow ourselves to better handle and store the huge levels of bioactive chemicals we've doused our whole planet with? Could it be that gaining weight, like forming granulomas, is a mechanism the body uses to isolate and render as harmless as possible a dangerous foreign agent (all these chemicals and drugs that are being dumped into our environment by the billions of pounds)? Is anyone thinking about this, and are they looking into the possibility? Dying of "fat-related diseases" may be the lesser of the evils.
It scares the begeezus out of me to think about all this. But get this book. It may have just the solutions we need--if it's not too late. I just hope, if this planet has to choose between us and the plants, that the plants win out. Read this book and you'll understand why I say that.
 Compassion for Plants October 2, 2007
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
The beginning of the book held my interest, but then it waned. Somehow I just lost interest and still have not finished it. But I will try.
Excellent and thoughtful reading! January 9, 2007
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is a change of pace. It is a book that makes you ponder about life itself.
A Beautiful and Poetic Call to Action September 15, 2006
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book is absolutely wonderful and exquisitely written. I loved the author's writing style, but especially appreciated his much-needed message. I can only hope that more people will continue to read this book and take away its powerful statement and do something with it! I plan on buying some of this author's other works, and couldn't suggest this book more! It's a true gem!
Powerful and Profound April 12, 2006
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is a staggeringly powerful and important book. Our relationship with the earth and all of its inhabitants is crucial to our continued biological, psychological and spiritual health and our survival as a species. Why we continue to ignore and deride this very real fact is a devastating mystery to me - this book, however, not only illuminates, in poignant and heart-breaking ways, our continued ignorance, but offers the reader the opportunity to begin learning how to reestablish this most fundamental of relationships. Liberally sprinkled with some truly excellent quotations from various authors, activists and thinkers, and full of some terrifying information about the pharmaceutical industry, this book is a captivating read. It is an incredibly useful text for anyone, most especially for those practicing a plant-based system of healing, as it gives a philosophical groundwork that every holistic herbalist can incorporate into their practice and their lifestyle.
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