Nerve Plant Quotes

Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.

The ultimate work of energy production is accomplished not in any specialized organ but in every cell of the body. A living cell, like a flame, burns fuel to produce the energy on which life depends. The analogy is more poetic than precise, for the cell accomplishes its ‘burning’ with only the moderate heat of the body’s normal temperature. Yet all these billions of gently burning little fires spark the energy of life. Should they cease to burn, ‘no heart could beat, no plant could grow upward defying gravity, no amoeba could swim, no sensation could speed along a nerve, no thought could flash in the human brain,’ said the chemist Eugene Rabinowitch.

See It Through When you’re up against a trouble, Meet it squarely, face to face; Lift your chin and set your shoulders, Plant your feet and take a brace. When it’s vain to try to dodge it, Do the best that you can do; You may fail, but you may conquer, See it through! Black may be the clouds about you And your future may seem grim, But don’t let your nerve desert you; Keep yourself in fighting trim. If the worst is bound to happen, Spite of all that you can do, Running from it will not save you, See it through! Even hope may seem but futile, When with troubles you’re beset, But remember you are facing Just what other men have met. You may fail, but fall still fighting; Don’t give up, whate’er you do; Eyes front, head high to the finish. See it through!

Mycelium is ecological connective tissue, the living seam by which much of the world is stitched into relation. In school classrooms children are shown anatomical charts, each depicting different aspects of the human body. One chart reveals the body as a skeleton, another the body as a network of blood vessels, another the nerves, another the muscles. If we made equivalent sets of diagrams to portray ecosystems, one of the layers would show the fungal mycelium that runs through them. We would see sprawling, interlaced webs strung through the soil, through sulfurous sediments hundreds of meters below the surface of the ocean, along coral reefs, through plant and animal bodies both alive and dead, in

He began to explain to me that vegetation, and especially mature trees, are able to transmit harmony when one rests one’s nerve centers against a tree trunk. For hours he discoursed on the physical, energetic, and spiritual properties of plants.

[Fall, 1951] To me Acapulco is the detoxicating cure for all the evils of the city: ambition, vanity, quest for success in money, the continuous contagious presence of power-driven, obsessed individuals who want to become known, to be in the limelight, noticed, as if life among millions gave you a desperate illness, a need of rising above the crowd, being noticed, existing individually, singled out from a mass of ants and sheep. It has something to do with the presence of millions of anonymous faces, anonymous people, and the desperate ways of achieving distinction. Here, all this is nonsense. You exist by your smile and your presence. You exist for your joys and your relaxations. You exist in nature. You are part of the glittering sea, and part of the luscious, well-nourished plants, you are wedded to the sun, you are immersed in timelessness, only the present counts, and from the present you extract all the essences which can nourish the senses, and so the nerves are still, the mind is quiet, the nights are lullabies, the days are like gentle ovens in which infinitely wise sculptor’s hands re-form the lost contours, the lost sensations of the body. The body comes to life. Quests, pursuits of concrete securities of one kind or another lose all their importance. As you swim, you are washed of all the excrescences of so-called civilization, which includes the incapacity to be happy under any circumstances.

For many Westerners, “it’s natural” seems to mean “it’s good.” This view is wrong and comes from shopping in supermarkets and living in landscaped environments. Plants evolved toxins to deter animals, fungi, and bacteria from eating them. The list of “natural” foods that need processing to detoxify them goes on and on. Early potatoes were toxic, and the Andean peoples ate clay to neutralize the toxin. Even beans can be toxic without processing. In California, many hunter-gatherer populations relied on acorns, which, similar to manioc, require a labor intensive, multiday leaching process. Many small-scale societies have similarly exploited hardy, tropical plants called cycads for food. But cycads contain a nerve toxin. If not properly processed, they can cause neurological symptoms, paralysis, and death. Numerous societies, including hunter-gatherers, have culturally evolved an immense range of detoxification techniques for cycads. By contrast with our species, other animals have far superior abilities to detoxify plants. Humans, however, lost these genetic adaptations and evolved a dependence on cultural know-how, just to eat.

Again and again workers told me that they are under tremendous pressure not to report injuries. The annual bonuses of plant foremen and supervisors are often based in part on the injury rate of their workers. Instead of crating a safer workplace, these bonus schemes encourage slaughterhouse managers to make sure that accidents and injuries go unreported. Missing fingers, broken bones, deep lacerations and amputated limbs are difficult to conceal from authorities. But the dramatic and catastrophic injuries in a slaughterhouse are greatly outnumbered by less visible, though no less debilitating, ailments: torn muscles, slipped disks, pinched nerves.

the most dangerous trick pulled by lectins, which I now see on a daily basis in my patients, is that they bear an uncanny similarity to the proteins on many of our important organs, nerves, and joints.

Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you. It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.

Literally right this second, there are over five hundred million nerves in your intestines sending feedback to your brain through the vagus nerve. That’s five times more nerves than you’ll find in your spinal cord. That is a lot of information!

Pulling to a stop in front of Aly’s house, I take a deep breath. With a flick of my wrist, I cut the engine and listen to the silence. I’ve sat in this exact spot more times than I can count. In many ways, Aly’s house is like my sanctuary. A place I go when my own home feels like a graveyard. I glance up at the bedroom window of the girl who knows me better than anyone, the only person I let see me cry after Dad died. I won’t let this experiment take that or her away from me. Tonight, I’m going to prove that Aly and I can go back to our normal, easy friendship. Throwing open my door, I trudge up her sidewalk, plant my feet outside her front door, and ring the bell. “Coming!” I step back and see Aly stick her head out of her second-story window. “No problem,” I call back up. “Take your time.” More time to get my head on straight. Aly disappears behind a film of yellow curtain, and I turn to look out at the quiet neighborhood. Up and down the street, the lights blink on, filling the air with a low hum that matches the thrumming of my nerves. Across the street, old Mr. Lawson sits at his usual perch under a gigantic American flag, drinking beer and mumbling to himself. Two little girls ride their bikes around the cul-de-sac, smiling and waving. Just a normal, run-of-the-mill Friday night. Except not. I thrust my hands into my pockets, jiggling the loose change from my Taco Bell run earlier tonight, and grab my pack of Trident. I toss a stick into my mouth and chew furiously. Supposedly, the smell of peppermint can calm your nerves. I grab a second stick and shove it in, too. With the clacking sound of Aly’s shoes approaching the door behind me, I remind myself again about tonight’s mission. All I need is focus. I take another deep breath for good measure and rock back on my heels, ready to greet my best friend. She opens the door, wearing a black dress molded to her skin, and I let the air out in one big huff.

The world—this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I launch eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss[43] be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear;[44] I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as a loss of power.

the following supplements are recommended specifically for MS. They’ll help reduce pain and protect your myelin sheath as you heal from EBV: EPA & DHA (eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid): omega-3 fats to help protect and fortify the myelin nerve sheath. Be sure to buy a plant-based (not fish-based) version. L-glutamine: amino acid that removes toxins such as MSG from the brain and protects neurons. Lion’s mane: medicinal mushroom that helps protect the myelin sheath and support neuron function. ALA (alpha lipoic acid): helps repair damaged neurons and neurotransmitters. Also helps mend the myelin nerve sheath. Monolaurin: fatty acid that kills virus cells, bacteria cells, and other bad microbes (e.g., mold) in the brain. Curcumin: component of turmeric that reduces inflammation of the central nervous system and relieves pain. Barley grass juice extract powder: contains micronutrients that feed the central nervous system. Also helps feed brain tissue, neurons, and the myelin nerve sheath.

Every year in this war and that, even in our own cities, countless children are killed, while those who spray the bullets—or plant the roadside bomb, authorize the use of nerve gas, send the drone with the Hellfire missile that strikes the wrong target—shed not a tear, referring to those tender deceased as mere “collateral damage,” if they acknowledge

Trees stand at the heart of ecology, and they must come to stand at the heart of human politics. Tagore said, Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. But people—oh, my word—people! People could be the heaven that the Earth is trying to speak to. “If we could see green, we’d see a thing that keeps getting more interesting the closer we get. If we could see what green was doing, we’d never be lonely or bored. If we could understand green, we’d learn how to grow all the food we need in layers three deep, on a third of the ground we need right now, with plants that protected one another from pests and stress. If we knew what green wanted, we wouldn’t have to choose between the Earth’s interests and ours. They’d be the same!” One more click takes her to the next slide, a giant fluted trunk covered in red bark that ripples like muscle. “To see green is to grasp the Earth’s intentions. So consider this one. This tree grows from Colombia to Costa Rica. As a sapling, it looks like a piece of braided hemp. But if it finds a hole in the canopy, the sapling shoots up into a giant stem with flaring buttresses.” She turns to regard the image over her shoulder. It’s the bell of an enormous angel’s trumpet, plunged into the Earth. So many miracles, so much awful beauty. How can she leave so perfect a place? “Did you know that every broadleaf tree on Earth has flowers? Many mature species flower at least once a year. But this tree, Tachigali versicolor, this one flowers only once. Now, suppose you could have sex only once in your entire life. . . .” The room laughs now. She can’t hear, but she can smell their nerves. Her switchback trail through the woods is twisting again. They can’t tell where their guide is going. “How can a creature survive, by putting everything into a one-night stand? Tachigali versicolor’s act is so quick and decisive that it boggles me. You see, within a year of its only flowering, it dies.” She lifts her eyes. The room fills with wary smiles for the weirdness of this thing, nature. But her listeners can’t yet tie her rambling keynote to anything resembling home repair. “It turns out that a tree can give away more than its food and medicines. The rain forest canopy is thick, and wind-borne seeds never land very far from their parent. Tachigali’s once-in-a-lifetime offspring germinate right away, in the shadow of giants who have the sun locked up. They’re doomed, unless an old tree falls. The dying mother opens a hole in the canopy, and its rotting trunk enriches the soil for new seedlings. Call it the ultimate parental sacrifice. The common name for Tachigali versicolor is the suicide tree.

I sit like that for a while, my tears dripping onto Fine’s leaves. I wonder if salt water is bad for him, but he’s not complaining. He’s a good listener. He’s my best friend. Fine is the only living thing besides myself who I’m responsible for. It took me a long time to get up the nerve to make that commitment, and then the first three plants I bought didn’t make it. Number four was Fine, which is short for Final Plant. I’m a final girl, he’s a final plant. We make a good team.

There's a psychologist called Mary & Diamond who at Brooklyn in California, in the 80s studied rats. And they took rats at different ages. Newborns, some of whom they deliberately brain damaged, adult, middle-aged, elderly rats. And they exposed these rats to different levels of environmental stimulation, better food, more playmates, toys to play with and so on. They found out a couple of months later that the rats, at any age, including the brain-damaged rats, who had the better stimulation, they were smarter. But in the autopsy then they also found that in the front part of their brain they had larger nerve-cells with more connections with other nerve-cells and richer blood supply. In other words that environmental stimulation actually caused a change in the state of the brain, even in the older rats. And that's called neuroplasticity. The capacity of the brain to develop new circuits. So whether it comes to ADHD, addiction, depression or other childhood disorders or any other issue with adults as well, if we recognize them not as ingrained, genetically-determined diseases, but as problems of development, then the question becomes very different. Then the question becomes not just "how do we treat the symptoms?" (and addiction itself is a symptom, depression is a symptom), but "how do we help people develop out of these conditions?" In other words, it is not a medical question, purely, but a developmental question. And development always requires the right environment. Now, if you're a gardener you know that. If you are growing plants in your backyard and you want them to grow into healthy, functioning beings, botanical beings, you want to provide them with the right nurturing, the right nutrition, minerals, water, sunlight and so on. So the real question is how do we provide the conditions for further development for people whose development was impaired in the first place? Now we know how to do that. We are just not doing it.

She knew she was rambling but couldn’t seem to stop. His continued silence had stretched her nerves nearly to the snapping point. “Miss Greyson?” His deep voice cut through her babble, sparing her from further maligning her own intelligence. “Yes?” She forced her chin up. The lines that had grooved his face mere moments ago were now barely visible. It was as if ten years of hard living had just fallen away. Her own heart lightened in response. A grin broke out across Darius Thornton’s face. “I think I might just have to kiss you.” Chapter 11 And then, unbelievably, he did. His warning gave Nicole no time to react, for as soon as the words left his mouth, Darius Thornton gripped her upper arms and planted a fast yet fierce kiss on her lips. Oh, it was perfectly chaste—a celebratory kiss, not anything with romantic intent—but it rattled her just the same. He laughed, called her a genius, and immediately snatched his logbook from her fingers and began jotting notes in the margin as he returned his attention to the boilers.

Plants and animals don't fight the winter; they don't pretend it's not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that's where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but it's crucible. Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on sparse beauty. It's a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order. Doing those deeply unfashionable things - slowing down, letting your spare time expand, resting, is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you'll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you'll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don't then that skin will harden around you. It's one of the most important choices you'll ever make.

Every place held every memory of what it had once been. A plain that had been the bottom of a lake, the floor of a shallow sea, the lightless depths of a vast ocean. A hill that had been the peak of a young mountain, one of a chain of islands, the jagged fang of the earth buried in glacial ice. Dust that had been plants, sand that had been stone, stains that had been bone and flesh. Most memories, Kalyth understood, remain hidden, unseen and beneath the regard of flickering life. Yet, once the eyes were awakened, every memory was then unveiled, a fragment here, a hint there, a host of truths whispering of eternity. Such knowledge could crush a soul with its immensity, or drown it beneath a deluge of unbearable futility. As soon as the distinction was made, that separation of self from all the rest, from the entire world beyond-its ceaseless measure of time, its whimsical game with change played out in slow siege and in sudden catastrophe-then the self became an orphan, bereft all security, and face to face with a world now become at best a stranger, at worst an implacable, heartless foe. In arrogance we orphan ourselves, and then rail at the awful solitude we find on the road to death But how could one step back into the world? How could one learn to swim such currents? In self-proclamation, the soul decided what it was that lay within in opposition to all that lay beyond. Inside, outside, familiar, strange, that which is possessed, that which is coveted, all that is within grasp and all that is forever beyond reach. The distinction was a deep, vicious cut of a knife, severing tendons and muscles, arteries and nerves.

this same love for her own people, and her desire to establish the future greatness of her house on a solid foundation reacted, in her policy with regard to the other servants, in one unvarying maxim, which was never to let any of them set foot in my aunt’s room; indeed she shewed a sort of pride in not allowing anyone else to come near my aunt, preferring, when she herself was ill, to get out of bed and to administer the Vichy water in person, rather than to concede to the kitchen-maid the right of entry into her mistress’s presence. There is a species of hymenoptera, observed by Fabre, the burrowing wasp, which in order to provide a supply of fresh meat for her offspring after her own decease, calls in the science of anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, so that the paralysed insect, beside which her egg is laid, will furnish the larva, when it is hatched, with a tamed and inoffensive quarry, incapable either of flight or of resistance, but perfectly fresh for the larder: in the same way Françoise had adopted, to minister to her permanent and unfaltering resolution to render the house uninhabitable to any other servant, a series of crafty and pitiless stratagems. Many years later we discovered that, if we had been fed on asparagus day after day throughout that whole season, it was because the smell of the plants gave the poor kitchen-maid, who had to prepare them, such violent attacks of asthma that she was finally obliged to leave my aunt’s service.

You should buy a potted plant.” I laugh at that as I sit on the wooden picnic table at the park in the dark, listening to Jack ramble through the speakerphone beside me. “A plant.” “Seriously, hear me out—you get a plant. You nurture it, keep it alive, and wham-bam, that’s how you know you’re ready for this whole thing.” “That’s stupid.” “No, it’s not. It’s a real thing. I saw it in that movie 28 Days.” “The zombie one?” “Nah, man, the Sandra Bullock one. You’re thinking about 28 Days Later.” “You steal your advice from Sandra Bullock movies?” “Oh, don’t you fucking judge me. It’s a hell of a lot better than that shit you keep making. And besides, it’s good advice.” “Buy a plant.” “Yes.” “Did you buy one?” “What?” “A plant,” I say. “Did you buy yourself a plant to prove you’re ready for a relationship?” “No,” he says. “Why not?” “Because I don’t need a plant to tell me what I already know,” he says. “I’m wearing a pair of emoji boxers and eating hot Cheetos in my basement apartment. Pretty sure the signs are all there.” “Emoji boxers?” I laugh. “Talk about a stereotypical internet troll.” “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says. “This isn’t about me, though. We’re talking about you.” “I’m tired of talking about me.” “Holy shit, seriously? Didn’t think that was possible!” “Funny.” “Remember that interview you did on The Late Show two years ago?” “I don’t want to talk about it.” “You were stoned out of your mind, kept referring to yourself in third person.” “Fuck off.” “Pretty sure that guy would never be tired of talking about himself.” “You’re an asshole.” He laughs. “True.” “You get on my nerves.” “You’re welcome.” Sighing, I shake my head. “Thank you.” “Now go buy yourself a plant,” he says. “I was in the middle of a game of Call of Duty when you called, so I’m going to get back to it.” “Yeah, okay.” “Oh, and Cunning? I’m glad you haven’t drowned yourself in a bottle of whiskey.” “Why? Would you miss me?” “More like your fangirls might murder me if I let you destroy yourself,” he says. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re crazy. Have you seen some of their fan art? It’s insane.” “Goodbye, Jack,” I say, pressing the button on my phone to end the call

Normally, when sugar enters the bloodstream from our gut, the pancreas secretes insulin into the bloodstream, and the insulin then travels to three main places: fat cells, muscle cells, and neurons. Insulin’s primary job is to open the door to any cell to allow glucose to enter and provide fuel, particularly to three important types of cells. 1. IN FAT CELLS, insulin attaches to a docking port on a fat cell membrane and flips a switch that tells the fat cell to convert that glucose to fat and store it. When insulin has done its job, it separates from the docking port and no more sugar can enter the cell. 2. IN MUSCLE CELLS, insulin unlocks the door to the cell and ushers in glucose to be used as fuel. 3. NERVE CELLS (neurons) also require insulin to admit glucose through their cell membrane. The fact that neurons require insulin to get glucose is a relatively new finding, and we now know that insulin resistance also occurs in the brain and nerves—it is called type 3 diabetes. Once insulin docks in the appropriate ports and releases information, the fat, muscle, or nerve cells tell the hormone that the message has been received. The hormone then backs out of the docking port, leaving it ready and available for the next hormone to attach.

drew a flask from under my skirts. I offered it to him and he pulled in a long sip, swallowing, then gasping, choking, and heaving all at once. I thumped him hard upon the back until he regained his breath. His complexion had turned from green to a violent shade of pink. “Not water,” he managed in a broken voice. “Certainly not. Aguardiente,” I explained. “It is a refined spirit from the sugarcane plant. Potent but effective for restoring the nerve. Already you look much improved. Would you care for more?” He reared back like a frightened pony and waved me off. “Thank you, no.

Our eyes can distinguish several million colours, our ears can distinguish half a million tones, but our noses can distinguish well over a trillion different odours. Humans can detect virtually all volatile chemicals ever tested. Smells feature in our choice of sexual partners and in our ability to detect fear, anxiety or aggression in others. Human noses can detect some compounds at as low a concentration as 34,000 molecules in one square centimetre, the equivalent of a single drop of water in 20,000 Olympic swimming pools. For an animal to experience a smell, a molecule must land on their olfactory epithelium. In humans, this is a membrane up and behind the nose. The molecule binds to a receptor, and nerves fire. The brain gets involved as chemicals are identified or trigger thoughts and emotional responses. Fungi are equipped with different kinds of bodies. They don’t have noses or brains. Instead, their entire surface behaves like an olfactory epithelium. A mycelial network is one large chemically sensitive membrane: a molecule can bind to a receptor anywhere on its surface and trigger a signalling cascade that alters fungal behaviour. Fungi live their lives bathed in a rich field of chemical information. Truffle fungi use chemicals to communicate to animals their readiness to be eaten; they also use chemicals to communicate with plants, animals, other fungi – and themselves. Through smell, we can participate in the molecular discourse fungi use to organise much of their existence.

Why would phyllotactic patterns of growth form inside the dark vaults of our skulls? The most obvious answer is, Because every healthy part of every living thing follows the same basic formula for growth in order to function. Just as the golden rectangle delineates phyllotactic growth and helps plants capture more sunlight, the same dynamic symmetry may allow our brains to pack in as many nerve connections per cubic inch as possible, making best use of the limited real estate between our ears. More complex than any computer and more efficient, the network in your brain works because each brain cell is connected to thousands of others. Those connections enable you to recognize faces, flowers, food, and other familiar objects. How? With pattern.

      Before that first three weeks I was on over 100 units of insulin per day, and in three weeks I was taking no insulin.       In about a month, I was once again in my doctor’s office, watching as they looked at my numbers in utter amazement. When they asked me what I did, I told them I had adopted a completely plant-based diet. They didn’t seem surprised at all and told me that plant-based diets were helping to reverse diabetes. When I asked why they had not suggested it, they told me “because it is not practical.”       There I was, morbidly obese, taking nine drugs, shooting insulin into myself multiple times per day, suffering nerve damage and severe pain, and yet they thought that changing my diet in a fairly easy way would be less practical?

Still magic continued, the sort of practical magic that cured and healed and helped both with love desired and love gone wrong. Everyday people had their horoscopes written out and visited fortune-tellers on Miller Street, also known as Mud Avenue after downpours in the spring. There were magical items for sale in many of the markets, often hidden behind the counter or found in a back room or kept under cloths. Most residents did not trust doctors, who were often unschooled and lost more patients than they saved, using worthless remedies: saltpeter, tinctures of distilled powdered human bone used as a cure-all, a false remedy that was called skull moss, a plant grown from the remains of violent criminals who had been hanged which was inserted into a patient’s nostrils and was said to staunch bleeding and stop fainting and fatigue. Folk medicine was far less dangerous than the work of medical doctors. Practitioners of the Nameless Art were held in high regard when it came to their talents and their knowledge of curative tonics, seeds to induce sleep or cure insomnia, packets of dried lavender and rose hips for teas that would calm the nerves.

Biting her lip, she eyed the nervous expression on his face before deciding she knew what to do. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” she whispered, planting her hands against his chest and giving him a little shove. He didn’t fight her. Imber rolled onto his back, allowing her to straddle him and to gently move their connection to her right. She wanted that cord within sight, but she also didn’t want to think about it. Distractions had no place here. Then she forgot about the dangers of being underwater and instead focused on the handsome creature splayed out underneath her. She skated her fingers over his chest, letting her fingers dip into the hollows where muscles created shadows. He was warmer than she expected. Normally, he was a rather chilly creature to touch. But every time she pressed down on a new muscle, or moved farther down his body, he seemed to radiate even more heat. As she watched, the gills on the side of his neck flared out, shaking just a bit with nerves or perhaps with want. “Alys,” he murmured, licking his lips as his eyes went even darker. “I don’t know that you’ll like what you find.” “Hm?” She leaned down and flicked one of his rib gills with her tongue. “I don’t know why or how you’re still thinking.

Chris was told he had been assigned to work in a communications vault that was the nerve center for this system of international espionage—a code room linking the TRW plant with CIA Headquarters and Rhyolite’s major ground stations in Australia. The continuing disclosures about the secret world fascinated Chris, and he was especially intrigued by what he saw as a bizarre contrast between the mechanical spies he had been told about and the location of the ground stations. The Rhyolite earth stations had been planted in a world that was about as close as man could find now to the Stone Age; they were situated near Alice Springs in the harsh Outback of Australia, an oasis in a desert where aborigines still lived much as Stone Age men did thousands of years ago. Under an Executive Agreement between the United States and Australia, Chris was told, all intelligence information collected by the satellites and relayed to the network of dish-shaped microwave antennas at Alice Springs was to be shared with the Australian intelligence service. However, Rogers told Chris, the United States, by design, was not living up to the agreement: certain information was not being passed to Australia. He explained that TRW was designing a new, larger satellite with a new array of sensors; the Australians, Rogers emphasized, were never to be told about it; anytime Chris sent messages that would reach Australia, he must delete any reference to the new satellite. Its name was Argus, or AR—for Advanced Rhyolite. Whoever in the CIA had selected the cryptonym must have enjoyed his choice, because it was appropriate. In Greek mythology, Argus was a giant with one hundred eyes … a vigilant guardian.

Some men with swords may reap the field, And plant fresh laurels where they kill: But their strong nerves at last must yield; They tame but one another still: Early or late They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath When they, pale captives, creep to death.

Take what you want from me.” I’d learned to be bold and unapologetic when it came to my career and pursuit for knowledge, but the thought of asking for affection from others, or worse, taking it, terrified me. Seizing what I wanted in that regard didn’t come naturally. My lack of trust for others, alongside the very real possibility of rejection, had crippled my nerve. Not only when it came to intimacy, either. I could hardly sustain friendships, let alone relationships, and I always perceived both as a burden. Like a plant I’d had to cultivate and grow and tend to everyday.  Being alone had always been easier for me. No expectations, or disappointments.  And yet, I couldn’t say that I truly enjoyed the solitary life. My life.

My lack of trust for others, alongside the very real possibility of rejection, had crippled my nerve. Not only when it came to intimacy, either. I could hardly sustain friendships, let alone relationships, and I always perceived both as a burden. Like a plant I’d had to cultivate and grow and tend to everyday.

It has long been known that animals use electrical impulses, or “action potentials,” to communicate between different parts of their bodies. Neurons—the long, electrically excitable nerve cells that coordinate animal behavior—have their own field of study: neuroscience. Although electrical signaling is normally thought of as an animal talent, animals aren’t alone in producing action potentials. Plants and algae produce them, and it has been known since the 1970s that some types of fungi do also. Bacteria, too, are electrically excitable.

Like travel, insomnia is an uprooting experience. You are torn out of sleep like a plant from its native soil, then shaken down so that any clinging vestige of slumber falls away, naked confusion exposed like nerve endings. Sleep, in its turn, is a matter of gravity. It pulls you down, beds you in the earth, burrows you in. In sleep you connect back to the bedrock that provides nourishment and restorative rest.

bloodied lace, which were both deadly in a very sedate way. "It was totally awesome! Yoyo Hal!" Juergen bounced up and down as an upright version of Hal falling repeatedly out of the tall wind oak only to be recaught and dragged upwards because he insisted on doing commentary in calm even tones. "It's important to note that a strangle vine can have as many as thirty-seven snare vines. Gak! You need to strike the base of the plant, its nerve center, to kill the strangle vine. Fuck! Never tackle one of these alone. Jane!" She stared at Juergen in dismay. He'd seen all that? Live? Unedited? With all the embarrassing parts still intact? How? The mechanic continued to act today's filming. "And you. Rawr!" He mimed the chainsaw. "That rocked! And then Brian! 'Don't try this at home, hire a professional pest control contractor.'" Brian was Brian Scroggins, Pittsburgh Fire Marshal and accidental guest co-host on a regular basis. "Just epic." She fled the embarrassing recount, ignoring the belated, "So how is Hal?

The popular way of consuming marijuana is by smoking it in a joint. This is when you roll the dried and grounded weeds on a special paper and light the end of the joint, similar to smoking a cigarette. While this is the most practiced method of marijuana usage, there are many other methods such as consuming it through bongs and blunts, dabbing and can even be mixed in food and drink, which are called “edibles”. However, one of the least common ways that people use marijuana is by eating the raw weed seeds. Many people avoid eating these seeds for the reason that they might get high. Making weed seeds part of the diet is also not as popular as smoking it. Did you know that eating the seeds have health benefits? In this article, we discuss the sweet science behind eating cannabis seeds as well as some of the health benefits that these seeds provide. Cannabis seeds that are best eaten comes from the hemp plant, a variety of the cannabis sativa strain. Unlike other marijuana species, the hemp plant has been subject to less controversy regarding it legalization with less attention about their cultivation. In addition, contrary to what many people believe, the consumption of marijuana seeds does not get you high. Yes, you read that right. Unlike the marijuana buds of a cannabis plants, the seeds do not contain any cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, so making them a part of your diet would not cause you any mind-altering effects. People eat these hemp seeds solely for the nutritional benefits that it gives. Often sprinkled on top of dishes or just eaten straight out of a bowl, eating hemp seeds from cannabis plants are gaining popularity by people who carefully look after their health and conscious in their food intake. HEALTH BENEFITS OF EATING MARIJUANA SEEDS The consumption of hemp seeds promotes a healthier lifestyle for people who look to improve their diet. Hemp seeds are extremely rich in healthy fats and nutrients that allow the body to function properly during the day. These healthy fats also contain enough nutrients to promote healthy muscles and the growth of cells and organs. Alpha-linoleic and gamma linoleic are some of the nutrients found in the hemp plant. If you are also looking for a quick protein boost before heading to the gym, a spoonful of hemp seeds mixed in your morning breakfast can provide you with plenty of healthy plant-based protein. Hemp seeds give people a very healthy amount of omega fatty acids. This is important because the human body does not naturally produce omega acids so hemp seeds are great source and the right amount of it. Although marijuana seeds do not contain the exact same cannabinoids that you find in the flowers of the cannabis plant, they still have some medicinal properties. Some examples of these are mental conditions like depression and anxiety. Like marijuana flowers, marijuana seeds help relax the body and mind when eaten. It contains some compounds that help induce relaxation when consumed, similar to smoking marijuana buds. Marijuana seeds also allow the body to reduce levels of anxiety, which helps treat patients who suffer insomnia. Lastly, many people eat marijuana seeds mainly because of the ability to avoid numerous cardiovascular diseases. Amino acids and nitric oxide are some compounds found in hemp seeds used consistently to reduce the risk of heart attacks, hypertension, blood clots and many more. They also free the nerves and allow an improved flow of blood throughout the whole body. From cannabis seeds, buds to flowers, the health benefits we can get from this wonderful plant is limitless. And the best part is that it is plant-based which is far better than relying on chemical and artificial based products shown in tv commercials today.

The popular way of consuming marijuana is by smoking it in a joint. This is when you roll the dried and grounded weeds on a special paper and light the end of the joint, similar to smoking a cigarette. While this is the most practiced method of marijuana usage, there are many other methods such as consuming it through bongs and blunts, dabbing and can even be mixed in food and drink, which are called “edibles”. However, one of the least common ways that people use marijuana is by eating the raw weed seeds. Many people avoid eating these seeds for the reason that they might get high. Making weed seeds part of the diet is also not as popular as smoking it. Did you know that eating the seeds have health benefits? In this article, we discuss the sweet science behind eating cannabis seeds as well as some of the health benefits that these seeds provide. Cannabis seeds that are best eaten comes from the hemp plant, a variety of the cannabis sativa strain. Unlike other marijuana species, the hemp plant has been subject to less controversy regarding it legalization with less attention about their cultivation. In addition, contrary to what many people believe, the consumption of marijuana seeds does not get you high. Yes, you read that right. Unlike the marijuana buds of a cannabis plants, the seeds do not contain any cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, so making them a part of your diet would not cause you any mind-altering effects. People eat these hemp seeds solely for the nutritional benefits that it gives. Often sprinkled on top of dishes or just eaten straight out of a bowl, eating hemp seeds from cannabis plants are gaining popularity by people who carefully look after their health and conscious in their food intake. HEALTH BENEFITS OF EATING MARIJUANA SEEDS The consumption of hemp seeds promotes a healthier lifestyle for people who look to improve their diet. Hemp seeds are extremely rich in healthy fats and nutrients that allow the body to function properly during the day. These healthy fats also contain enough nutrients to promote healthy muscles and the growth of cells and organs. Alpha-linoleic and gamma linoleic are some of the nutrients found in the hemp plant. If you are also looking for a quick protein boost before heading to the gym, a spoonful of hemp seeds mixed in your morning breakfast can provide you with plenty of healthy plant-based protein. Hemp seeds give people a very healthy amount of omega fatty acids. This is important because the human body does not naturally produce omega acids so hemp seeds are great source and the right amount of it. Although marijuana seeds do not contain the exact same cannabinoids that you find in the flowers of the cannabis plant, they still have some medicinal properties. Some examples of these are mental conditions like depression and anxiety. Like marijuana flowers, marijuana seeds help relax the body and mind when eaten. It contains some compounds that help induce relaxation when consumed, similar to smoking marijuana buds. Marijuana seeds also allow the body to reduce levels of anxiety, which helps treat patients who suffer insomnia. Lastly, many people eat marijuana seeds mainly because of the ability to avoid numerous cardiovascular diseases. Amino acids and nitric oxide are some compounds found in hemp seeds used consistently to reduce the risk of heart attacks, hypertension, blood clots and many more. They also free the nerves and allow an improved flow of blood throughout the whole body. From cannabis seeds, buds to flowers, the health benefits we can get from this wonderful plant is limitless. And the best part is that it is plant-based which is far better than relying on chemical and artificial based products shown in tv commercials today.

His hand came up, forefinger flicking the corroded ball-chain that dangled from the zip-tab at the neck of Skinner’s jacket. “Those VL glasses. Virtual light.” She’d heard of it, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “They expensive, Sammy Sal?” “Shit, yes. ’Bout as much as a Japanese car. Not all that much more, though. Got these little EMP-drivers around the lenses, work your optic nerves direct. Friend of mine, he’d bring a pair home from the office where he worked. Landscape architects. Put ’em on, you go out walking, everything looks normal, but every plant you see, every tree, there’s this little label hanging there, what its name is, Latin under that …

It is an excellent thing also against Bruises, Cuts or Punctures of the Nerves and Tendons; for it suddenly eases the Pain, and alleviates the Inflammation, and thereby induces the Cure.” (Remember, it contains salicin.) Lady’s Mantle also staunches bleeding, making it “effectual against all sorts of Bleedings both inward and outward,” so that it “stops the Over-flowing of the Terms in Women, and cures the Bloody-flux, as also all other Fluxes of the Bowels.” And it cures “Bruises by Falls or otherwise, whether inwards or outwards.

Every cell in the tree integrates information about the state of the internal environment of the needs then open or close to admit gases or release water vapor. Every cell inside the needle is making similar assessments and decisions, sending and receiving signals, modulating its behavior as it learns about and responds to the environment. When such processes run though animal nerves, we call them “behavior and thought”. If we broaden our definition and let drop the arbitrary requirement of the possession of nerves, then the balsam fir tree is a behaving and thinking creature. Indeed, the proteins that we vertebrate animals use to create the electrical gradients that enliven our nerves are closely related to the proteins in plant cells that cause similar electrical excitation. The signals in galvanized plant cells are languid-they take a minute or more to travel the length of a leaf, twenty times slower than nerve impulses in a human limb-but they perform a similar function as animal’s nerves, using pulses of electrical charge to communicate from one part of the plant to another. Plants have no brain to coordinate these signals, so plant thinking is diffuse, located in the connections among every cell.

The rain-filled potholes, set in naked rock are usually devoid of visible plant life but not of animal life. In addition to the inevitable microscopic creatures there may be certain amphibians like the spadefoot toad. This little animal lives through dry spells in a state of estivation under the dried-up sediment in the bottom of a hole. When the rain comes, if it comes, he emerges from the mud singing madly in his fashion, mates with the handiest female and fills the pool with a swarm of tadpoles, most of them doomed to a most ephemeral existence. But a few survive, mature, become real toads, and when the pool dries up they dig into the sediment as their parents did before, making burrows which they seal with mucus in order to preserve that moisture necessary to life. There they wait, day after day, week after week, in patient spadefoot torpor, perhaps listening - we can imagine - for the sounds of raindrops pattering at last on the earthen crust above their heads. If it comes in time the glorious cycle is repeated; if not, this particular colony of Bufonidae is reduced eventually to dust, a burden on the wind. Rain and puddles bring out other amphibia, even in the desert. It's a strange, stirring, but not uncommon thing to come on a pool at night, after an evening of thunder and lightning and a bit of rainfall, and see the frogs clinging to the edge of their impermanent pond, bodies immersed in water but heads out, all croaking away in tricky counterpoint. They are windbags: with each croak the pouch under the frog's chin swells like a bubble, then collapses. Why do they sing? What do they have to sing about? Somewhat apart from one another, separated by roughly equal distances, facing outward from the water, they clank and croak all through the night with tireless perseverance. To human ears their music has a bleak, dismal, tragic quality, dirgelike rather than jubilant. It may nevertheless be the case that these small beings are singing not only to claim their stake in the pond, not only to attract a mate, but also out of spontaneous love and joy, a contrapuntal choral celebration of the coolness and wetness after weeks of desert fire, for love of their own existence, however brief it may be, and for the joy in the common life. Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless. Therefore the frogs, the toads, keep on singing even though we know, if they don't that the sound of their uproar must surely be luring all the snakes and ringtail cats and kitfoxes and coyotes and great horned owls toward the scene of their happiness. What then? A few of the little amphibians will continue their metamorphosis by way of the nerves and tissues of one of the higher animals, in which process the joy of one becomes the contentment of the second. Nothing is lost except an individual consciousness here and there, a trivial perhaps even illusory phenomenon. The rest survive, mate, multiply, burrow, estivate, dream, and rise again. The rains will come, the potholes shall be filled. Again. And again. And again.

It only not calms and tones the nerves, but it acts very deeply to restore and improve the nerves of sense and thought.

The square stem of the mints, or the ridged stem of other plants (such as Cleavers), are a signature pointing to the nerves, both in American Indian and European herbal tradition.

Cognitive function is impacted by all parts of the body, but one system in particular has a very direct effect on it: your gastrointestinal tract, otherwise known as your gut. Often referred to as the “second brain,” your gut is made from the same kind of tissue as your brain (when you develop as a fetus) and is connected to it via the vagus nerve, the long, acetylcholine-activating nerve we talked about earlier, which runs from your brain stem to your abdomen. The vagus nerve acts like a two-way street—a conduit between your gut and your brain. As a result, the two systems influence each other constantly.