<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 150%;"><p align="left"><i>We currently have a mountain backlog of emails we are
trying to get through. Please do not respond to this email unless it is
order related. We deeply appreciate your thoughts of support but
additional emails offering your condolences, etc. just add to the
daunting task of of sorting through correspondence right now!</i></p>
<p align="left">Greetings, <br>
</p>
<p align="left">We hope this finds you all well. <br>
</p>
<p align="left">Our Grandmother, Edna Elsie Ghan Callahan, passed away
early May. Tending to a legion of family matters including the sudden
necessities of homeschooling our daughters during the pandemic has
consumed most of our time and energy the past month. This has made it
extremely challenging to keep up with both email correspondence and
shipping orders. We have fallen painfully behind the past few weeks.
We've also barely had time for plant propagation and care let alone
describing the many new offerings we have in the works. We know that
many of you are waiting on orders placed 3-4 weeks ago and we are
grateful for your ongoing patience. <br>
</p>
<p align="left">With no extra help for for the foreseeable future we have decided that our best option to get caught up is <b><em>a month long hiatus on shipping <u>new</u> orders:</em></b><b> </b><b><br>
</b><b>All new orders received between June 6 and July 7 will be shipped on a first come first serve basis beginning after July 7. <br></b><strong><span style="color: #800000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;"><em>All<u> currently pending orders</u> and those received <span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">before</span> June 6 will be shipped as soon as we can manage during the month of the hiatus. </em></span></span></strong><b><br>
</b><b>Thank you for your understanding and support. You are welcome
to place orders during the hiatus, just know they won't ship until after
July 7.</b><strong><br>
</strong></p>
<p align="left"><em>Please note: </em>For the course of the pandemic we will only be making trips to the the post office 1-2 times a
week. This means that even once we are caught up we will still be a bit slow to both receive and ship orders.<span style="color: #008000;"><span style="color: #0000ff;"><span style="color: #000000;"> The postal service itself is also running slower than usual so we all must have patience during these tumultuous times.</span></span></span>
</p>
<p align="left"><strong></strong></p>
<p align="left"><strong>Specimen Plant Auction</strong>-
We had planned on holding another plant auction in April or May but
current events have seen otherwise. Many of you are eager for the
auction we get a steady stream of inquiries. If we are able to get
sufficiently caught up during our shipping hiatus it is possible we may
hold an auction the second half of June, otherwise expect mid to late
July.</p>
<p align="left"><em>Wishing you all best of health and peace of mind,</em></p>
<p align="left"><em>Ben<br>
_____________<br>
</em></p>
<p align="left">Here's a link to the otherworldly images from the Microcosm project we contributed plant material to:</p>
<p align="left"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/slu-art-gallery/albums/72157713729253121?fbclid=IwAR1hcD5VN9kgrzBaJyT8OM9Ghpn2eCwwE5QOcpPQReRPTcRrcZUU2pxQbGo">https://www.flickr.com/photos/slu-art-gallery/albums/72157713729253121?fbclid=IwAR1hcD5VN9kgrzBaJyT8OM9Ghpn2eCwwE5QOcpPQReRPTcRrcZUU2pxQbGo</a></p>
<p align="left"><strong>Microcosms: A Homage to Sacred Plants of the Americas:<br></strong><em>Confocal
microscopy, also known as confocal laser scanning microscopy, is a
specialized optical imaging technique that provides contact-free,
non-destructive measurements of three-dimensional shapes. In this case,
plants considered sacred by indigenous groups of the Americas were
scanned at St. Lawrence University’s Johnson Hall of Science. The
procedure facilitates gathering information from a narrow depth of
field, while simultaneously eliminating out-of-focus glare, as well as
permitting the creation of optical sections through biological samples.
Images are built over time by gathering photons emitted from fluorescent
chemical compounds naturally contained within the plants themselves,
creating a vivid and precise colorimetric display.</em><br><em>To pay
homage to sacred plants revered by indigenous groups throughout the
Americas is a way of honoring the entire world in a time of
environmental emergency. The exhibition—at the juncture of art,
technology, and science—magnifies life in ways that may alter how humans
perceive other living entities from our shared and threatened biosphere
in more egalitarian terms. The plants reveal themselves as 21st-century
extensions of biomorphic forms that were the genesis of abstract works
by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee one hundred years
previous. Some of the plants contain the most potent psychoactive agents
on the planet and serve as intermediaries that have enabled native
communities to communicate with their ancestors, wage war on the enemies
of their land, conceptualize entire cosmogonies, and maintain a nearly
impossible equilibrium. Perhaps each stoma, trichome, grain of pollen
and patterned fragment of xylem and vascular tissue in these vital
portraits is not only a way into previously unseen vegetal realms, but
also a way out of our collective crisis.</em></p>
<p align="right"> -Jill Pflugheber (Microscopy Specialist, Department of Biology)<br>and Steven F. White (Professor of Hispanic Studies)<br>St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York</p><br>Sacred Succulents<br>
PO Box 781<br>
Sebastopol, CA 95473 USA<br>
<a href="http://www.sacredsucculents.com">http://www.sacredsucculents.com</a><br>
<br>
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