Herbal Conformism and the Illusion of Normalcy:

A Response to Charles W. Kane
from the ‘Freak-Show Field’

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Intro:
Charles W. Kane is an experienced clinical herbalist and self described “veteran of the war against terrorism.”  Unlike the majority of modern day herbalists, he would not be likely to describe our field as “alternative medicine”, and brings from a military and Western background a refreshing degree of old fashioned common sense and down-home candor.  We often refer to his book when looking for what is increasingly rare experience based information and competent materia medica.  That said, he is also someone whose pronouncements I occasionally find simultaneously disturbing and strangely enjoyable to disagree with.  A recent rant of his is titled “Image Herbal Medicine”, calling attention to various concerns that Kiva and I share, while featuring some assumptions and conclusions that surely call for a response.  It seems somewhat karmic (just kidding!) that such a response come not just from metropolitan, cappuccino swilling, politically correct crystal douser and Obama apologists, but from a long-haired cactus-hugging Gaian ecosopher who not only an animal middle name but also wears cowboy hats, stretches a mean barb wire fence, writes about Old West firearms and teaches personal defense.  The bulk of Kane’s article appears below in quotation marks.  Any blame or praise for the words between, falls fairly on me.

“This short essay may come across as snarky or even unpopular,” Mr. Kane starts.  And let me begin in turn by saying there’s no apology called for in either case.  Snarky can be insightful and incite-ful – and darkly entertaining – so long as we avoid the patronizing airs of elitism, are reasonably clever and truly right.  As for ideas being unpopular, in our screwed up society the writing or doing of what’s popular is one of the surest means of being wrong.

“Image herbal medicine or herbal medicine as a fashion statement is easily the most practiced form within the field today. The indicators that suggest an individual is image or fashion oriented are numerous:

1. Identity crisis: name changes to Root, Weed, or Green for example; middleclass whites (the majority of herbalists) wishing they were Hispanic, American Indian, or other “ethnic” races, as if some groups are more ‘connected’ to the plants/planet – a form of reverse racism really.”

Here, Kane has hit on an important issue regarding the lionization and adulation of particular ethnic groups, especially among guilt ridden herbalists and environmentalists… though a far more common and dangerous error in this society is imagining that we all, even EuroAmerican anglophones, are anything other than the descendants of land based peoples, heirs to our own traditions of natural healing and lifeways that were passed down from equally tribal, resilient, plant-wise folks whether whether they be Celts, Vikings or Visigoths.  That said, there is much to both learn from and respect in some of the ways of remaining indigenous peoples of Africa and Asia, Australia and the Americas, and little of honor and value to emulate in the current, modern, so called ‘civilized’ dominant cultural paradigm.

As for fledgeling herbalists changing their names to Root or Weed, it’s stereotypical enough that his observation earned some belly laughs.  Such names likely come closer to representing their characters, interests and allegiance of these plant loving people, however, just as nicknames like “Ace” or “Cowboy” might do a better job of describing certain rodeo regulars or U.S. Army tank crews than “John” or “Bob” like their parents picked.  Our ex New World Order neocon president goes by the respect demanding “George W. Bush”, but that alone wasn’t enough to win him any respect.  History shows that when people need help with their health problems, they cease to care if the person is referred to as Mike or Moss, as ‘Witch’ or even “Leonard Singh III, esq., Proctologist, PhD, DDT”  Just as it should be.

“2. Anti-establishment appearance/association: fits in at a rainbow gathering.”

That’s far too simplistic.  Not all anti-establishment types fit into Rainbow Gatherings, witness the radical Quakers with their archaic bonnets and men’s suspenders, the Michigan Militia and Wyoming Freemen in their cowboy boots and surplus camo fatigues, pissed off college professors wearing knitted vests that would have any Rainbow chuckling!  What is there to be preferred in pro-establishment business suits, blue collared polyester work shirts or corporate-logo baseball caps?  And what value would there be in dressing like everyone else, unless we were in a military uniform or 1950’s doo-wop band?  Most importantly, herbalists and village healers have never fully fit into or been embraced by the status quo.  As with shamans and medicine men, in earliest times the herb-wielding healer was often thought of as divinely mad or dangerously possessed, an affiliate of the unknown, agents of inexplicable powers who were sought out and rewarded when there was a personal or group needed but perhaps kept at a distance between.  As the language of science increasingly replaced that of magic, being conventional looking didn’t keep herbalists from being sidelined, trivialized and slandered.  Mr. Kane is and always will be an alternative practitioner, working outside of the accepted forms an protocols of the drug pushing, high-tech, high dollar medical industry.  He is as fringe as the jacket on David Hopper’s character in the cult film ‘Easy Rider’, if as uncomfortable with the fact as the beer chugging Jack Nicholson was in that same movie.

Herbal enthusiasts and healers are the alternative because we think outside of their box and hopefully outside of our own, because we look to nature for the knowledge, resources and examples we need, because we may see healing as a return to wholeness and vitality rather than a quick fix, as the treatment of causes and imbalances rather than the suppression of symptoms, with a goal not of living longer so much as living more authentic, healthy, vital, rich, meaningful, and purpose-full lives.  And we are alternative because we do not base our value on degrees or the letters after our names so much as on what we know, how willing we are to learn, and how effective we are in our practice.  Because we possibly do not require the approval of any segment of society, official or not, to believe in ourselves and our growing abilities, to act on what we know and assume a responsible role.

“3. Social orientation: anti-individual, group or collective oriented.”

No one is more of an individualist than myself, and I have always paid a high cost because of that.  I grew up individuating myself even if it took me rejecting ideas and ways of being that I’ve since found valuable.  While I teach groups of hundreds, I tend to quickly grow restless in a crowd larger than three!  And yet, we would at best be herb takers and not herbalists, if we only treated ourselves.  By its very definition, healing is other-oriented, a service to our collective kind whether that be an ecosystem, a community, a neighborhood or simply our own family.

“4. Politics: radical left, green socialism.”

There is predictably a majority of Progressives in the herbalism field, just as most environmental activists are Caucasian.  That is not an indictment of either herbalism or ecoactivism, however, but a questioning of and call for more diverse participation, for greater black and asian involvement in ecosystem restoration… with Republicans considering the treatment of more than their own cirrhosis, and contributing to the balance of more than their allopathic specialists’ bank accounts.

“5. ‘Spirituality’: gaia, plant spirit medicine, animism, Buddhism, or the “pick what feels good” self-styled path; anything non Judeo-Christian.”

I recognize that a certain shallow New Age, style oriented approach to herbalism has hurt the credibility and slowed the revival of herbalism in general, but not nearly so much as the slanderous statements released in industry and regulatory agency papers, nor any more than an internecine post such as Kane’s.

An understanding of the earth as a living totality whose health we depend on, can be found in nearly every religious tradition.  Recognition of a spirit or force in plants was characteristic of Christian mystics as well as Gnostics and alchemists, and new science is affording us a model and vocabulary for natural forces and healing processes are still nothing less than magical in their ways and ramifications.  How referencing the Greek word for Mother Earth – ‘Gaia’ – could discredit nature-inspired herbalism is beyond me, and it concerns me to imagine having a preponderance of Judeo-Christian practitioners could ensure the acceptance of and respect for the field of herbalism, when we should insist on being measured by intent and accomplishment, rather then prejudged and pre-approved due to any personal spiritual or philosophic bent.

“6. Modality crisis: embracing TCM, Ayurveda, Unani, or any other foreign system with the thought that they are more enlightened than western approaches, or equally common, the smorgasbord approach: cherry picking from an array of cultural approaches, ending up with a big pile of muddle.”

Eclecticism is indeed a pitfall on the path, leading us to select only what we like or find easy about an approach instead of facing the aspects that are more discomforting or challenging, creating a self-satisfying hybrid without the backbone of tradition, the test of experience, or the benefit of focus and devotion.  Still, even Mr. Kane’s system of Western Herbalism is a conglomerate, drawing from mix of different people’s ideas and approaches, an amalgam even if he were to try to resist all change and influence, and an evolving body of knowledge if not.  The Western world adopted the plants and adapted the healing techniques of the East, Greece was the meeting point of the two.  Roman medicine was highly informed by what they learned from North African healers.

“The catch-22 is when an individual matures to the point of dropping this exterior, moving on to adult life, herbal interest often gets dropped as well: this occurs to most in the field between the ages of 25 to 35. The ones that stay are often in a state of arrested development (75% of ‘older’ herbalists are still children).”

Actually, Mr. Kane is at least as concerned with exterior appearance as any cloak conscious pagan herbalist, and perhaps more so since he deemed it a topic worthy of writing an article.  His entire piece is given to describing how important he finds conventional appearance in the search for personal acceptance and professional credibility.  It matters a lot to him that he not look like a hippie, Democrat, Moslem or Mexican, nor be confused with flower-sniffing, plant communing herbalists whose look he believes undermine the practice.

But yes, most herbalists, plant lovers and nature nuts that I know are still childlike, stopping the most adult activities at the sight of an unnamed plant at the side of the road or trail, grinning and hopping up and down when they finally key it out, anxious to make others feel better, crestfallen when unable to do so.  The are delightfully free of the fear of being seen in public adoring another life form, free of concern over getting their knees dirty when a fragile sprout or shiny bug calls for close attention, inclined to act on their impulses and convictions, likely to foolishly but wondrously work to heed an inner calling or fulfill their dreams.

People trapped in what Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) might call premature adulthood, are stuck  with concealing their excitement over even the rarest of plants under a veneer of machismo or maturity, and worry needless if someone is watching when it comes time to crawl around for skullcap or jump into a swimming hole.

“If you look like you just steeped off the bus from the local primitive skills gathering, you will raise doubts in the minds of the people you are treating. I can’t tell you the number of times I have been thanked by patients, who appreciate my normality within an otherwise freak-show field.”

Looking like what the average, normal person considers to be a freak can be counterproductive if you want to be able to treat folks of all kinds, from all walks of life.  On the other hand, there is nothing about a conservative’s crew cut or doctor’s starched white doctor’s coat that universally communicates wisdom, let alone accessibility, a capacity for empathy, deep concern or human warmth.  And by being comfortable with their selves, their bodies, mortal processes and physical looks, healers help their clients to do the same.

Normal is too often the refuge of the fearful and average, the self doubting and those who are scarily well adjusted to situations and environments they should naturally be finding intolerable and unacceptable.  It is normal to obey every new law that is passed no matter how unconstitutional or intrusive, to pay thousands of dollars for health insurance without spending anything to learn how to care for ourselves and our loved ones or tend even the most simple to treat family ailments, to take steroids for allergies and antibiotics for nearly everything else.  It’s all too normal for practiced nurses to defer to book learned doctors, for health practitioners to ignore their instincts and observations and blindly employ the pharmaceutical-centric approach, and for herbalist to worry they can’t do any good unless they are certified and have an office.

What’s not normal, Charlie W. Kane, is someone like yourself caring so much about plants and natural healing at the same time you’re so concerned about appearing normal.  Just a little bit freaky, you have to admit.

Friends and clients joined in celebrating the launch of herbalist Kiva Rose’s mobile Village-Herbalist Clinic at her office in Catron County, New Mexico, in a formalizing of her years of providing herbal health consultations to the residents of this singularly remote region of the American Southwest.

The Medicine Woman Mobile Clinic:
What it Means to Be a Village Herbalist

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.animacenter.org

Natural healing and self sufficiency can benefit anyone, no matter where we might live.  That said, self care and community health care are in some ways even more vital in rural areas than they are in cities, given the few regular medical services available and the many miles from town, farm or ranch to the nearest well equipped hospital.  Relative isolation requires increased self reliance, manifest from vehicle repair and garden skills to the ability to treat their family’s less serious conditions as well as provide first-aid in the case of an emergency.  And along with the need, also comes an unusual degree of receptivity to natural and so-called alternative healing methods, with folks inspired to avail themselves of the medicinal and edible plant varieties thriving all around them, predisposed against the excessive or automatic use of pharmaceuticals, resentful of what they view as an increasing expensive and depersonalized medical industry, distrustful of any kind of official certification, and characteristically leaning towards what they consider the deliberate gifts of nature and creator.

Such folks are not, at least out here in the West, the kind to readily ask for help or advice of any kind.  The knowledge that many of them have about local indigenous herbs is gathered not through visible study so much as taking in information without appearing to do so, watching what grandparents and neighbors use, and often surreptitiously testing it and proving its effects to themselves before allowing even silent witnesses to their methods.  Nor are they comfortable going into offices of any kind, whether a lawyer’s, banker’s, doctor’s or herbalist’s.  They may instead invite old fashioned house calls to a trusted practitioner, bringing out food and beverages while apologizing for the trouble and venturing to describe their symptoms or needs.  And often what they prefer is to wait until they run into the area’s curandera, “grannywoman” or village herbalist at a local event, in front of the gas station or in the aisles of the country store.  The most effective healers solicit health information in a relaxed manner such as one discusses the best feed for a fair-bound lamb, and emphasizes the many entirely practical reasons they might have to make the necessary effort to heal, tend and nourish their bodies.  Any tinctures or other preparations are offered the way one offers a present, too imbued with their sincere concern and obvious effort for anyone to ever turn them down.  And even if there is a set value for the medicine, the healer accepts payment as though it were a personal gift and acknowledgment of much appreciated help.

Rather than depending on bumping into her many local clients, my partner Kiva is now seeing them primarily by advance appointment.  The sign I drew for her Medicine Woman mobile clinic rests in a portable iron base, so that it can rolled out and set up in front of outdoor tables at our friend’s local café, or announce her location anywhere she ever feels like setting up.  One advantage that the unincorporated practitioner has is that she or he can advise clients wherever she is most needed or most wants to be, whether that be the herbalist’s own home, or a park or camping area with a backdrop of greenery or creek.  If having a permanent office building seems to say “stable”, “credible” or “official”, a partly mobile practice communicates a sense of the “adaptive”, “personal”… and “traditional”.

Local clients email or call Kiva’s voicemail to arrange for their appointment, and she gets back to them as soon as she can.  Given that we live 7 river crossings from not only pavement but cellphone reception or available land lines, this means a message recorded on the same iPod that holds her ever-present progressive Americana recordings, downloaded through our solar powered satellite connection whenever she is home, and replied to on her twice weekly trips to town.

With its scarce few hundred residents, however, it not so much a town but as a “village”, as the highway department makes clear with the signs posted on either side, a modern village with a common need, calling for a both uncommon and old-timey approach.  Herein exists the classic province of the democratized, self empowered healer.  It is places similar to this all over the world, where one comes to know not only the names but the histories and lifestyle habits of those whom we seek to assist.  The expect of us not “cures” but insights, tools and aids, an opportunity and means to regain balance and wholeness, the knowledge and help of the beneficial plants growing in the nearest mountains and deserts, in their backyard gardens and wily weed patches, and laced through the wild unkempt edges of neighborhood streets.

-Jesse Wolf Hardin

—————

(for information on Village Herbalism, The Medicine Woman Tradition and Kiva’s  Online Herbal Foundations Courses, go to:

www.AnimaCenter.org and www.AnimaHealingArts.org)

This is my partner, Jesse Wolf Hardin’s most recent piece concerning healing and the plants, and I thought my blog readers would enjoy and benefit from his experience-driven insights and understandings. They originate from his many decades of intensive land restoration here at the Animá Botanical Sanctuary as well as his groundbreaking work as an ecologist and activist.

As a brief addition, I would also like to say that invasive species are much more likely to take hold in an ecosystem already damaged by so-called development, the introduction of agriculture and resultant loss of key species within the plant community. And in fact, many (but not all) invasive species can play an important part in restoring  wounded, soil-stripped ground. Certainly many of our most prevalent and valuable healing herbs are weeds and sometimes even invasive, but their value to us humans is not what determines their place or value within the ecosystem. There is a tricky and delicate balance in the work of restoring and healing what our species has hurt, and discernment and sensitivity is called for at all times.

Thank you for reading, and for caring so much about the land we all grow from and for our precious plant allies.

~Kiva

The Care-Taker of Plants:

Invasive Species, Natives, Healing & Wholeness

By Jesse Wolf Hardin

Some of my fondest early memories involve the front yard gardens that my loving father tended, celebrations of diverse life amidst the environs of predictable suburbia.  I don’t recall any happy-topped carrots or plots of echinacea or sage, nothing that might typically fill one’s belly or remedy what ails them, naught but precious nourishment for the beholder’s eye and the grateful gardener’s heart and soul.  In the most creative enterprise I ever saw this kind but largely unexpressed man commit to, what my father mostly gardened was color.  A host of reds from ruddy to brilliant predominated in one bed, while the hedges and flower rows along the sides of the house featured variations on pearl and ivory, lavender and fuchsia.  Different plants blossomed at different times of the year, so that with careful planning and staggered planting there never had to be a week in warm California without a display of floral brilliance.

And Papa gardened for shapes as well, stars and ovals, trumpets and bells, lily sheaths and the sensuous folds of the roses running up the wood fence next to the sidewalk.  A few he picked out for their folk meaning in one historic culture or another, a species to stir up happiness, and another for longevity.  Acacia to symbolize elegance, Fern for valued sincerity, White Poppy to possibly stir my mother’s dormant wifely affections.  Periwinkles and Immortals for sweet and unfading remembrance.  Pansies were always included because they were my deceased Grandmother’s favorites, with us hoping she could still see our love in their persistent blooms.  Other kinds he selected and tenderly planted for no other reason than his swelling affection for the sound of their popular names, such as Baby’s Breath, Breath of Heaven and Bells of Ireland.  Star of Bethlehem, Sweet William, and let’s never forget the Forget-Me-Nots.  All took a substantial amount of his time, quietly watering each plant with a hose when the sprinklers would have just as easily reached, mumbling to either them or himself while weeding on aging knees.  Though usually a renter wherever we were, he would make each place his own through the breaking of earth of planting of seeds, a caretaker in the original sense of the word, known not through his words but his deeds.

I too have always considered myself a caretaker.  Even though we own the Animá sanctuary property where our school is based and I had to work hard for decades to pay for it, we still consider ourselves not so much as proprietors as responsible servants and full partners of this rewilding land, with an investment and stake in its lasting health and wholeness.  And even though we have made the land’s ecological restoration a top priority, we still never think of ourselves as “good shepherds” making omnipotent managerial decisions for the perceived benefit of creation, but rather as attentive and proactive “caretakers” both witnessing and buttressing the needs of other life forms here, of creatures and places with their own membership and calling, their own sense of purpose and direction.  This taking care includes taking lightly from the land, and never taking any aspect, challenge or gift for granted.  And making efforts to help assure a place’s health.  The caretakers’ role is at once custodial, ritual and medicinal, tending to the energetic as well as practical well-being of this living earth, healing as well as nurturing and furthering.

A healer of any kind will sometimes have to assertively intervene in order to save a patient’s life, but more often we are called to work in intimate partnership with the subject/patient to create the conditions for balance and contribute to wholeness.  So it is with caretaking the land, with us occasionally called upon to act assertively and other times to step back and allow some natural process take its course.  The intuitive knowledge of when or when not to interfere requires an intense period of familiarizing oneself with the biological/ecological makeup, the natural and human history, special energies and certain character, particular needs and proclivities of one’s place.  Rightful decisions that can positively effect future generations of humans and non humans alike, begin with deeply listening without imposing imagined forms and anthropocentric projections.  When choosing a species to introduce or minimize, just as when deciding on a more healthful way of living and being, we do our best by employing whole-body cognition, educated analysis in synch with sensory appraisal and honest creature intuition.

Our story here is a case in point, with our mixed experience revegetating this canyon and bringing back long missing native species.  Of these the willow was one of the first to make a comeback, sprouting waist high as soon as I began herding cattle off the land, and becoming a 20’ high thicket once the four strand fence went up.  Stalks chewed down to the ground had somehow continued to draw enough nourishment through an extensive and undamaged root system, propelling new growth skyward the first full season free of predation.  To hasten their comeback and to fortify the bare riverbanks against seasonal floods, we carefully cut branches from the established trees and stuck them at intervals to take off in the damp soil.  Wildflower seeds from the year before are planted by poking a hole in the ground with a stick, barely bending over to drop two kernels in each waiting womb.  While not quite the same pleasure as a garden, these trustees require no watering, weeding or battling with insects.  Success in the reintroduction of natives is a result of protection from forces outside the ecosystem, but also a species’ built-in relationship with their home environment, in balance with that which they feed on and that which feeds on them.

The hardest part may have been figuring out which species belong and which are destructive or over competitive invaders.  Some of the exotics came across the Bering Straits, with the first human arrivals to the Americas.  Domestic dogs carried their primitive packs, and Asian seed stock caught rides in the fur gaiters around their legs and the capes that hung from their backs.  Mullein, with its soft, fuzzy leaves, seems like a benign though not indigenous presence.  Others, like Horehound and the Tamarisk tree quickly dominate some riparian area they sail into, colonizing foreign soils, choking the life out of the native population.  Like Columbus and Cortez, these botanical opportunists are adept at making the transition from guest to master without the natural controls common to their countries of origin.
Some more mundane intruders like the Tamarisk (European Salt Cedar) pose no great threat to their home turfs, but once released into North America they develop a biological hegemony in the riparian areas, to the point where it’s the only remaining tree along many of the rivers of the Southwest.  Worse still, they are both fast growing and herbicide resistant, and they release a shower of mineral salts that make the soil inhospitable to any other plant’s shoots.  Unchecked, they soon smother the native Willows and immature Cottonwoods, filling the ravines and river bottoms with their billowing pink blossoms.  There were none at all in this rivershed when I first moved there, but now they’re beginning to crop up among the Beeweed.  Gorgeous blossoms, I should say, but we are easily jerked back to reality if we recall the Rio Grande River system clogged by a single-species forest, a vast monoculture, a jungle of nothing but Tamarisk.  Too many of the same kind of flower, too much of the same uniform color, in a veritable holocaust of beauty.

For months we struggled with what to do, until some of the slender trees were well over our heads.  We wondered if it wasn’t enough that there was anything at all growing, after so many generations of grazing and die-back.  And besides, we wondered, don’t all plants – like all people – have often undocumented immigrants for ancestors, and thus as much right to flourish in new places as they?  When we finally went down to dig these known invasives up, they still felt as smooth and anima-filled as any creature, as vulnerable in the face of our attack as other plants were in the face of the Tamarisk’s own territorial campaigns.

Just as bad for the Sanctuary was the Horehound incursion, seeds hitchhiking up onto the mesa stuck to our socks, moving through the rest of the county in the tails of horses and the alfalfa hay they eat.  It looks so lovely at first, in patches of short ground-cover that smell sweetly when walked upon, pungent leaves perfect for brewing up a batch of old-fashioned herbal cough drops.  It isn’t long however, before they form a solid crusty plane of yard-high vegetation too thick to walk through.  Where the ground around our cabin and below the cliffs were once graced by Mariposa Lily and Banana Yucca, soon there was only Horehound.  Prickly Poppy and Evening Primrose, Nettle and Mallow, Cushion Cactus and Tahoka Daisy were being pushed out of their own neighborhoods, denied access to soil and sun in a hostile takeover bid.  We felt we had no choice but to respond in defense of biological diversity, accepting the hands-on responsibility of removing them one plant at a time, while empathizing with the pain of being ripped up by the roots.

In the Southeast, a primary botanical imbalance can be brought about by the prodigious  Kudzu, imported as feed for livestock and erosion control, quickly escaped domesticity and is fast becoming not only the dominant species but in the some areas nearly the only one, outcompeting all other plants and growing at a rate of nearly a foot per day, clambering up and eventually choking standing trees.  Even the most ardent lover of such  medicinal and ornamental vines must recoil – and hopefully reconsider their principle of non-judgement and noninterference – in the face of such lamentable destruction of existing plant communities.

Like most of our allies and friends, we find the whole concept of “environmental restoration” a touchy one.  As obviously and totally beneficial at it can be to rebuild salmon streams or replant clearcut hills, the very notion of restoration implies that humans know what’s best, and are willing to “play God” over the rest of creation — something that our species has shown scant capacity for.  And all natural lifeforms have an intrinsic integrity if not aesthetic appeal that deserves honoring and taking into account, including the most troublesome, thorny, stinging, sticker-studded, inedible and unpleasant to one’s eye, and regardless of whether it has any potential medicinal or other human use.  On the other hand, we have affected the world around us for as long as we have been here, and it is perhaps only by taking responsibility for that role can we mitigate any disruption we cause.  We believe that the dedicated caretaker must be prepared to do whatever is called for, since like it or not, we’re accountable not only for our actions but also for the results of what we for whatever reasons refuse to do… response-able for any herbs gathered or driven to extinction, but also for whatever protective steps we failed to take, the land we never secured, and those vital seeds unplanted.

It’s essential that we develop the wisdom, capacity and willingness to make the truly difficult decisions, the hard-edged choices upon which so much hinges.  As with the Horehound of Animá Sanctuary, one must decide both what to incorporate and what to constrain, exclude or mitigate… and this applies to more than just plants.  Many of the things that we own and pay on may be counterproductive to a life in harmony with nature and our own natural cycles.  Some of what we do may be taking us away from our path, distracting us from the richness of the moment and pressing us into a virtual rather than vital reality.  A few of the people we care about in life may nevertheless prove to be a handicap to our focused purpose, practice or growth.  In all cases, what is needed is an ever increasing ability and willingness to discern.  Not to be confused with prejudice, discernment is seeing all sides of all things to the best of our skill, and how all relevant things fit, work together and affect each other.

As awakened co-creators of our world and our reality, we should neither dismiss our individual imprint on the planet and its human and natural communities, nor take lightly our capacity to either increase or limit diversity, to destroy or degrade, to encourage or to save.  No textbook can define the parameters or establish the criteria for our sometimes painful right action.  We can only discern what is best or most natural through increased intimacy with wild creation, and through increased familiarity with our own authentic and intuitive natures.  Such is the unending work of the activist, ecological restorationist and permaculturist, artist and celebrant, gardener and herbal wildcrafter, of all caretakers of plants and our hopefully planted selves.

Do take care.

~~~

All photos (c) 2010 Kiva Rose

~~~

I hope you enjoy this very timely piece on authority, regulation and certification by my partner Jesse Wolf Hardin. This applies to every aspect of our lives, but is perhaps especially applicable to lay herbalists and other folk tradition based healers at this moment in time. -Kiva

Because It’s Good For You:
Insurgent Thoughts On Authority, Certification & Law

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

My advice is not to trust all authority, but to find the authority in ourselves
to know who and what to trust!

“Because I told you so!” was the answer I often got as a youngster, when – from parents and teachers alike – I’d routinely ask the reasons for what it was I was being told to do.  If the adults in charge had simply explained the reasoning behind the order, custom, protocol,  tradition or rule, there’s a chance I would have a considered it the beneficial and honorable thing to do.  But telling me “because I told you so” is like saying “because I’m bigger than you,” “older than you,” “better connected than you,” or “better armed than you.”  This is the limited reasoning and self justification of bullies, whether it be an expansionist empire or playground antagonists.  Having such advantages might mean that they can make us do something, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to force us to bend or conform, nor does it mean that the ways they want us to behave are necessarily good or just for us, the human spirit, the things we cherish or the larger world.  I wouldn’t buy it back then, I’m not buying it now.  I would have much preferred the exhortations of the wise and caring mother, the caretaker, the healer: “Because it’s good for you!”  And even then, I would have wanted to know exactly why, how, and under what circumstances and amounts any medicine or course of action might be best for me.

I was willing to heed, but not heel.  And what I most readily heeded was counsel and direction from people who clearly knew more than me, who were more experienced and appeared to have grown or learned something from their experiences, who acted out of a deep sense of caring and strong set of principles, with allegiance to truth and to justice.  As a teen runaway, I took advice from old bikers on which year Harley-Davidsons had the coolest ride, and I had no objection to coming to a stop when ordered to by a life-saving traffic cop.  I kept the counsel of well meaning hobos who had “been around the block,” trading normalcy and security for a life of minor privation and immense freedom.  I took to heart the lecture of a drawling rural Sheriff who kindly counseled me not to do stupid illegal things I didn’t even believe in, and from a confirmed outlaw who talked about it being just as important to break those laws that we know to be “wrong-headed” or unconstitutional.

That I could respect and listen to individuals on both sides of the law, is an indication of how little significance I placed on costume and insignia.  Then as now, I couldn’t understand the military expression “salute the uniform, not the man.”  A person who was worthy of being respected, listened to and followed seems just as worthy to me whether out of uniform, off duty, retired or fired!   Conversely, those unwise or unworthy in character remain ignorant and unworthy regardless of what official clothing they might don, or what agency or administration finances and directs them.  And just because something is either mandated or banned in one of the hundreds of thousands of laws that govern every aspect of our civilized lives, doesn’t make it right… nor make it honorable for us to obey.

Authority is simply not something that a government or agency can give someone.  Genuine authority cannot be “vested” as they say, it can only be earned.  And because it has to be earned, it can also be undermined through unfair application, squandered away on superfluous regulation, and overturned if based on or upheld by false premise and manipulative lies.  It’s not authority without the weight of truth, it is only base imposition and oppression.  And the problem with exercising power over someone or something, is that it only works so long as enough pressure can be put on.  Somewhere, sooner or later there is a break, a lapse or loophole through which not only truth and liberty but all kinds of trouble can arise.  The wife-abuser is only really in control until he falls asleep, as a number of angry men have found out to their horror.  The schoolyard bully can hold you down with a head-lock for only just so long, the second he stops to rest there’s nothing except possibly fear or self doubt to prevent you from retaliating or remedying.

If there is authority in a truth, standard or directive, it retains its influence without mandates, manipulation and control.  It rings true when we are alone and our acts unwitnessed, as surely as when we are being closely monitored or working under the gun.  When such is the case, we do not need the force of law to rein in our actions nor compel us to act.  As herbalists, it isn’t certification that determines how effective we are, it’s our actions, means and results, and government inspection of plant medicines will never be the reason why we seek to use the finest quality and teach the safest methods and amounts.

We’re unlikely to ravage and steal even though no one is watching and there may be no price to be paid, if we feel deeply that rape or theft are wrong.  And hopefully, we don’t obediently toe the line, surrender our rights and liberties, compromise our beliefs and march to the orders of the established powers… just because they happen to control the military and the most awesome weapons ever developed, will soon have video surveillance cameras on every street corner, have planted informants among every activist group and provocateurs in every citizen militia, wield a court system that functions to protect the elite and punish the independent, can count on the connivance of “new world order” strategists and the support of multinational financiers, and have made the building of new jails and penitentiaries the fasting growing industry in America.  I agree with the prickly ex-Colonel in the movie Legends of the Fall, and his feelings regarding this nation’s ruling administration and its morally compromised minions: “Screw ‘em,” he said in a voice slurred by a powerful but obviously not debilitating stroke. “Screw ’em!”

The origin of the word “authority” is from the Latin auctoritas, from the word auctor which means both “originator” and “promoter.”  Our authority is our ability to affect and influence, as parents and teachers, craftspeople and gardeners, artists and healers.  It is a result of what we put forward and promote, and as such, it can only originate with us.

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(Share and post liberally.  To learn more, go to the Writings and Correspondence Course pages of the Animá School website at: www.animacenter.org)