A Diary of a Struggling Ecologist
Author: Ubai HuseinOctober 14, 2020
This journey started with my love for food, which prompted me to pursue a degree in Culinary Arts. There, in addition to simply cooking, I was introduced to the various aspects about growing and producing food before it enters the kitchen, including the entire mechanism of factory farming and the resulting destruction caused to the environment. Fortunately, I was also introduced to the other end [...]
The Philosophy of Climbing
Author: Eddie SelbyOctober 1, 2020
“I am a wanderer and mountain-climber, said he to his heart, I love not the plains, and it seemeth I cannot long sit still. And whatever may still overtake me as fate and experience a wandering will be therein, and a mountain-climbing: in the end one experienceth only oneself.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher, poet and philologist whose work has [...]
Myths of Africa: Deepening our Understanding of Life and Death
Author: Siobhan FarrarOctober 1, 2020
Africa is a vast continent with many different peoples and a diverse diaspora whose cultural and spiritual heritage has often been misunderstood and misrepresented through colonial and Western perspectives. The ability to move past assumptions and conditioning always presents a challenge, which requires that we aim to see the essence of human life and experience. The philosopher seeks this [...]
John Keats: Immortal Beauty
Author: Maria Virginia ReinaOctober 1, 2020
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness” So begins the epic poem Endymion by John Keats. And in these opening lines, as through his exquisite body of work, he presents to us one of the core themes of his poetry, if not all art: that the archetype of Beauty is immortal. Keats knew death intimately. By the age of fourteen he had [...]
Terra Preta, the Black Earth upon which Civilisations were Built
Author: Gareth KinsellaJuly 30, 2020
“Agriculture is the noblest of all alchemy; for it turns the earth, and even manure, into gold, conferring upon its cultivator the additional reward of health.” - Hebrew proverb In 1542, a Spanish conquistador named Francisco de Orellana set sail along the Amazon river with a group of his fellow countrymen, looking high and low for the Kingdom of El Dorado, a mythical city of [...]
Anne Conway: the Ultimate Unity of Spirit and Matter
Author: Siobhan FarrarJuly 30, 2020
Seventeenth century England was a time of conflict and rapid change, and it is under such conditions that Countess Anne Conway, one of the few female philosophers of her time, developed her clarity of vision and influence. From her home at Ragley Hall and mostly through letters, Anne Conway was in continuous dialogue with the scientific and philosophical developments of her age. Around [...]
Paracelsus: the Five Causes of Disease
Author: Julian ScottJuly 30, 2020
As we are at present living in the throes of a worldwide disease, it might be interesting to look at other possible causes than the ones we are familiar with from the news bulletins. This esoteric perspective comes to us from a late medieval/renaissance doctor, alchemist, astrologer and general philanthropist (lover of humanity), known by the name of “Paracelsus”. He was born in 1493 [...]
Human Symbiosis with Plants
Author: Gareth KinsellaJune 21, 2020
Over the course of time, there has been a progressive coevolution between plants and humans, with domestication possibly playing an integral role in this symbiosis. Some anthropologists propose that, before plant domestication began, carnivorous hunter gatherers had to seek alternative options during droughts, subsequently tapping into the seasonal cycles, and would have started remembering where [...]
The Spring Equinox
Author: Nataliya PetlevychApril 17, 2020
We all are cheered by days full of the renewing energy of spring – a beautiful time when nature awakens, the days become longer and everything living rejoices. There is a special time in the year when the Sun is exactly above the equator, hence the Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the Sun and day and night are approximately 12 hours long everywhere on Earth. This is known [...]
The Curse of the Poisoned Soil
Author: Istvan OrbanApril 17, 2020
Soil is the uppermost part of the Earth’s crust, the ground of human civilization. It is one of the most crucial parts of our ecosystem. The home of minerals, nutrients, insects and other animals, our food is produced in the soil. Only half of it contains solid materials, while the other half is filled with gas and water. The soil not only produces the components that are necessary for the [...]
The Universe as an Answer
Author: Jorge Angel LivragaMarch 8, 2020
We often speak about the stars, the planets, the animals, the sky, the Earth, water or snow and we forget the real sense and meaning of the word Universe. Man asks himself questions about the whole of Nature, of which he himself is a part, but he tends to lose the central idea to which it refers. ‘Universe’ means that which is going in a single direction, so what we must discover is where it [...]
The Science Behind the Wholefood Plant-Based Diet
Author: Florimond KrinsJanuary 22, 2020
Veganism, vegetarianism and other flexible plant-based diets have become more and more advertised and promoted through the media. While Vegans have been the advocates of an animal-free diet, mostly for ethical reasons, for decades, they are now being backed up by the scientific community praising the healthy and environmental benefits of such diets. The Health benefits: First and foremost a [...]