Author: Eliot Cowan
Publisher: Blue Water Publishing (NC)
ISBN: 9780926524095
Category : Ethnobotany
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Explores an old way of healing through the spirit of plants.
Plant Spirit Medicine
Author: Eliot Cowan
Publisher: Blue Water Publishing (NC)
ISBN: 9780926524095
Category : Ethnobotany
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Explores an old way of healing through the spirit of plants.
Publisher: Blue Water Publishing (NC)
ISBN: 9780926524095
Category : Ethnobotany
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Explores an old way of healing through the spirit of plants.
Plant Spirit Medicine
Author: Eliot Cowan
Publisher: Sounds True
ISBN: 1622031636
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Whether you live in a mountain cabin or a city loft, plant spirits present themselves to us everywhere. Since its first printing in 1995, Plant Spirit Medicine has passed hand-to-hand among countless readers drawn to indigenous spirituality and all things alive and green. In this updated edition, Eliot Cowan invites us to discover the healing power of plants—not merely their physical medicinal properties, but the deeper wisdom and gifts that they offer. Enriched by many new insights, this guide unfolds as a series of chapters on how plant spirit medicine helped Cowan resolve specific challenges in his own healing journey and in his work with others. In the telling, we learn how plant spirits can directly communicate with and aid all of us, including: Plant spirit medicine's five-element view of healingWays to assess our own states of health and balanceReceiving guidance from plants, including those found within herbal preparationsNew passages on community and sacred plants such as peyote, marijuana, and tobaccoAdditional interviews with plant shamans across diverse traditions, and more
Publisher: Sounds True
ISBN: 1622031636
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Whether you live in a mountain cabin or a city loft, plant spirits present themselves to us everywhere. Since its first printing in 1995, Plant Spirit Medicine has passed hand-to-hand among countless readers drawn to indigenous spirituality and all things alive and green. In this updated edition, Eliot Cowan invites us to discover the healing power of plants—not merely their physical medicinal properties, but the deeper wisdom and gifts that they offer. Enriched by many new insights, this guide unfolds as a series of chapters on how plant spirit medicine helped Cowan resolve specific challenges in his own healing journey and in his work with others. In the telling, we learn how plant spirits can directly communicate with and aid all of us, including: Plant spirit medicine's five-element view of healingWays to assess our own states of health and balanceReceiving guidance from plants, including those found within herbal preparationsNew passages on community and sacred plants such as peyote, marijuana, and tobaccoAdditional interviews with plant shamans across diverse traditions, and more
Plant Spirit Healing
Author: Pam Montgomery
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439957
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
A hands-on approach to working with the healing powers of plant spirits • Explores the scientific basis underlying the practices of indigenous healers and shamans • Illuminates the matrix where plant intelligence and human intelligence join • Reveals that partnering with plants is an evolutionary imperative Indigenous healers and shamans have known since antiquity that plants possess a spirit essence that can communicate through light, sound, and vibration. Now scientific studies are verifying this understanding. Plant Spirit Healing reveals the power of plant spirits to join with human intelligence to bring about profound healing. These spirits take us beyond mere symptomatic treatment to aligning us with the vast web of nature. Plants are more than their chemical constituents. They are intelligent beings that have the capacity to raise consciousness to a level where true healing can take place. In this book, herbalist Pam Montgomery offers an understanding of the origins of disease and the therapeutic use of plant spirits to bring balance and healing. She offers a process engaging heart, soul, and spirit that she calls the triple spiral path. In our modern existence, we are increasingly challenged with broken hearts, souls in exile, and malnourished spirits. By working through the heart, we connect with the soul and gain access to spirit. She explains that the evolution of plants has always preceded their animal counterparts and that plant spirits offer a guide to our spiritual evolution--a stage of growth imperative not only for the healing of humans but also the healing of the earth.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439957
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
A hands-on approach to working with the healing powers of plant spirits • Explores the scientific basis underlying the practices of indigenous healers and shamans • Illuminates the matrix where plant intelligence and human intelligence join • Reveals that partnering with plants is an evolutionary imperative Indigenous healers and shamans have known since antiquity that plants possess a spirit essence that can communicate through light, sound, and vibration. Now scientific studies are verifying this understanding. Plant Spirit Healing reveals the power of plant spirits to join with human intelligence to bring about profound healing. These spirits take us beyond mere symptomatic treatment to aligning us with the vast web of nature. Plants are more than their chemical constituents. They are intelligent beings that have the capacity to raise consciousness to a level where true healing can take place. In this book, herbalist Pam Montgomery offers an understanding of the origins of disease and the therapeutic use of plant spirits to bring balance and healing. She offers a process engaging heart, soul, and spirit that she calls the triple spiral path. In our modern existence, we are increasingly challenged with broken hearts, souls in exile, and malnourished spirits. By working through the heart, we connect with the soul and gain access to spirit. She explains that the evolution of plants has always preceded their animal counterparts and that plant spirits offer a guide to our spiritual evolution--a stage of growth imperative not only for the healing of humans but also the healing of the earth.
Plant Spirit Shamanism
Author: Ross Heaven
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594776660
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
An in-depth look at the role of plant spirits in shamanic rituals from around the world • Shows how shamans heal using their knowledge of plant spirits as well as the plant’s “medical properties” • Explores the core methods of plant shamanism--soul retrieval, spirit extraction, and sin eating--and includes techniques for connecting with plant spirits • Includes extensive field interviews with master shamans of all traditions In Plant Spirit Shamanism, Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing explore the use of one of the major allies of shamans for healing, seeing, dreaming, and empowerment--plant spirits. After observing great similarities in the use of plants among shamans throughout the world, they discovered the reason behind these similarities: Rather than dealing with the “medical properties” of the plants or specific healing techniques, shamans commune with the spirits of the plants themselves. From their years of in-depth shamanic work in the Amazon, Haiti, and Europe, including extensive field interviews with master shamans, Heaven and Charing present the core methods of plant shamanism used in healing rituals the world over: soul retrieval, spirit extraction, sin eating, and the Amazonian tradition of pusanga (love medicine). They explain the techniques shamans use to establish connections to plant spirits and provide practical exercises as well as a directory of traditional Amazonian and Caribbean healing plants and their common North American equivalents so readers can ex-plore the world of plant spirits and make allies of their own.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594776660
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
An in-depth look at the role of plant spirits in shamanic rituals from around the world • Shows how shamans heal using their knowledge of plant spirits as well as the plant’s “medical properties” • Explores the core methods of plant shamanism--soul retrieval, spirit extraction, and sin eating--and includes techniques for connecting with plant spirits • Includes extensive field interviews with master shamans of all traditions In Plant Spirit Shamanism, Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing explore the use of one of the major allies of shamans for healing, seeing, dreaming, and empowerment--plant spirits. After observing great similarities in the use of plants among shamans throughout the world, they discovered the reason behind these similarities: Rather than dealing with the “medical properties” of the plants or specific healing techniques, shamans commune with the spirits of the plants themselves. From their years of in-depth shamanic work in the Amazon, Haiti, and Europe, including extensive field interviews with master shamans, Heaven and Charing present the core methods of plant shamanism used in healing rituals the world over: soul retrieval, spirit extraction, sin eating, and the Amazonian tradition of pusanga (love medicine). They explain the techniques shamans use to establish connections to plant spirits and provide practical exercises as well as a directory of traditional Amazonian and Caribbean healing plants and their common North American equivalents so readers can ex-plore the world of plant spirits and make allies of their own.
The Healing Spirit of Plants
Author: William Bloom
Publisher: Sterling Publishing (NY)
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Use the healing energy of plants through the remedies, rituals, and inner life of the natural world. Legends, shamanistic principles, and imagery old and new reveal the significance of plant spirits, and how to interpret their message. Related techniques such as chakras and meditation, along with charts and sidebars, guide practical work with spirit bundles, smudging, aromatherapy, infusions, tisanes, and homeopathic preparations. A plant encyclopedia includes over 100 revered species.
Publisher: Sterling Publishing (NY)
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Use the healing energy of plants through the remedies, rituals, and inner life of the natural world. Legends, shamanistic principles, and imagery old and new reveal the significance of plant spirits, and how to interpret their message. Related techniques such as chakras and meditation, along with charts and sidebars, guide practical work with spirit bundles, smudging, aromatherapy, infusions, tisanes, and homeopathic preparations. A plant encyclopedia includes over 100 revered species.
Touched by Nature
Author: Pip Waller
Publisher: Aeon Books
ISBN: 1911597639
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
Inside these pages are woven together the voices and stories of many people whose lives have been touched by plants in general and plant spirit medicine in particular. These include contributions from some of the many wonderful herbalists using plant-based medicine in a way that goes beyond the physical, biochemical model. The stories are arranged in chapters that take the reader on a journey to discover this medicine of our time. It is sometimes said that in the time of greatest need there is the greatest help, and plant spirit medicine has certainly emerged at a time of great need and challenge, and it is taking root and growing. The plants themselves, sentient and alive, are calling to many to awaken to a deeper experience of the energy of nature and of our human place in it. This can be felt and understood in direct relationship. The elemental forces that manifest the seasons offer a doorway to move into this perspective. For all the many reasons people may seek out the medicine, there will always be something deep and interesting to learn from an experience of it once we have made the connection. Anyone can learn to communicate directly with plant spirits and befriend them in a way that opens rich dimensions and, over time and with persistence and patience, a quiet revolution of perspective can result. Becoming a healer, however, and practicing as one is a more committed business that requires dedication, perseverance, and sacrifice. It also holds many rewards. Plant spirit medicine offers the healer the framework of an elegant and rigorous methodology within which to access and effectively channel the energy of the astonishing realm of plant spirits. In the unfolding of our own journeys as healers and receivers of the medicine we witness an unfolding of consciousness in ourselves and our patients that offers something truly hopeful for the journey of the planet.
Publisher: Aeon Books
ISBN: 1911597639
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
Inside these pages are woven together the voices and stories of many people whose lives have been touched by plants in general and plant spirit medicine in particular. These include contributions from some of the many wonderful herbalists using plant-based medicine in a way that goes beyond the physical, biochemical model. The stories are arranged in chapters that take the reader on a journey to discover this medicine of our time. It is sometimes said that in the time of greatest need there is the greatest help, and plant spirit medicine has certainly emerged at a time of great need and challenge, and it is taking root and growing. The plants themselves, sentient and alive, are calling to many to awaken to a deeper experience of the energy of nature and of our human place in it. This can be felt and understood in direct relationship. The elemental forces that manifest the seasons offer a doorway to move into this perspective. For all the many reasons people may seek out the medicine, there will always be something deep and interesting to learn from an experience of it once we have made the connection. Anyone can learn to communicate directly with plant spirits and befriend them in a way that opens rich dimensions and, over time and with persistence and patience, a quiet revolution of perspective can result. Becoming a healer, however, and practicing as one is a more committed business that requires dedication, perseverance, and sacrifice. It also holds many rewards. Plant spirit medicine offers the healer the framework of an elegant and rigorous methodology within which to access and effectively channel the energy of the astonishing realm of plant spirits. In the unfolding of our own journeys as healers and receivers of the medicine we witness an unfolding of consciousness in ourselves and our patients that offers something truly hopeful for the journey of the planet.
Journeys with Plant Spirits
Author: Emma Farrell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591434084
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
• Presents meditation journeys with specific plant and tree spirits, such as Mugwort, Rosemary, Dandelion, Yew, Elder, and Wormwood • Details how to achieve a calm mind, cleanse your energy field, and connect with your heart in preparation for meditating with the plants • Includes a progressive series of introductory meditations, adapted from wisdom traditions, to lay the foundation for working with plant spirits In this book, Emma Farrell explains how to take your connection and relationship with nature to a deeper level and access plant spirit healing through meditation with plants. Exploring the nature of plant consciousness and how plants perceive, she details how to achieve a calm mind, cleanse your energy field, and connect with your heart in preparation for meditating with plants and trees, showing how the plants can support us not only in the cleansing process but also in teaching us how to sense what is in our energy field. Offering a progressive series of preparatory meditations adapted from shamanic and indigenous wisdom traditions, the author reveals how to lay the foundation for working, communicating, and developing relationships with plant and tree spirits--for personal development, spiritual connection, and inner peace. She then presents meditation journeys with specific plant spirits, focusing on the frequencies within the plant’s bioresonance that will assist you. For example, the meditation with Mugwort works with the plant spirit’s qualities of alignment and self-awareness to assist you with grounding and developing inner vision, while the meditation with Dandelion helps you break old habits by working with the plant’s qualities of release, reconnection, and fearlessness. Revealing how each plant is an expression of the soul force of Mother Nature and carries a unique blend of her medicine and wisdom, this book details step-by-step how to effectively work with plant spirits for emotional and spiritual healing, enabling you to awaken the eternal spirit, or soul, to become truly multidimensional and whole.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591434084
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
• Presents meditation journeys with specific plant and tree spirits, such as Mugwort, Rosemary, Dandelion, Yew, Elder, and Wormwood • Details how to achieve a calm mind, cleanse your energy field, and connect with your heart in preparation for meditating with the plants • Includes a progressive series of introductory meditations, adapted from wisdom traditions, to lay the foundation for working with plant spirits In this book, Emma Farrell explains how to take your connection and relationship with nature to a deeper level and access plant spirit healing through meditation with plants. Exploring the nature of plant consciousness and how plants perceive, she details how to achieve a calm mind, cleanse your energy field, and connect with your heart in preparation for meditating with plants and trees, showing how the plants can support us not only in the cleansing process but also in teaching us how to sense what is in our energy field. Offering a progressive series of preparatory meditations adapted from shamanic and indigenous wisdom traditions, the author reveals how to lay the foundation for working, communicating, and developing relationships with plant and tree spirits--for personal development, spiritual connection, and inner peace. She then presents meditation journeys with specific plant spirits, focusing on the frequencies within the plant’s bioresonance that will assist you. For example, the meditation with Mugwort works with the plant spirit’s qualities of alignment and self-awareness to assist you with grounding and developing inner vision, while the meditation with Dandelion helps you break old habits by working with the plant’s qualities of release, reconnection, and fearlessness. Revealing how each plant is an expression of the soul force of Mother Nature and carries a unique blend of her medicine and wisdom, this book details step-by-step how to effectively work with plant spirits for emotional and spiritual healing, enabling you to awaken the eternal spirit, or soul, to become truly multidimensional and whole.
Wisdom of the Plant Devas
Author: Thea Summer Deer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439418
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Book Description
Consulting plant spirits for spiritual and psychological guidance and healing • Reveals how, by communing with the deva or spirit of a plant, we can call forth its medicine without even needing to ingest it • Includes wisdom from the devas of 13 herbs, such as rosemary, datura, and uva ursi • Empowers readers with the tools to develop their own inner resources for healing in relationship with the plant devas around them Each plant has a story to share with us, a healing story to guide us in trying times, a spirit medicine for the New Earth that is presently unfolding. Herbs are some of the most powerful allies we have for these transitional times--we just need to learn how to listen as they share their knowledge with us. In Wisdom of the Plant Devas, Thea Summer Deer reveals a new dimension of herbal medicine, one where the plant’s spirit is consulted for guidance and healing beyond the physical. Examining the botany, modern and traditional uses, history, and folklore of 13 special herbs, such as rosemary, uva ursi, and datura, she shares divinations and messages from their devas, or plant spirits, explaining how these stories carry the herbs into our lives, letting them work their magic on us. Exploring herbal medicine from an energetic perspective, she reveals that by communing with the deva of a plant, we can call on the plant’s physical, psychological, and spiritual medicine and guidance--without ingesting it or even being in its presence. Detailing the sacred space of a Medicine Wheel Garden, whether in a backyard or our imaginations, she connects us with the devas and empowers us to seek our own answers with their much-needed spiritual guidance and divinatory advice. Creating a bridge between botanical medicine and plant spirit medicine, she shows how by coming into community with the devas and co-creating with the world of nature, we can gain tremendous insights to help heal our hearts, our minds, and our spirits and consciously evolve as together we birth the New Earth.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439418
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Book Description
Consulting plant spirits for spiritual and psychological guidance and healing • Reveals how, by communing with the deva or spirit of a plant, we can call forth its medicine without even needing to ingest it • Includes wisdom from the devas of 13 herbs, such as rosemary, datura, and uva ursi • Empowers readers with the tools to develop their own inner resources for healing in relationship with the plant devas around them Each plant has a story to share with us, a healing story to guide us in trying times, a spirit medicine for the New Earth that is presently unfolding. Herbs are some of the most powerful allies we have for these transitional times--we just need to learn how to listen as they share their knowledge with us. In Wisdom of the Plant Devas, Thea Summer Deer reveals a new dimension of herbal medicine, one where the plant’s spirit is consulted for guidance and healing beyond the physical. Examining the botany, modern and traditional uses, history, and folklore of 13 special herbs, such as rosemary, uva ursi, and datura, she shares divinations and messages from their devas, or plant spirits, explaining how these stories carry the herbs into our lives, letting them work their magic on us. Exploring herbal medicine from an energetic perspective, she reveals that by communing with the deva of a plant, we can call on the plant’s physical, psychological, and spiritual medicine and guidance--without ingesting it or even being in its presence. Detailing the sacred space of a Medicine Wheel Garden, whether in a backyard or our imaginations, she connects us with the devas and empowers us to seek our own answers with their much-needed spiritual guidance and divinatory advice. Creating a bridge between botanical medicine and plant spirit medicine, she shows how by coming into community with the devas and co-creating with the world of nature, we can gain tremendous insights to help heal our hearts, our minds, and our spirits and consciously evolve as together we birth the New Earth.
Ayahuasca Medicine
Author: Alan Shoemaker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620551942
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
An insider’s account of the journey to become an ayahuasquero, a shaman who heals with the visionary vine ayahuasca • Details the author’s training and life as a curandero using ayahuasca medicine, San Pedro cactus, tobacco purges, psychedelic mushrooms, and other visionary plants • Offers first-hand accounts of miraculous healing where ayahuasca revealed the cause of the illness, including how the author healed his mother from liver cancer • Shows how “ayahuasca tourism” symbolizes the Western world’s reawakening need to connect with the universal life force For more than 20 years American-born Alan Shoemaker has apprenticed and worked with shamans in Ecuador and Peru, learning the traditional methods of ayahuasca preparation, the ceremonial rituals for its use, and how to commune with the healing spirit of this sacred plant as well as the spirit of the San Pedro cactus and other sacred plant allies. Now a recognized and practicing ayahuasquero, or ayahuasca shaman, in Peru, he offers an insider’s account of the ayahuasca tradition and of its use for expanding consciousness and achieving healing through access to other dimensions of being. Shoemaker details his training and his own curandero practice using ayahuasca medicine, tobacco purges, psychedelic mushrooms, and other visionary plants. He discusses the different traditions of his two foremost teachers and mentors, Don Juan in the Peruvian Amazon, an ayahuasquero, and Valentin in Ecuador, a San Pedro shaman. He reveals the indispensable role played by icaros, the healing songs of the plant shaman, and offers firsthand accounts of miraculous healing resulting from ayahuasca’s ability to reveal the cause of an illness, including how he healed his mother from liver cancer. The author also addresses the rising popularity of Northerners traveling to the Amazon to seek healing and mind expansion through ayahuasca and shows how this fascination is triggered by humanity’s reawakening need to connect to the universal life force.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620551942
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
An insider’s account of the journey to become an ayahuasquero, a shaman who heals with the visionary vine ayahuasca • Details the author’s training and life as a curandero using ayahuasca medicine, San Pedro cactus, tobacco purges, psychedelic mushrooms, and other visionary plants • Offers first-hand accounts of miraculous healing where ayahuasca revealed the cause of the illness, including how the author healed his mother from liver cancer • Shows how “ayahuasca tourism” symbolizes the Western world’s reawakening need to connect with the universal life force For more than 20 years American-born Alan Shoemaker has apprenticed and worked with shamans in Ecuador and Peru, learning the traditional methods of ayahuasca preparation, the ceremonial rituals for its use, and how to commune with the healing spirit of this sacred plant as well as the spirit of the San Pedro cactus and other sacred plant allies. Now a recognized and practicing ayahuasquero, or ayahuasca shaman, in Peru, he offers an insider’s account of the ayahuasca tradition and of its use for expanding consciousness and achieving healing through access to other dimensions of being. Shoemaker details his training and his own curandero practice using ayahuasca medicine, tobacco purges, psychedelic mushrooms, and other visionary plants. He discusses the different traditions of his two foremost teachers and mentors, Don Juan in the Peruvian Amazon, an ayahuasquero, and Valentin in Ecuador, a San Pedro shaman. He reveals the indispensable role played by icaros, the healing songs of the plant shaman, and offers firsthand accounts of miraculous healing resulting from ayahuasca’s ability to reveal the cause of an illness, including how he healed his mother from liver cancer. The author also addresses the rising popularity of Northerners traveling to the Amazon to seek healing and mind expansion through ayahuasca and shows how this fascination is triggered by humanity’s reawakening need to connect to the universal life force.
Evolutionary Herbalism
Author: Sajah Popham
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623173132
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 546
Book Description
Introducing a groundbreaking, holistic approach to the practice and philosophy of herbal healing for the body, spirit, and soul. The first-ever herbalism guide to integrate herbal, medical, and esoteric traditions from around the globe—including astrology, Ayurveda, and alchemy—into one cohesive model. Sajah Popham presents an innovative approach to herbalism that considers the holistic relationship among plants, humans, and the underlying archetypal patterns in Nature. Organized in 5 parts, this work explores a unique integration of clinical herbalism, Ayurveda, medical astrology, spagyric alchemy, and medical and esoteric traditions from across the world into a truly holistic system of plant medicine. A balance of the heart and the mind, and the science and spirit of people and plants, Evolutionary Herbalism provides a holistic context for how plants can be used for transformational levels of healing for the body, spirit, and soul. For both the student herbalist and experienced practitioner, Popham’s original perspectives guide readers to a more intimate, synergistic, and intuitive relationship with the plant kingdom, people, and Nature as a whole.
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623173132
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 546
Book Description
Introducing a groundbreaking, holistic approach to the practice and philosophy of herbal healing for the body, spirit, and soul. The first-ever herbalism guide to integrate herbal, medical, and esoteric traditions from around the globe—including astrology, Ayurveda, and alchemy—into one cohesive model. Sajah Popham presents an innovative approach to herbalism that considers the holistic relationship among plants, humans, and the underlying archetypal patterns in Nature. Organized in 5 parts, this work explores a unique integration of clinical herbalism, Ayurveda, medical astrology, spagyric alchemy, and medical and esoteric traditions from across the world into a truly holistic system of plant medicine. A balance of the heart and the mind, and the science and spirit of people and plants, Evolutionary Herbalism provides a holistic context for how plants can be used for transformational levels of healing for the body, spirit, and soul. For both the student herbalist and experienced practitioner, Popham’s original perspectives guide readers to a more intimate, synergistic, and intuitive relationship with the plant kingdom, people, and Nature as a whole.