Using a Mac cleanup tool is one of the best ways to keep your Mac running in a very good shape. And the most important thing is to narrow down what works for you and where you can obtain the best possible outcome. In most cases, what you want to do is to use a Mac cleaner if you see that your device is slow, you have too little RAM or the system data folders are getting very large. Here are some of the apps you want to use.

Daisy Disk

It’s definitely meant to be a simpler solution, but make no mistake, it can still help you remove unwanted files from your device. The app focuses more on managing your storage and yes, it does a very good job at that. However, it’s not offering a whole lot of features beyond that, which could prove to be rather problematic. That’s why it’s a good idea to test it in the trial mode and see if it fits your requirements.

Cleaner One Disk Clean

Made by Trend Micro, this is a tool that you can get for free from the Mac App Store. The downside is that it has only a free version with limitations. So you still have to pay for some features. But it can do a good job at cleaning up your memory and doing some basic cleaning.

MacCleaner Pro

The app is designed to offer a fast way of cleaning your Mac and it does include quite a lot of apps that you can use. It’s designed to remove system clutter quickly, and it will make it easier to optimize your Mac by rebuilding the Spotlight index and freeing up RAM. It does all the basic stuff for cleanup, along with some extra features. But it is on the more expensive side, so keep that in mind.

CleanMyMac

It’s one of the best free Mac cleaners available on the market because it can delete a huge number of junk files, duplicate files and temporary items. Using it often can lead to a great performance boost, not to mention the entire process is very fast. All of this combined is going to help more than expected, and the upside is that you can retry this process as many times as you need. 

Plus, the app also has other benefits, like real-time malware protection, memory and CPU load monitoring, not to mention it can help you uninstall apps already installed on your device. And there is also a privacy feature along with setting reminders to help you scan your Mac. 

Onyx

The fact that it’s free makes Onyx a good tool for many people. Again, it’s not going to help with everything you want from a cleanup tool. But it does help improve performance by handling some cleanup and optimization tasks. The fact that it’s free is what sets is apart from all the other options out there. And yes, it also does a very good job at including great optimization solutions for newcomers, too.

Disk Drill

It’s a data recovery app at its core, so that’s definitely the thing you want to use it for. But it has a module for clearing up items from your device and doing a cleanup. Yes, it’s not dedicated for this task specifically, but the module they added is pretty solid, and it will give you very much the boost and benefits you are looking for. 

Mac Washing Machine 

Since this is a part of the Intego app bundle, it’s not an app that you can buy separately. But is it worth it though? What you will notice is that it can help you reclaim space, delete duplicates, while also organizing the desktop and folders. Considering the price of the Intego app bundle, it is expensive to access, but if you are going to use those tools already, then it’s definitely worth using.

CCleaner

CCleaner is very popular on PC, and it also does a good job on Mac as well. Here, you will be able to use it for cleaning your browser, removing clutter from your Mac, finding duplicates, managing startup items and uninstalling apps. It has a straightforward interface and the work that it does is pretty good. Plus, many of the features are free to access, yet you can access everything with a paid upgrade.

Conclusion

It’s clear that a Mac cleanup tool is very much a necessity these days. The most important thing is to take your time, see what your device needs and what maintenance will help boost its performance. It might not seem like a lot, but the upside is that you can improve the performance of your device in no time if you use these tools. And if you start using them regularly, you can see a great improvement overall, which makes them well-worth your time. 

The post What are the best Mac cleaners to use today? appeared first on Green Prophet.

As Passover approaches, a global online gathering is inviting people to explore the holiday’s ancient story of liberation through a modern lens of compassion, sustainability and ethical food choices.

An American group called Jewish Vegan Life (JVL) will host a virtual event titled “Liberation for All: The Compassionate Passover” on March 19, 2026, bringing together rabbis, activists and food innovators to discuss how the themes of the Passover story can inspire more compassionate holiday traditions.

Passover, which commemorates the biblical journey from slavery to freedom, begins during the Hebrew month of Nisan, the biblical new year associated with renewal and transformation. Organizers say the holiday offers an opportunity to rethink how the concept of liberation might extend beyond human freedom to include animals and the natural world.

“Passover is the story of moving from constriction to freedom,” said Michael Gribov, Head of Movement Building at Jewish Vegan Life. “This event invites us to expand that liberation, to our plates, to the planet and to all living beings.”

The live online program will be hosted by Stephanie Dryer and will feature a number of speakers exploring the connection between Jewish tradition and plant-based living.

Rabbi Donn Gross, head of Congregation Bet Dovid in New Jersey, will speak about the spiritual meaning of Passover and how a vegan Seder can deepen the holiday’s message of freedom and compassion.

Megan Tucker, founder of the Los Angeles plant-based company Mort & Betty’s, will share her personal vegan journey and demonstrate a Passover-friendly recipe that brings plant-based cooking to the Seder table.

Gribov will also introduce Jewish Vegan Life’s Passover Earth Day campaign, which connects the themes of liberation and renewal with environmental stewardship.

Participants will learn how to host a plant-based Seder, explore vegan Passover recipes and discuss how Jewish teachings on responsibility and compassion can guide modern food choices.

The event is open to anyone interested in the intersection of Jewish tradition, ethical eating and environmental responsibility. Organizers emphasize that participants do not need to be vegan to attend — only curious.

Registered participants will be able to watch the livestream, interact with speakers during a live chat and receive access to a recording of the event. Members of Jewish Vegan Life will also receive a complimentary copy of the organization’s Vegan Haggadah following the program.

The event takes place Thursday, March 19, 2026 at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET and registration is now open online.

Want some more resources on a sustainable Passover? Green Prophet has you covered. Browse below for more.

• 10 Tips For Greening Your Passover
• Passover Recipe: Traditional Matzah Balls
• Haroset, The Passover Seder’s Sweet Treat Recipe
• A Sustainable Passover
• Eco Rabbi Explores Passover Cleaning To Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
• Yoko Ono Greens the Passover Atmosphere at the Ecosphere Festival in Israel
• Ecological Activities in Israel During Passover
• Jews Celebrate “Solar Seder” in the Arava Desert at Kibbutz Lotan
• Recipes for Simanim (Signs) for Rosh Hashanah’s Symbolic Foods

The post Jewish Vegans invite global community to “Compassionate Passover” event appeared first on Green Prophet.

The Purim holiday is coming up next week: this year, 2026, it occurs from the evening of March 2nd until the evening of March 3rd. (In Jerusalem, where Shushan Purim is celebrated, the festival takes place on the following day, from March 3rd to March 4th.) Read about Purim and building a good society here.

There’s feasting at home on the night and the next day, and to make sure everyone gets good things to eat, families send out packages of treats to friends and neighbors. Traditional goodies are hamentaschen, and other treats like our chocolate nut clusters .

Now here’s another treat for sending around: a delicate nut-filled Moroccan pastry called Haman’s Fingers. It’s a sweet take on savory Moroccan cigars.

Haman’s Fingers
Yield: 20 rolled pastries

Pastry Ingredients
2 cups whole walnuts
2 cups whole almonds
½ cup sugar syrup (recipe below)
1 tsp orange blossom water (optional)
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cardamom
¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp kosher salt
15 sheets of frozen phyllo pastry, thawed overnight in the refrigerator
1 stick (½ cup) melted butter

Syrup Ingredients
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 tsp orange blossom water or 1 tbsp lemon juice
Zest of 1 orange

Directions

Remove the phyllo dough from the freezer to the fridge the night before starting. 2 hours before starting, remove the package from the fridge to room temperature. When ready to start, open the package and cover the phyllo with a damp towel or plastic wrap, to prevent drying out.

Make the syrup:
Bring water and sugar to a boil. Reduce the heat to a steady simmer and cook uncovered for 20-25 minutes, until syrup has reduced to about ⅔ cup. Add orange blossom water or lemon juice and orange zest. Set aside to cool.

Prepare the filling:
Place the walnuts and almonds in a food processor. Pulse until the texture resembles coarse crumbs, with some chunks.
Add ½ cup of the sugar syrup and the cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, salt, and optional orange blossom water. Pulse another couple of times until mixture comes together. Don’t overwork the filling; you don’t want a smooth paste, bu a mixture with some texture.

Roll the pastry:
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Place a sheet of baking parchment on your work surface. Melt the butter (30 seconds in the microwave should do it) and set it aside to cool.
Place 1 sheet of phyllo on the baking parchment. Brush with melted butter. Place a second sheet over it, brush with butter. Do the same with a third sheet, finishing with brushed butter.
Roll the filling into a tube shape on a clean surface. Place it half an inch from the edge of the phyllo layers, on the long side. Carefully roll up the dough. Slice it into 4 pieces.
Transfer the cigars to the baking sheet. Repeat with remaining phyllo and filling.

Glaze the fingers:
Brush the finished cigars with more butter and then brush generously with syrup. There will be some syrup left for a final glazing.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden. Remove from oven and while still hot, brush with additional syrup to glaze.
Trim any filling that oozed out of the “fingers” off with a knife.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days.

Recipe and photo via Chabad.org

The post Haman’s Fingers, A Moroccan Purim Specialty appeared first on Green Prophet.

When you hear “jujube,” you might first think of the chewy, retro gumdrop candy with its brilliant red, yellow and green colors. But “jujube” started as English for sidr, the tree considered holy in Islam.

In the Koran it’s written that on the Day of Judgment the faithful, will dwell in Paradise “Among thorn-less sidr trees and clustered plantains, and spreading shade, and water gushing, and plentiful fruit.”

Perhaps because of this, sidr leaves are said to have magical, mystical properties.

We’ve noted the multiple medicinal qualities of the sidr fruit and mentioned the potential of the tree to hold off desertification.

Every year, one evening at mid-Ramadan, the tree shakes. The names on the leaves that fall are of those who will die in the coming year.

The sidr tree in black magic

Then there’s the intriguing use of sidr leaves as protection from black magic and the evil eye. We described what the evil eye is. Basically, it’s ill-wishing someone from feelings of envy, rivalry, and hatred.

Jealousy exists in the human heart; it can’t be shrugged off. Mature people recognize and try to overcome it; if we can’t exactly turn the other cheek, at least we hopefully move on to a healthier way of coping than secretly ill-wishing someone.

In Islamic culture, and in cultures who have lived in close quarters with Moslems, the evil eye is feared as one would fear a physical threat. In speaking of another’s child or property, it’s polite to raise one’s hand, palm outward, and say “hamsah” several times – to show there’s nothing to fear – all one’s intentions are good.

Women are especially susceptible to the suggestion of an evil eye. A pretty girl. A married woman wanting to conceive. A protective mother.

Men may fear that their success in business may cause envy, or that their virility will be impaired by witchcraft. Women are especially susceptible to the suggestion of an evil eye. A pretty girl. A married woman wanting to conceive. A protective mother.

To ward off the evil eye, a person may wear an amulet bracelet.

Or hang a five-fingered “hamsah” on the office or home wall. See our post on the evil eye and how to avoid it.

But for a person needing stronger protection, there’s another, more intimate way to deal with witchcraft and the evil eye: bathing with sidr-infused water. This is also said to expel demons.

On the positive side, the sidr tree may host the spirit of a saint. Far from pagan, pre-Islamic tree worship, the tree itself isn’t a holy object; rather, the holiness of a saint whose custom it was to sit in its shade has been transferred to the tree. For this reason, it’s considered lucky to sit or sleep under a sidr tree.

There’s a Moslem legend about a sidr tree (also known in English as a lote tree) that grows in Paradise. On its leaves are etched the names of all humans. Every year, one evening at mid-Ramadan, the tree shakes. The names on the leaves that fall are of those who will die in the coming year.

It follows that sidr once served to purify the dead. In Iran, Iraq, India, and southwestern Saudi Arabia, deceased Muslims were washed water infused with sidr leaves. The custom has apparently faded out in most countries.

A magic holy sidr bath to deflect the evil eye?

It needs 7 powdered sidr leaves stirred into a bucket of warm water. The hadith of the Prophet Muhammad allows to repeat healing prayers and verses from the Koran to increase the water’s potency. 5 grams, or 1 tablespoon of sidr powder equals 7 leaves.

Take the bucket of warm sidr water into the shower and pour it all over. It’s ok to rinse off the powder residue. Then step out of the shower, freshly immune to other people’s bad vibes.

The post Jujube, the sidr tree of medicine and magic appeared first on Green Prophet.

Two thousand years ago, someone scratched a web of lines into stone in a Roman settlement on the empire’s northern edge. Soldiers, traders, or locals passing time in Coriovallum, now Heerlen in the Netherlands, moved small counters across those lines in a tactical duel of blockade and entrapment.

The board survived but the rules did not. Now researchers believe they have them using artificial intelligence.

By simulating thousands of possible turn sequences on the carved network found at the site, archaeologists identified a ruleset that best matches the wear patterns on the stone: a two-player blocking game they’ve named Ludus Coriovalli, the Game of Coriovallum.

It belongs to the Roman family of line-movement strategy games that includes ludus latrunculorum, but with its own geometry and tempo.

For Green Prophet readers, this is familiar territory.

We’ve previously explored ancient games reborn from archaeology, from Mehen boards etched into ship planks to Egyptian Senet sets reconstructed from tomb art. These games are more than pastime, they’re ancient culture, revealing how people thought about territory, risk, and control.

Ludus Coriovalli adds a Roman frontier voice to that conversation.

What are the proposed rules of the game?

Two players use unequal numbers of pieces on a network of intersecting lines, with the larger force attempting to surround and immobilize the smaller force. Players take turns moving one piece at a time along the engraved lines to an adjacent intersection point. A piece (or group) is captured or neutralized when it is completely blocked so it cannot move along any connecting line. The larger side wins by trapping all opposing pieces, while the smaller side wins by evading capture or escaping the blockade.

The post Ancient Roman strategy game figured out with AI appeared first on Green Prophet.

I go to Canada every year and spend at least a month in a forest in the middle of nowhere. The deprivation of the modern world takes time to wear off. After a full week of no stimulation, the effects take hold and suddenly I feel like I can talk with the wind. Every moment seems more alive and worth living. James experienced this at an In the Dark event in London, described as “like a prayer” when you go all-in and listen to music in the dark. Something similar is now being reported by science.

A woman lived in a dark cave for five days and her senses became more alive. Food was tastier.

It all started in November 2024, when bioengineer Kiana Aran entered complete darkness. For five days, she lived alone in a cave-like chamber in rural western Poland, cut off from light, sound, and time. She was fitted with a suite of biosensors. (Poland has wonderful underground salt caves, as well, for other health experiments.)

The experiment, later reported in Nature as part of its Sensors Spotlight, was a scientific inquiry into how the human body recalibrates in the absence of external stimuli.

Aran, a scientist at the University of California, San Diego, tracked herself continuously using wearable and molecular sensors, including EEG monitoring, a glucose sensor, an Oura Ring, and multi-omics sampling before, during, and after the retreat.

On entering the cave, my taste perception changed drastically. Food was intense and delicious. I never knew exactly what I was eating, but I remember certain foods by texture alone: the firmness of broccoli, the smoothness of soups, the crunch of nuts. My proteomic data, measured later, confirmed what my senses had been trying to tell me: proteins linked to taste receptors had shifted significantly, mirroring my heightened perception.

What emerged was a rare, data-rich portrait of biological adaptation. With no circadian cues, Aran’s sleep became fragmented, with REM and dream-like states appearing throughout the day. Her glucose levels remained unusually stable, even after consuming sweets, suggesting more efficient metabolic uptake when sunlit cues are not available. Proteomic analysis later indicated changes linked to taste perception, echoing her subjective experience of heightened flavor sensitivity in darkness.

Her microbiome responses varied by body site. While gut microbiota remained largely stable, microbial communities on the skin and in saliva shifted rapidly, acting as early indicators of environmental stress and adaptation. Together, the data showed that different biological systems respond to isolation on very different timelines, she reported.

“The darkness also gave me dreams that were so vivid they felt real,” she said. “One night, I saw my mother, my cousin and my late grandmother, who had long since passed, sitting together, laughing softly over an iPad. They looked so alive, so close, separated from me only by a glass door.”

Beyond physiology, the experiment underscored the communicative power of environment. While Aran’s internal experience of darkness was deeply personal, marked by vivid dreams and altered perception, the data allowed her to translate that experience into something shareable, analyzable, and comparable.

In an era when sensors increasingly mediate how we understand health, cities, and the environment, the cave experiment offers a striking reminder: technology does not replace human experience, but it can make the invisible visible.

Or as Karin Kloosterman from Green Prophet says: use some common sense and just get out in nature. Drop the sensors — and the need to biohack your life better than the next guy.

The post Everything is better when you spend 5 days in a cave appeared first on Green Prophet.

Parkour is often misunderstood as a fringe sport or a collection of stunts. In reality, it belongs to the same cultural lineage as grafitti, skateboarding and surfing: youth-led movement practices shaped by place, limitations, and the need to claim space.

Parkour, a way of using acrobatics and stunts (sometimes death-defying) to move around the built environment, also caught on in Gaza. We wrote about the young parkour creators in 2012, and now there is a documentary film highlighting their lives and struggles.

For years, young people in Gaza used parkour to create structure and meaning in a restricted environment. Teenager boys trained on rooftops, in quiet streets, and among damaged buildings, learning how to move fluidly through spaces never designed for play. Like skateboarding in dense cities or surfing along contested coastlines, parkour offered discipline, community, and identity. (Boys and girls do not hang out in Gaza together, so the sport was limited to boys).

Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.

The documentary avoids spectacle. There are no competitions, rankings, or dramatic victories. Instead, the focus is on training, trust, and shared routines. Rooftops become practice spaces. Friends gather to watch, film, and learn from one another. Like skate crews or surf communities, Gaza’s parkour scene is built on mutual respect and collective risk.

Much of the film was developed and shot years before October 7, 2023. The Gaza shown on screen reflects pre-war daily life: informal training sessions, moments of calm between jumps, and a sense of continuity. The film now carries the weight of an unintended historical record, showing how beautiful and developed Gaza was. Any references to events after October 7 are reflective and editorial.

What Yalla Parkour ultimately shows is that parkour in Gaza was never about escape fantasies. It was about learning limits, adapting to obstacles, and staying grounded through physical practice. Like skateboarding and surfing, it offered young people a way to grow, build skill, and belong to something larger than themselves.

Seen this way, Yalla Parkour is not only a film about Gaza. It is a film about youth culture and movement, and about the universal human need to claim space, even when that space is sharply constrained.

If you love parkour, check out how girls in Afghanistan started skateboarding. Or how women in Cairo, Egypt could learn to cycle or jog, free from being sexually harassed by creating Harassmap.

::Yalla Parkour

The post Yalla Parkour – A Gaza documentary of the movement before the war appeared first on Green Prophet.

Farm To Table Israel is transforming the traditional dining experience into a hands-on journey.

“People want to see and experience where the food comes from,” says Farm To Table owner Yakir Knafo. “I like to introduce guests to the small, ‘romantic’ farms where they get a personal feel for connection to the land.”

And you can hardly get more personal with the land than pulling carrots out of the ground yourself; carrots that you’ll watch a chef cook a little while later for lunch. Or standing under a tree peeling a juicy orange you plucked off a branch a second ago.

An hour in the field is followed two hours of a 7-course meal filled with the genuine flavors of Israeli food. It might be cooked then and there on the farm, to be eaten in the open air. Or you might head back to the Alhambra deli in Jaffa, where Farm To Table Israel guests feast at a communal table. You’ll enjoy a meal that’s as much about storytelling and community as it is about fresh, local flavors, and where every ingredient comes from local sources – even the salt.

Culinary tours include visits to an olive oil press, followed by a meal where every dish features a different local olive oil; or to a vineyard and boutique winery that shows how Israeli wines have gained international recognition. Or a group may visit one of the local dairies. A tour of an apiary and honey tastings in the works for the near future.

Each tour ends with a meal freshly cooked by Yakir and chef Aviel Elbaz, with the participation of any guests who like to cook. There’s a story behind every dish, even behind every ingredient. Guests leave the table enriched with history, a sense of connection with the land, and naturally, the lingering wellbeing that’s the gift of a delectable meal shared with friends.

Related: Ada’s home-roasted coffee in Jaffa

And that’s just one of the culinary experiences offered by Farm To Table Israel. Groups can also book hands-on cooking workshops for groups of friends and for business groups on a day out. Workshop themes include pickling and fermentation, seasonal cooking, and making pasta. Yakir told us that they will create a workshop focused on a special theme too, if requested.

Then there’s Alhambra, the Jaffa base for Farm To Table’s culinary workshops. It’s a café by day and wine bar by night, as well as a delicatessen offering Israeli gourmet specialties.

All of this was born of Yakir and Aviel’s vision to make food the connection between people and the land. Yakir has an enormous love of nature, the farmer, and the goodness of Israel’s sustainable foods. His enthusiasm overflows in spontaneous talk as visitors harvest, cook, and eat together.

Jaffa, close to Tel Aviv, is the mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhood where Alhambra operates, and where Yakir lives with his family. He interacts comfortably with close-by Arab businesses:

“We live together, after all. I get fish from Ibrahim, orange juice from Salem, and kitchen equipment from Abu Avram. We respect each other,” he says. His voice softens as he says that seaside Jaffa is very much like the Moroccan port town of Essaouira, where his grandfather was chief rabbi.

Alhambra is kosher under rabbinical supervision, dairy/fish. The partners offer cooking workshops there, but a group may also book a workshop near home.

::Farm To Table
::Deli Alhambra 
30 Jerusalem Blvd., Tel Aviv
+972 523 255 370

Traveling to Jaffa in the near future?

Read our green guide to Jaffa

The post Farm To Table Israel Connects People To The Land appeared first on Green Prophet.

In Islamic tradition, there is a point where creation ends — a boundary at the 7th heaven that marks the limit of what any created being can reach. That boundary is called Sidrat al-Muntahā, translated as the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary.

The reference appears in the Qur’an in a short, concentrated passage in Surah An-Najm (The Star), describing a vision “at the Lote Tree of the most extreme limit.” The lote tree is known as the Sidr tree, from which the Yemenites make holy honey, and it is also believed to be the thorn worn by Jesus.

Where the lote shows up in Islam’s most famous ascent story

The boundary, or Sidrat al-Muntahā is most often discussed in connection with the Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascension (al-Isrā’ wal-Mi‘rāj) to Jerusalem, which was a dream. For in reality, Mohammed never actually made it to Jerusalem, the Holy City. In a well-known narration recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, the moment is described with a modest line:

Then Jibril took me till we reached Sidrat-ul-Muntaha … which was shrouded in colors indescribable.

In the same narration, the ascent is tied to the establishment of the five daily prayers — a reminder that the story returns to lived practice. In Judaism, the three-times daily supplication was inspired by the Jewish forefather Abraham, described as “standing” before God, interpreted as the first morning prayer (Genesis 19:27), and Isaac going out to “meditate” (or pray) in the fields and Jacob inspired by the evening prayers.

What “utmost boundary” means

In Islam, the Arabic name is descriptive: sidrah (transliterated with an h or without) refers to a lote tree, and muntahā means the farthest point or extremity — the tree at the limit. One academic treatment explores how “the lote tree of the boundary” functions as a threshold image in Islamic interpretive traditions.

Knowing about the concept of the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary helps explain a core idea in Islam: God is beyond creation, and there are limits to what humans — and even angels — can know. Islam doesn’t aim for union with God or endless revelation; it emphasizes humility, restraint, and knowing when to stop asking. The story of the Lote Tree shows why Islam values discipline and practice, like daily prayer, over personal mystical experience. Protecting the boundary between the divine and the human is seen not as restrictive, but as essential.

The sidr tree and the Lote Tree

The sidr tree is a real, familiar tree across Arabia and parts of the Middle East. And it makes great honey. In English it’s often called the lote tree or Christ’s thorn jujube (Ziziphus species). It grows in harsh, dry conditions, provides deep shade, edible fruit, and medicinal leaves, and is known for its resilience.

For centuries it has been part of everyday desert life — practical, tough, and unremarkable in appearance.

In Islam, this ordinary tree is given extraordinary meaning. Sidrat al-Muntahā — the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary — takes its name from the sidr tree but is not simply a botanical reference. It marks the furthest limit of creation and knowledge, the point beyond which no created being, including angels, can go.

The Qur’an mentions it briefly, without description or symbolism piled on. That restraint is intentional. Islam does not turn the sidr tree into a symbol of God or a ladder toward divinity as the Jewish text goes – Jacob wrestling with the angel. Instead, it uses a known, grounded tree to mark a boundary. In Islam God remains beyond the created world, and knowing where that boundary lies is part of the faith.

The post The Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, explained appeared first on Green Prophet.

Editor’s introduction: This review is written in the first person by Raven, who spent months living with the Air Tea Kettle before sharing her experience. Her words reflect a personal learning process rather than a technical evaluation.

The Air Tea Kettle—another gadget for the countertop, or something I would grow to love?

It took me months to digest the information. I realize now I was resisting seeing the Air Tea Kettle’s true value. I didn’t want to write something that just repeated the company’s language. I needed to feel it for myself.

Honestly, if the ebook I subscribed to (twice!) had arrived earlier, the learning curve would have been gentler. Once I finally emailed my how-to questions to Jeremy Krause and received the ebook, something shifted. I could relax into it.

This is a very different feeling than drinking tea. More euphoric. More aromatic. More immediate.

What caught my attention is that at lower temperatures, plants release scents they don’t give up at higher heat.

What caught my attention is that at lower temperatures, plants release scents they don’t give up at higher heat. I’m not a herbalist, so I can’t fully explain the chemistry, even though I can feel the results.

I can’t remember exactly what’s in my current blend (it’s in the ebook), but it’s heavenly. I’ve learned that mixed herbs are more pleasant than single herbs on their own.

The ebook includes guidance for herbs that support the nervous system, with precise temperature recommendations. That precision matters.

Air Tea is a new technology. Instead of drinking tea, you inhale herbal vapor through warm air extraction. There is no water and no combustion. The warm air releases essential oils that are often lost in hot water and digestion.

Watch: Air Tea Kettle demonstration video

I grow gardens full of herbs, but I am not a trained herbalist. Reading the ebook is essential. It explains the color-coordinated temperature system and how specific plants respond to heat.

The clearest and most grounded instructions I found were from herbalist Amanda Crooke, especially her Vaporization Masterclass (Part 1).

The device itself is surprisingly simple. There are only three buttons. The center button does most of the work. Plus and minus let you manually change the temperature.

Originally, I couldn’t locate the tweezers. They are a small square tool that slides in and out of the base. These are important for removing the hot stainless steel pod unless you want to burn your fingers.

One small but useful trick: if you prefer Celsius, hold the center and minus buttons together for about three seconds.

Even though it appears simple, I still needed time to understand the different components. Today I feel a real sense of relief about the effort I put into demystifying the Air Tea Kettle.

It sits on my countertop, and confidence makes me want to use it.

And I have to say, the presentation and packaging are ingenious.

Editor’s Notes: about the herbal guidance behind the Air Tea Kettle

The Air Tea Kettle places strong emphasis on education around temperature and plant preparation. Herbalist Amanda Crooke provides instructional material focused on safe, plant-specific vaporization, particularly for users who are not formally trained herbalists.

Why this works as a Valentine’s Day gift

Editor’s note: This is not positioned as a fast or flashy product, but as one that rewards patience, curiosity, and ritual—qualities often associated with meaningful gifts. Herbalism and working with herbs can be a life journey.

::Air Tea Kettle

The post The Air Tea Kettle creates a new way to meet plants and herbalism appeared first on Green Prophet.