‘It may be,‘...‘that a vegetable appreciates becoming part of another form of life rather than rotting on the ground, just as a human at death may experience relief to find himself in a higher realm of being.‘ Man I‘m only on chapter one and I can tell this book is going to be a trip.🌀

I had tried reading this when I was younger, and knew that I had to save it for when I was a little older and wiser. It‘s been sitting and waiting for me for a few years. This was not an easy read, for me at least, as it is complex in it‘s historical facts and events which run very deep. But I‘m glad I finished it, even just for the beautiful writing. I would recommend for fans of the 17th century, Isaac Newton, alchemy, and natural philosophy.

“To out-sail a pirate, he insists, is a sweeter revenge than to out-fight him.”

“Rage had taken him. Daniel was not especially susceptible to that passion. But he understood, now, why the Greeks had believed that Furies were angels of a sort, winged-swift, armed with whips and torches, rushing up out of Erebus to goad men unto madness.”

“...if money is a science, then it is a dark science, darker than Alchemy. It split away from Natural Philosophy millennia ago, and has gone on developing ever since, by it‘s own rules...”

“...if only we could jump fast enough, or had a strong enough wind at our backs, we could all be planets.” 🌏✨ #isaacnewton #gravity #planets

“That is why I never use the microscope any more to look at things that were made by men-the rudeness and bungling of Art is painful to view. And yet things that one would expect to look disgusting become beautiful when magnified.” #nature #microscope #beauty #perspective

Love this. I draw a lot of portraits of people and animals. This quote made me think of the style I strive for while I work on each art piece. I guess I try to draw the same way Isaac Newton did according to this book. 🤔#art #drawing #idealism #alchemy #isaacnewton

I recommend this book to almost everyone I talk to now. “...people suffering from a whole range of disorders characterized by excessively rigid patterns of thought - including addiction, obsessions, and eating disorders as well as depression - stand to benefit from ‘the ability of psychedelics to disrupt stereotyped patterns of thought and behavior...‘”

“Did he now believe consciousness exists outside the brain? He‘s not certain. ‘But to go from being very sure the opposite is true‘ - that consciousness is the product of our gray matter - ‘to be unsure is an immense shift....And for someone with my orientation‘ - agnostic, enamored of science - ‘that changes everything.‘”

“...psychedelics ‘would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology or the telescope is for astronomy‘.” I‘ve been following the progression of psychedelic therapy for some time now and love this quote. Pollan does a great job introducing the idea to people who are unfamiliar or unsure about the benefits of these powerful substances for those suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and so much more.

“...he concedes a large allowance...to the instincts we have in common with animals, knows how to take from them in order to rise, and never allows himself to be their slave or their victim.” - Andre Gide on Montaigne.

“...there should be men to keep the integrity of their conscience and maintain their independence and autonomy above the herd instincts of submission and cowardly acceptance.”

Started reading this today. Not sure what I‘m getting myself into but I‘m excited.

Finished. There are some books that guide you to break down personal strongly held belief systems in order to entertain the new theories written within. This is one of those books.

“Ritual, isolation, and sensory deprivation are the techniques used by the Archaic shaman seeking to journey to the world of spirits and ancestors.”

A photo I took when I was out in the middle of nowhere. Seemed appropriate for this quote.

“...This shift in viewpoint would enable us to see plants as more than food, shelter, clothing, or even sources of education and religion; they would become models of process. They are, after all, exemplars of symbiotic connectedness and efficient resource recycling and management.”

This book touches on a new, but rather old, way of looking at how we should be getting back to our deepest of roots to live sustainably with our world.

“If cooking professionally is about control, eating successfully should be about submission, about...giving yourself over to whatever dream they‘d like you to share. ...You shouldn‘t be noticing things at all...only dimly aware of the passage of time. Taking pictures of your food as it arrives - or, worse, jotting down brief descriptions for your blog entry later - is missing the point entirely. You shouldn‘t be forced to think at all. Only feel.”

‘His period of artistic fertility occurred precisely on the cusp between a Victorianism that was rapidly becoming antiquated and a modernism that would not be fully developed until after World War I.‘
- Michael Matin on Joseph Conrad.

“In that brief flicker, the darkness of space was replaced with the roiling, red netherworld, a place of horror where the natural laws of the universe held no sway, and the nightmares of those of the material plane were given form.” pg. 275.

“...in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you.” -pg. 163

“Filled with these thoughts - so filled that he had an unwholesome sense of growing larger, of being placed in some new and diseased relation towards the objects among which he passed, of seeing the iris round every misty light turn red - he went home for shelter.”

“Lewis was able, through his writing, to take us, two centuries later, to the unexplored Missouri River, Rocky Mountain, and Oregon wilderness country of 1804-6, to meet Indian tribes untouched by European influence,...The journals...constitute a priceless gift to the American people,...”
-On the journals of Meriwether Lewis‘ experiences to the American West.

“Washington, Hamilton, and the other heroes of the American Revolution...were espousing a policy that they had once risked their lives to oppose - taxation without representation.”

On the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.

Just finished book one of the series. The visual aspect of this is fantastic. Here is one of my favorite pages of artwork from the novel.

“Kol Badar led the Anointed onto the field of war, roaring like a primeval god. His archaic combi-bolter, it‘s muzzle sculpted to resemble the fanged maw of some fell creature, coughed fiery death as he strode heavily forward.”

"A pale, preternatural glow faintly illuminated the steps, apparently generated by a phosphorescent lichen. It seemed to cover everything in a thin patina, disconcertingly producing a light so dim that his eyes couldn't be sure it was there at all. Like an afterimage seen on the inside of the eyelid,..."

"If I were to succumb and face death even more nearly, how would my life appear to my dying mind? Would I be satisfied with what I had fashioned of my days?...To know that there are no more chances,...No possibility of explanation or apology; no time to make amends."

'A man with a lot of friends...is like a dog with a lot of fleas—always restless and generally uncomfortable. Give me one or two fine ticks I can really work on.'