This Is Your Mind on Plants

by Michael Pollan

At first glance the room looked like a peasant marketplace in Cuzco, the floor spread with woven cloths in colorful patterns and four large animal skins—a bear, a deer, a bison, and a buffalo. On closer inspection, however, every object had been carefully placed in one of four quadrants, each corresponding to one of the cardinal directions and one of the four elements. Here’s a partial list of the objects Taloma had set out on the altar: vials containing purple sand from Big Sur; gigantic seed pods from Peru; an intricately carved gourd; a bowl of spring water from Esalen; a snake skin; a wooden carving of four grandmothers circled around a lit candle; a marble etched with the seven continents floating in water; a talking stick made from the dried core of a Wachuma cactus; an enormous ear of multicolored corn; fossils; crystals; a dozen or so candles; a Wachuma flower in full bloom; eight stones in the shape of hearts; an abalone shell holding a packet of dried sage leaves; the feathers of a condor and a white owl; a collection of shells; the head of an eagle; and, somewhat incongruously, a photograph of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.