The seeds, leaves, blossom, bark and resins of trees have been part of the medicinal treasure trove of herbal medicine for thousands of years. Our ancestors saw the healing powers in trees as “divine energy”, attributed to gods or saints, but also to elemental beings and tree spirits. These helpers had their seat in the […] Read on...

Fire, Water, Air and Earth – for more than two millennia, man considered the elements to be the four basic building blocks of all life. Then came the Age of Enlightenment and industrialisation, and science began to break Nature down into ever more and smaller individual parts and to view it as a calculable and […] Read on...

The oceans are the cradle of life and the most biodiverse habitat on our planet. Around 23,000 species are known, but scientists estimate that as many as 10 million species could live in the oceans! (In comparison, around 1.4 million species live on land.) Although the Earth is a “water planet”, the depths of the […] Read on...

World No Tobacco Day, proclaimed by the WHO, takes place on May 31st. Before we deal with partly alarming, partly delightful facts about this, we would like to broaden the focus and look at breathing. As with the heartbeat, the special thing about breathing is that, seen from the outside, it simply “does”, the heart […] Read on...

In the mid 19th century, many farmers in the centrally located states of the USA were struggling with erosion. To counteract the loss of fertile soil due to storms, wind and water, they planted trees. The politician and farmer Julius Sterling Morton was consequently one of the first to reforest his property. After only a […] Read on...