This is a lens through which we can better understand the intelligence that we’re working with here - the intelligence of the natural world.

This is relevant because it is the thing that lies on the other end of the relationship with our interactions with plants and fungi.    Unlike humanity which exhibits its traits of intelligence through human culture and our sentient consciousness, the chemistry of plants and fungi reveal their intelligence through a biochemical or phytochemical dimension of interconnection with their ecosystems. 

Their chemistry is communication with their environment, including us.   This chemical language carries information, triggers adaptation, and shapes communities of life and confer unique experiences to us.   We can think of it less as consciousness and more about biochemical cognition.  We are constantly interacting with this intelligence because we are immersed in its chemistry. We breathe plant volatiles, ingest phytochemicals, cultivate with fungal metabolites around us, and live inside ecosystems saturated with signaling compounds. 

We take in this intelligence and it confers unique states of being.  From incredible shifts in consciousness to subtle changes in our own internal physiology, this direct interface can shape our thought processes, immune function and behavior.    In extraction, we don’t simply pull out active ingredients.  These extractions are selective translations of an organism’s signaling architecture into a new medium. 

In fungi, Beta-glucans, for example, help translate physical environmental changes into biological responses.  They exist within the cell wall of fungi and are some of the first ‘sensory’ signals that translate to pressure, damage and shifts in the environment that signal internal pathways. Our system recognizes and responds to these messengers that contribute to signaling within our own bodies when we interact with them, specifically within the immune system.    

In plants, volatile organic compounds (VOC's) evaporate within the environment and send signals to other organisms.  Tulsi, or Holy Basil, contains volatile terpenes and acids that act as microbial defense and repels insects within the ecosystems while at the same time, signal to the regulation of human hormone function, like cortisol.   We coevolved alongside plant and fungal chemistry through this constant interaction.  The extracts you create are therefore a technology of ecological interface between you and the natural world. 

Unique combinations of chemistry are dependent on the means, method and materials of extraction which we will explore within this course.  Ultimately,  not only do we acknowledge the deep level of intelligence of plants and fungi within the field of extraction, we intentionally immerse ourselves with it in a fundamentally unique way. Within this context we look to the biodiversity of compounds and their cascading roles of support within human life and their holistic support on multiple physiological systems simultaneously.  The diversity of complexity of phytochemistry mirrors the interplay of diverse effects they have within the human system, and we can turn to this chemical matrix for our own personal growth and evolution.