PRS 2025 PLANTSTOCK FESTIVAL


​​The Philosophical Research Society proudly presents our second annual PLANTSTOCK festival ~ celebrating flora in all its splendor and inspiration, in mythos, ritual, wellness, and the arts.
Blooming from 5/23-5/24, Plantstock is overgrown with workshops and presentations, a panel discussion, screenings, a groovy listening lounge, local plant centric craft vendors and nursery pop-ups, and more!

FRIDAY: Opening Night

​PLANTASIA Lounge presented by Sacred Bones & Vesca Botanicals
5PM - 9PM LISTENING LOUNGE
Join us for the opening of PLANTSTOCK's returning PLANTASIA LOUNGE! Commune with a fern or meditate with a monstera while we vegetate and vibe to Mort Garson’s greenery!
El Cine presents MARÍA SABINA, SPIRIT WOMAN (1979) + Opening Presentation by Sandra del Castillo, PhD
7:30PM SCREENING
Join us as we kick off PLANTSTOCK 2025 – PRS's festival celebrating flora in all its splendor and inspiration, in mythos, ritual, wellness, and the arts – and honor and celebrate the Mazatecan shamanic healer María Sabina, the “Saint Mother of the Mushrooms,” with an encore of our recently sold out screening of Nicolás Echevarría’s rarely seen and breathtakingly intimate portrait.

​For this very special event, scholar, teacher, storyteller, and ritual artist Sandra del Castillo PhD. will offer an opening presentation: María Sabina & "The Little-One-Who-Springs-Forth" : Image as Psyche, Chants, and Re-Enchantment -- a brief introduction to the renowned Mazatec shamaness, whose healing work in the remote mountains of Mexico, introduced psilocybin to Western modernity in the 1960’s.​

SATURDAY: All Day Festivities

​The Philosophy & Practice of Plant Care with Marina Olshansky of Vesca Botanicals 
11AM WORKSHOP
​Kicking off our daylong festivities, this workshop delves into the profound philosophies that plants embody and how we, as humans, can nurture them in return to create a symbiotic relationship with the natural world. At this very special event, a diverse selection of beautiful houseplants from Vesca Botanicals will be available for purchase at a 10% discount so that you can bring home a new green family member to care for! 

​And afterwards, join Marina in the courtyard for a walk-in plant clinic! Bring your sad plants for diagnosis, care, or repotting (soil and supplies included)!
Clay Seed Pod Happening: A Collaborative Sculpture Workshop & Fundraiser in Aid of Altadena Seed Library
11AM, 2PM, 5PM WORKSHOPS
What can we learn from looking closely at seed pods, by dancing their dance? In this one-day workshop at the PRS Plantstock Festival, participants will sculpt a giant collaborative clay seed pod, guided by artist and naturalist Rosie Brand. 

Three sessions available:
11am (2hrs), 2pm (2hrs), 5pm (1hr)
Registration is on sliding scale donation basis​
Please Note: This event is ticketed separately and is not included in the festival events pass.
Plant Dreaming Deep with the EMPATHS & artist Megan Whitmarsh
11:30AM DRAWING MEDITATION
Participants are invited to tune into plant consciousness and make a collaborative paper garden while immersed in a cosmos of quasars and quarks as the EMPATHS retrieve and radiate floral melodies. Materials will be provided.
​PLANTASIA Lounge presented by Sacred Bones & Vesca Botanicals
11:30AM - 3PM LISTENING LOUNGE
Join us to commune with a fern or meditate with a monstera while we vegetate and vibe to Mort Garson’s greenery between Plantstock events! Pop in any time during the PLANTSTOCK festivities to listen and relax with a host of houseplants while Garson's verdant, electronic masterpiece PLANTASIA fills your ears and soothes your mind!
VENDOR MARKETPLACE!
12PM - 6PM COURTYARD MARKET
We are thrilled to welcome local plant-centric craft vendors including:
Shannon Lay
Altadena Seed Library
Hanaq Pancha
Vesca Botanicals
Reina Prado
ADLR
​
​LETTUCE GROW Giveaway!
12PM - 6PM SPECIAL OFFERING
A very special giveaway to one lucky winner thanks to our friends at Lettuce Grow! At Plantstock you can enter to win a free Farmstand!! Grow 18–36 plants outdoors with this self-watering, self-fertilizing hydroponic garden. Perfect for patios and yards. Harvest in 3-4 weeks – no experience required!
"YUCK" Author Barret Baumgart
In Person!
12PM - 5PM FEATURED AUTHOR
Join author Barret Baumgart in the PRS Bookstore during for a chat and a copy of his new book YUCK!

Yuck presents a fascinating and beautifully written new revisionist history of one of the most loathed and beloved objects on the planet, the Joshua Tree or Yucca brevifolia. Baumgart is also the author of China Lake: A Journey into the Contradicted Heart of a Global Climate Catastrophe. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Vice, The Rumpus, and more. He lives in Los Angeles. He has written a previous book on China Lake, which won the 2016 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction and delved into the history of this strange place that illuminates our worldwide climate emergency.
​VESCA BOTANICALS Walk-in Plant Clinic
1PM - 6PM SPECIAL OFFERING
Join Library of Esoterica Editor and Author Jessica Hundley as she explores the ways nature has served as primary muse to a host of prolific creatives. With a focus on the fourth volume in her ongoing encyclopedia series, PLANT MAGICK, Hundley will weave storytelling, imagery, and creative prompts into this immersive lecture and workshop.
​Nature As Muse: A Creative Workshop with Jessica Hundley
1:30PM LECTURE & WORKSHOP
Join Library of Esoterica Editor and Author Jessica Hundley as she explores the ways nature has served as primary muse to a host of prolific creatives. With a focus on the fourth volume in her ongoing encyclopedia series, PLANT MAGICK, Hundley will weave storytelling, imagery, and creative prompts into this immersive lecture and workshop.
​Rooted Wisdom: Herbs, Plants, & Botanicals Across Fields
3PM PANEL DISCUSSION
​Plantstock 2025 is proud to welcome Lou Florez – Orisha priest, lecturer, medicine maker, activist and author of The Modern Art of Brujería – as he leads a fascinating panel discussion with plant-centric practitioners and artists across multiple disciplines, exploring their relationships with the botanical world and the ways in which they integrate plants into their work.
​An "environments" Bilateral Listening Session presented by Evidence Based Music & Syntonic Research Inc.
5PM LISTENING SESSION
​Join us for this optimal listening experience of Irv Teibel’s legendary nature recordings through stereo headphones, layered with sub perceptual binaural tones created by Evidence Based Music, which will lead us for roughly an hour of audio communion with the natural world, activating the synchronization of the right and left hemispheres of the brain for this bilateral field recording listening session.
​Please Note: Due to limited capacity, this event is not included in the festival pass
​7th House presents THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS
7PM SCREENING
Based upon the groundbreaking and wildly popular 1973 book of the same name by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (who also penned the screenplay), The Secret Life of Plants explores the inner life of our botanical neighbors – making the case, via survey of scientific experiments, that plants feel, communicate, and are sentient of their environments.