It’s important that Plant Healer Magazine not have so many columnists that room runs out for contributions from others.  Last time we announced the addition of quarterly contributions from Susun Weed… and this round, we found we couldn’t resist adding just one final column:

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Mountain Medicine: Traditional Healing Folkways

by Phyllis Light

Phyllis D. Light (http://phyllisdlight.com) is one of the foremost repositories and champions of both traditional Southern Appalachian herbalism and folk herbalism in general.  We are so happy to have her insightful and personable articles every issue, covering everything from plant profiles and medicine making to childhood tales and poignant history, case studies and thoughtful ruminations, the practices that grew out of her wooded Southeastern mountains and hollers, and valuable and endangered plant-medicine traditions from all parts of this country and beyond.

What a pleasure it was for Kiva and I to meet Phyllis in person at last year’s Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference, and to look forward to having her there to teach again this September. She is discerning and opinionated while still being warm, accessible, humorous, unpretentious and seemingly free of entitlement… in every sense, what we would call “down to earth!”.  Below is an excerpt from an interview we did with her Fall of 2011, one that you’ll likely find informative and inspiring whether you happen to be an herbalist or not.  To read the entire 8,000 word conversation, including Phyllis’ detailed description of Southern and Appalachian Folk Medicine blood typing, please see the Winter Issue of Plant Healer Magazine, available by going to the Plant Healer site:
PlantHealerMagazine.com

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Plant Healer Interview:

PHYLLIS LIGHT

SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN HERBALIST

In dialog with Jesse Wolf Hardin

Plant Healer Magazine: Thank you, Phyllis, for taking time for this conversation.  We honored to have this opportunity to talk more with and about you, and to hear your heart and mind on topics you might not otherwise have cause to address.  Let’s start at the beginning if you please – what do you remember as your first deep connection with the natural world?  When did you begin acknowledging nature as a teacher?

Phyllis Light: My first deep connection with plants came when I was about five or so. I was too young to help pick cotton so my mother let me run around the field and play hide and seek with the kids of the other field hands. There was a strip of grassy meadow land between the cotton field and the woods filled with sedge grass, golden rod, asters and passionflower and it was here that I hid. If you lay flat in a field of sedge grass no one can see you and there isn’t any apparent ripple in the flow of the grass to give you away. I hid very well and no one found me and the next thing I knew, the other kids had left and I was left alone. At first, I was a little scared, it was such a big cotton field and there were no adults in sight. It was a vast land of cotton rows and emptiness. I could hear the wind through the trees, the buzz of insects but nothing else. It was eerily quiet.

I didn’t know what to do, I felt very alone, very small and just a little afraid. So I just lay in the sedge grass and stared at the leaves on the trees, all moving together in the wind. I watched the clouds moving across the sky. I listened to the sound of the grasshoppers jumping among the grass stalks. I don’t know how long I lay there, not moving, just being. I wasn’t scared any longer, or upset. Just quiet and a little subdued. I had become part of the land, the cotton rows, the meadow and the woods. We were the same.

I didn’t move until Momma came looking for me and then I leaned over and pulled a ripe maypop (passionflower) and ate it as we walked back to where she had left her pick sack.

I can’t remember a time when Nature wasn’t a companion, a friend, benefactor or teacher and sometimes, an enemy. Nature can be loving and generous and it can be hard and cruel. I grew up well aware of the dual aspect of the natural world taught in early lessons of survival. If there was no rain, the crops didn’t grow and we didn’t have anything to eat. If the wind blew too hard, the corn stalks lay on the ground. If it rained too much at the wrong time of year, there would be no cotton crop. If we were in the path of a tornado, we could be homeless or dead. And then there are those wondrous days, when the sun is shining, the wind is gentle and the temperature mild. All of creation responds to those days.
We lived in flow with the seasons; the sun and the moon and the natural rhythms guided our lives. We followed the growth cycles of the plant world keeping track of the abundance or lack of wild plants for wildcrafting. Some years were ginseng years when the digging was good. Some years were pink root years when the digging was good. My grandparents chronicled their life history with stories about senging, herb digs and natural phenomenon.

When you live with the flow of seasons, Nature is a constant companion. A lover, a mistress, a child or a relative. You are not separate.  I have never considered myself separate from Nature; we are part and parcel.

Plant Healer Magazine: Was your love of nature and plants the bridge to doing healing work with herbs?  What other vision, insight or events might have led to your giving your life so fully to this work?

Light: My love of Nature wasn’t what called me to healing work. My love of Nature is a solid force, a constant influence in my life, and it would be a part of me regardless of my profession. As a child, I knew that I would help people when I grew up but I wasn’t sure how. Using herbs was just a natural extension of my early training and that belief. My grandmother taught me, my grandfather taught me, and  my father taught me. In a way, it was the family business.

Over the years, I’ve used many different tools to help people; herbs, bodywork, psychology, energy, nutrition, metaphysics, prayer, or whatever works. I will use whatever is available, on-hand, or needed to help someone.

I’ve been seeing people since I was about 19. In the beginning it was a more casual arrangement. People didn’t make an appointment, they just dropped by and Sunday afternoons after church was especially busy. At that time, being an herbalist was a lot like being a lay preacher. You didn’t get paid. It was your gift and your calling and it should be freely given. But one event sent a clear message that it was time to change the way I did practice.

I was a single parent going through a divorce. Life was tough with four kids and not much money. I had been feeling really depressed for several weeks wondering how I was going to make ends meet. One early morning I went to the grocery store dressed rather raggedly and looking a little unkempt. I was slowly pushing my cart up and down the grocery aisle wondering what to buy when I passed a woman dressed rather like the Amish, in a long dress, with long sleeves and bonnet.

I paid for my few purchases and went home. As I was unloading the car the same woman pulled into the driveway. She came to me and held out her hand. I held out my hand in return and she put a wad of money in it. “God told me that you are doing good work. And we’ve a little extra money this month.” That’s all she said and before I could even say thank you, she had turned and gone. I was totally flabbergasted; it was enough money to make it through the month. After that event, I suddenly had a full-time herbal practice. But how I came to charge people is another story.

There was a camp revival meeting in an empty field not far from my house. About mid-afternoon, three women appeared at my door looking for the herbalist’s house. When I told them they had the right house all three wanted appointments. After their appointments were finished, one of the women asked how much they owed. I told them nothing, no charge. Another of the women asked me to pray with them and they all stood up and we circled. After the prayer, the third woman said that God told her that I should charge $25.00 for each appointment and open a big office to see folks. They went back to the tent revival and told everyone about me and for the next few days, I was deluged with clients from the tent revival. When the revival was over, I drove to the closest large town, found an office and opened a practice. I was busy.

It seems I’ve always had guidance along the way.

Plant Healer Magazine: I consider strong sense of place essential for any life or purpose, committing to the land and its human and other-than-human cultures, and being accepted, informed and nourished by the land in turn.  What does it mean, to be a conscious inhabitant and member of the Southeastern mountain region?

Light: Wow… big question. Sometimes it’s really hard to maintain my equilibrium in the face of stripping mining, coal mining, clear-cutting, planes spraying cotton defoliate, polluted lakes and rivers and all the other ways that we humans have of defiling the very land that gives us life. In the South, there seems to be this love/hate relationship with the land. Folks truly, truly love their land even while they are strip mining it. They will tell you how much they love the mountain while they are clear-cutting it. I don’t understand the gestalt….. maybe it’s a cognitive disconnect, but folks here just won’t believe that what they do to the earth is reflected in their health. They also don’t believe that we can ever permanently damage the earth. And of course, there’s that whole Christian perspective of stewardship which is not defined well. For some, it gives them the right to rape and pillage the earth, for others, it is about conscious care-taking.

Sometimes, I just cry when I see what is being done to the land, the rape, the ravage, the need to squeeze every dime from every inch. I do what I can and over the years, I’ve worked with others who feel the same way.  Being conscious carries responsibility.

Plant Healer Magazine: You are known as a teacher of Appalachian Herbalism.  How would you define that term?

Light: Southern and Appalachian Herbalism, the traditional medicine of the lower Appalachian Mountains and the Lower South, developed from the folk medicines of the Native Americans, Europeans, West Africans and Celts. Its development resulted from the need of settlers to take care of themselves and their families in a new land filled with strange and wonderful plants and animals and new diseases. Southern and Appalachian Herbalism and Folk Medicine includes the use of plants, home remedies, foods, prayer, story-telling and psycho-spiritual rituals handed down by oral tradition within families and communities. Assessment techniques are based on physical observation, understanding the personality, and the Southern blood types, bitter, sweet, sour and salty. There are three main categories of illness: physical, psychological and spiritual (magical).

Plant Healer Magazine: What is the most common ailment or complaint you deal with?  Has this changed over the years?

Light: The most common ailments I’m seeing now is Chronic Fatigue due to viral overload, too much stress, gluten sensitivity, lack of rest and lack of good nutrition. It seems that chronic illnesses always come in batches. Last year it was hypothyroidism and the year before multiple sclerosis. Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Lyme disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome, mitral valve prolapse and digestive tract issues round out the problems I see most often.

Plant Healer Magazine: How much of a factor is lifestyle and environment, and to what degree can an herbalist even address these relevant or even central factors in client consultations?

Light: Lifestyle and environment are the primary factors in illness along with emotional strife and discord. My grandmother called all this “worriation” which says it all, the lack of being true to oneself. If we forget who we are, if we move away from our authentic selves, then we are more prone to illness. Herbs and other healing modalities can help us remember who we are, help us value ourselves again and restore self-esteem. Once self-esteem is restored, if our bodies have not reached the point of no return, then we can heal.

Herbs work on every level of our existence, physical, psychological and spiritual. In my tradition, for chronic illnesses, herbs were used to change attitude, restore vital energy and facilitate physical healing. When our self-esteem is low, when negative emotions are engaged, then vital energy plummets. Tommie often recommended a “swallow” of herbs in these situations; his version of drop doses. For acute illness, larger amounts of herbs are needed more often because  this could be life or death and we must respond appropriately. In Southern and Appalachian Folk Medicine there was always an action on the part of the client required in addition to herbs or other recommendations. The required action, usually a penance of some sort, engaged the client in their own process of healing and kept them engaged. I still use this technique but I call it homework instead.

Chronic illness is never without lifestyle, environmental, stress, or emotional influence and I do address this in sessions. As a healer, I believe this is totally appropriate. It’s often the emotions we bury that continue to facilitate chronic disease. They may not have caused the problem, but emotions hold the problem in place and cause stagnation in body and spirit. This stagnation then leaves us more susceptible to acute illness and infection. When our spirit, our personalities are low, then our immune system is low.

Plant Healer Magazine: Describe the system of therapeutics and diagnosis that you use.  To what degree does it derive from this continent?

Light: I use observational assessment techniques and constitutional analysis based on Southern and Appalachian blood types and personality profiles, the four elements and folk astrology. This is my primary technique. But I also use Western nail and hair assessment, Ayurvedish/Western tongue assessment and biomedical knowledge of disease. All this comes together to help me find the patterns of dysfunction inherent within the constitution and personality of the client. And I also read bloodwork.

Plant Healer Magazine: On another topic, what do you think are the biggest threats to herbalism in the world today, not only from outside, but from within?

Light: The pharmaceutical/medical industrial complex is high on my lists of threats to herbalism and natural healing techniques in general. Greed and the desire to increases the bottom line is all it takes to threaten the ability of folks to take care of themselves and their families. Tighter government regulation on herbal products is also an issue that we herbalists must maintain vigilance toward.

Herbalists tend to be a house divided: Those for licensure and those against. That division fairly prohibits any type of mass political action. This is both a strength and weakness. It keeps our profession viable, active and non-exclusive. But it also limits our political power.

Licensing herbalists emerges from time to time, but licensure is a state’s issue, not a federal one. Let’s keep herbs for the populace!

Plant Healer Magazine: What kinds of regulation might prove intolerable for you?  What is the responsibility of herbalists, when it comes to helping determine the direction of this field, creating useful forms and protocols, or resisting imposition and injustice?

Light: As herbalists, many of us are already practicing under the radar. It’s a balancing act trying to grow the profession while simultaneously not wanting to call too much attention to your practice. It seems to be the really successful herbalists with lots of clients that the authorities tend to watch or bust. It’s an odd thing: The better you are at your job as an herbalist, the more popular you become, the more likely to draw the attention of the authorities.

Herbalism, in the South, is considered a tradition and I’ve seen less hassling here than in other parts of the country. Actually I’ve never seen any herbalist hassled except Tommie who blatantly put on his salve label that it cured skin cancer. It was the feds that came knocking on his door about that, not the local authorities. And I must say, the woman sent out to Tommie’s place with a cease and desist order was really nice, non-threatening and totally reasonable. Tommie change his label and that finished that business, well almost. He hand-wrote a sign on plywood that basically said his salve would do what he said it would do.

There is also the belief that God gave us herbs for our health. Here, herbalism is a religious freedom. It is ours by right and gift and the Bible speaks clearly on that point and there is protection in that belief. It’s a different situation in the South for that reason than I’ve seen in other areas of the country.

Even when I worked in a medical clinic, I never introduced myself an anything but a folk herbalists. In the South, there is acknowledge respect for the profession. However, from my experience in the medical clinic, I now believe that herbalists who work in this arena need training above folk medicine. The number of pharmaceutical drugs grows every year and clinical herbalists (my definition) must be familiar with them.

While I don’t believe in licensing herbalists, I can see where educational standards for clinical herbalists might be appropriate. But that being said, we herbalists can even agree on the definition of what a clinical herbalist does.

Herbalist are independent, ornery, and filled with opinions. It’s hard to get us to agree on anything.

If I couldn’t grow or gather herbs that would be pretty intolerable.

Plant Healer Magazine: What responses or adaptations might we see in the future, what forms might herbalism take?

Light: Too many options to make a clear statement on this. I do see a revival in folk medicine for which I am thankful. Herbs are continued to be researched and this research is influencing how people do practice so I don’t see that changing. It will be fascinating to see what happens over the next 10 years.

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Plant Healer Magazine: What most pisses you off?

Light: I get really pissed off at injustice, brutality, and the strong taking advantage of the weak. I get really, really, really pissed off when people hurt or abuse children or animals. And I don’t care too much for lying either.

Plant Healer Magazine: What tickles you more than anything?

Light: I get tickled at people watching, getting to know someone, funny British comedies, and watching butterflies and birds.

Plant Healer Magazine: If you weren’t already giving all your time to herbalism, if your future were a blank slate, what else might you do with your life, what might you give to yourself?

Light: Hmm… that’s a tough one…. rock star, famous author, actress, warrior, magician, astronaut, … All my childhood fantasies.

Plant Healer Magazine: What are the most essential tips you might give to an herbalist, to make them more effective, or to help them deal with the challenges, politics and pressures they may face?

Light: Never lose faith in who you are or what you do.  Study with as many teachers as possible. Self-study continually.  Become an engaged member of your community.  Question authority when appropriate.  Maintain a connection to Nature and the plant world.  Find a good mentor and maintain that lifelong relationship.  Stretch your herbal boundaries.  Strive for excellence.

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See the Winter 2011/12 issue of Plant Healer Magazine for the complete interview with Phyllis Light.  You’ll need to be subscribed prior to March 1st when the Spring issue replaces it.  Go to: www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

To learn about studying with Phyllis, or to read some of her work, please go to: PhyllisDLight.com

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(Please RePost and Forward)

Growing At-Risk Medicinal Plants

Photos and Text by Juliet Blankespoor

Growing our own medicine creates an intimate connection with healing plants as we watch them emerge from the ground, and grow leaves, flowers, and fruits. I tend to be more curious about the plants around me, as I see, smell and feel them throughout the seasons. My curiosity inspires research, experimentation, medicine making, and therapeutic usage. Deep, long- lasting plant friendships are born from these interactions.

There are some important environmental reasons for cultivating rare native medicinals as well. We lose vast populations of our native flora, many of which are important medicinal plants, as our wild lands are converted to roads, development, lawns and agriculture. Cultivating shade-loving healing plants in existing woodlands takes the pressure off their small populations elsewhere, and reduces the demand for overharvested wild herbs. One of the biggest issues with habitat loss is the fragmentation of plant populations. Many of our native woodland plants produce ant-dispersed seeds: bloodroot, hepatica, trillium, bleeding heart, wild ginger, trout lily, and dutchman’s breeches are a few examples. As you can imagine, ants do not carry seeds as far as a bird or mammal can in its gastro-intestinal tract. Despite ants’ super-hero strength, ants cannot carry seeds across highways either. Thus, isolated populations of plants producing ant-dispersed seeds can remain isolated in the absence of a continuous forest. We are increasing local populations by planting native woodland herbs, which might otherwise have a hard time naturally expanding into our area.

The intact forest, with all of its useful gifts of lumber, food, fiber, bio-diversity, beauty, water retention, carbon- sequestering, hammock hanging, and wildlife habitat, is an additional advantage to woodland cultivation of native medicinal flora. None of these advantages are present in the current large-scale cultivation practices of growing shade-loving herbs in cleared farms in full sun, necessitating shade-cloth and a multitude of unsustainable inputs.

Finally, many of the woodland herbal medicines are easy to cultivate, as compared to our garden herbs. If sited correctly, they can generally fend for themselves after the first year or two and require little to no inputs. Following are some of the more common techniques employed in plant propagation; after a few times of practicing these skills, they become second nature and quite intuitive.

Germination Specifics

Germinating medicinal herb plants and natives requires more skill, attention, and patience than germinating vegetable plants. Following are some special treatments that herb seeds may need before they will germinate. Many of the following resources, especially Horizon Herbs and Prairie Moon, list the necessary seed treatments for each plant.

Stratification or Cold Conditioning – Many seeds have a built-in alarm clock that lets them know winter has passed and it is now spring, and safe to begin life. Stratification tricks seeds into thinking winter has passed by exposing them to an extended period of cold and moist conditions. My preference is to do this in a controlled manner in the safety of my own home inside a Ziploc bag (that’s a Virgo for you). Here’s how you trick those innocent seeds: Wet sand slightly so it’s visibly wet but no water comes out when squeezed. I recommend using “play sand” as it is fine, clean of organic matter (which may harbor fungal spores and seed-eating bacteria) and generally light in color (the better to see little seeds with, my dear). Place a very small amount of the wet sand (2-3 tablespoons) in a small Ziploc bag with the seeds. Label well, place in a paper bag to keep out the light, and store in the refrigerator for 3 weeks to 3 months depending on the species. If you’re not sure, try one month. You can plant the sand with the seed so there’s no need to pick out the individual seeds unless they are exceptionally large. Boneset, ginseng, blue vervain, butterfly weed, blue cohosh, black cohosh, bloodroot, goldenseal, trillium, wild yam, wild ginger, false unicorn root, culver’s root, mullein, skullcap, wormwood and Echinacea spp. are just a few of the herbs that need stratification to germinate well.

Light – Dependent Germination – Many seeds have formidable patience and can lay in the soil for decades, or even centuries, waiting for their break. Sunlight is the big break, and in a natural setting, it is brought about by wildfire, storm, or tree fall. The canopy opens up and the seed has a chance to find its own personal spot in paradise. You may sow these seeds directly onto the surface of the soil and very gently press them so they make contact with the soil. They then should be watered very gently by misting or bottom watering so they will not be washed off the surface of the soil. Many very small seeds are treated in the same manner, as they do not have the reserves to grow above a thick layer of soil. Angelica, bee balm, catnip, lobelia, lovage, mullein, Saint John’s wort and violet are just a few of the herbs that need sunlight to germinate.

Scarification – Many seeds have a thick impervious seed coat that must be nicked or cracked before the seed can germinate. You can rub the seeds between two pieces of sand paper until you see a little bit of the endosperm (embryo nutrient reserves, usually a lighter color and different texture than the seed coat). Sometimes this is done before stratifying seeds and sometimes at the time of sowing. Astragalus, wild indigo, hollyhock, licorice, marshmallow, passionflower, red root, and rue are some of the herbs that will germinate better with scarification.

Vegetative Forms of Propagation

Creating identical clones from parent plants by division, layering, and cuttings has several advantages and is often easier than germinating the seed. For starters, this is the primary way that cultivars (cultivated varieties) are propagated, as their unique qualities are not usually expressed in their seed-grown offspring. I can attest to this personally after trying to grow peppermint from seed and ending up with a mint mutt, which smelled more like pennyroyal than peppermint. Many herbs such as mints, specialty thymes, lavenders, white sage, goldenseal, blue cohosh, partridgeberry, and lemon verbena are generally propagated by the methods outlined below. Growing from cuttings often gives a bigger plant in a shorter amount of time than growing from seed. One disadvantage with vegetative propagation is that genetically identical plants do not have the resiliency found in the larger gene pool of sexually reproducing plants.

Division is the easiest form of vegetative propagation. It involves digging up and severing a portion of the root system of a plant, and replanting it. Depending on the plant species and age, one to twenty divisions may be made from one plant. In running plants, such as the mints, partridgeberry, gotu kola, jiaogulan (Gynostemma pentaphyllum), Mondarda spp., and Arnica chamissonis, one digs up the runners (stolons and rhizomes) and plants them in a new site or container. In clumping plants, such as elecampagne, valerian, Echinacea spp., motherwort, meadowsweet, boneset, comfrey, and culver’s root, one can thrust a shovel into the center of the clump and pry free the divisionling. I generally don’t have the heart for this method and prefer digging up the whole plant and getting a good look at its root system. I then divide the roots with a garden knife (hori-hori), shovel or pruners and replant each section in it’s new garden spot. Each section contains either buds (when the plant is dormant) or leaves and shoots if the plant is actively growing and green. Take care to plant your divisionlings with the buds pointing up. Depending on the season, species, size of division, expertise, loving care in the transition to plant independence (watering, soil, etc.) you might have 70-100% survival.

Root Cuttings involve digging up a rhizome and cutting off two to three inch sections with pruners. Ideally the rhizome section should include the rootlets (smaller, secondary roots) and a large bud or shoot. However, many plants will grow without a visible bud present on the cutting, comfrey being a prime example. Place the root cutting directly in the ground with the bud pointing upward, or in a container and keep well watered until you see the emerging shoot. Root cuttings have the advantage of growing faster than seed germinated plants, which sometimes take two to three years to germinate. Many woodland medicinals are cultivated commercially from root cuttings, rather than seed, for this reason. Some examples of plants propagated from root cuttings are calamus, blue cohosh, black cohosh, false uncorn, trillium, wild ginger, sweet fern, wild yam, Iris spp., bloodroot, sumac, sweet shrub, comfrey, spikenard, wild geranium, and goldenseal.

Stem Cuttings involve cutting the tips of growing twigs, either woody or tender new growth, and placing the stem into various types of growing media. The cuttings are then kept well watered, preferably in a high humidity environment, until roots form. The rooted cutting is then placed directly in the garden, or preferably grown on in a container until it is larger. Some plants readily root from cuttings; a few examples are lemon verbena, rosemary, lavender, white sage, pineapple sage, elderberry, figs, and most succulents. Many others are harder to prod into root growth, and it’s a race against time before rot or desiccation takes the cutting. Most commercial nurseries and home gardeners use synthetic rooting hormone dips or powders, which greatly enhance the success of cuttings “taking”. Willow bark extract is a natural alternative (see recipe below), as is seaweed extract, but I have to say in honesty that they are less effective than the synthetics. To make a softwood cutting, take the top two to four nodes (area where the stem and leaf join) of green growth, which is still pliable but not flimsy. Softwood cuttings are usually made in late spring/early summer. Remove the lower nodes’ leaves and if the remaining upper leaves are large, cut them in half. To make a hardwood cutting, take the upper three to four nodes of the currents years’ growth in late fall/early winter, after the first frost. Keep the hardwood cuttings in soil protected from freezing, and place in the shade. The choice of cutting type depends on the species; you will need to research the preferred method for the plant you want to propagate.

Place your cuttings in their growing medium very soon after preparing them. The cuttings can be placed in their medium in an open tray or wide pot in part sunlight. The sunlight encourages rooting but also contributes to water loss, which is often the demise of the cutting. The growing medium should be low in nitrogen, as nitrogen encourages green growth over root production. Wet sand, fine compacted perlite, and vermiculite are some common choices. For acid-loving plants, try one part peat moss and one part coarse perlite. For hardwood cuttings, mix together equal parts of peat, sand, and aged pine bark fines. Keep your cuttings moist and create extra humidity by frequent misting and placing a plastic bag or clear plastic container over the cuttings to keep in the moisture. When you tug gently on the cutting and you feel some resistance, check to see if roots have formed. If roots are present, transplant directly into the ground, or preferably into a good quality soil mix, where the cutting can grow bigger and stronger before it has to fend for itself.

Layering involves bending down the longer, flexible lateral branches of woody plants into the soil three inches deep. The branches are then staked in place, with the top of the stem above ground. Secure the stem in place with a piece of bent wire, rock or notched piece of wood. The aboveground part of the stem may need staking to keep it erect. The semi-buried stem is left in place for a couple of months to two years, depending on the species. Once roots have grown from the buried section of stem, the side-plant may be severed from the parent plant and moved to a new garden site. Layering is usually performed in the spring or summer. Some examples of plants propagated by layering are rosemary, sage, thyme, bay, Vitex, and cramp bark.

Willow Bark Extract contains a natural plant hormone called willow-rooting substance, which is a type of auxin. It can be used as a free natural substitute for commercial rooting powders, and is especially helpful for rooting softwood cuttings. Cut ten 2-3 ft. willow branches, preferably in the fall after the leaves have fallen and cut the branches into 2 in. lengths. Pour a gallon of water over them and let sit for 24 to 48 hours. Strain the willow soak water. Soak the lower stem portion of cuttings in this solution for 24 hours and then place them in their rooting medium. Any unused liquid can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a year. Some people use willow in a less exact fashion by soaking willow branches in water and using the soak water to water-in cuttings.

Resources:

Horizon Herbs: Largest collection of organically grown medicinal herb seeds and plants, with growers manual germination specifics.
Medicinal Herbs and Non-timber Forest Products
Prairie Moon Nursery: Seeds and plants of natives to the prairie and eastern states. Loads of germination info.
Richters: Huge selection of herb seeds and plants. Rare or hard to find herbs.
United Plant Savers: Plant enthusiasts committed to raising public awareness of the plight of our wild medicinal plants and to protecting these plants through organic cultivation, sustainable agricultural practices, and the replanting back into their natural habitats.

Juliet Blankespoor is the director and primary instructor at the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine, where she teaches botany, plant identification, human anatomy and physiology, and bioregional roots herbalism. Enraptured by the diversity and intricacies of the green world, Juliet received her B.S. in Botany and furthered her studies by completing over 1200 hours of herbal education. Being obsessed with plants, she has spent much of her adult life botanizing and wildcrafting in diverse settings throughout North America. She is also an avid edible and medicinal mushroom hunter. Her previous herbal business endeavors include an herbal tincture line, natural body care products and prepared wild foods. Her love of plants is also expressed through writing herbal articles and botanical photography. She believes that growing and gathering food and medicine is empowering, revolutionary, and highly entertaining.

(Excerpted from Plant Healer Magazine – Repost and Forward Freely)

THE WILD HERBALIST
Steps Towards a More Empowered, Intensely Effective & Satisfying Life & Practice

Class Notes by Jesse Wolf Hardin
All Photos ©2011 Kiva Rose

From the notes for The Wild Herbalist class being taught by Jesse Wolf at the upcoming TWH Conference
Saturday, Sept 17th – 2:50-4:50
To Register: www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

Envision a nature-informed, liberatory herbalism as wild and powerful, intimate and diverse, intuitive and sensorial, fresh and effective as the wild plants themselves… and as life changing as those particular plant allies that personally inspired most of us of to get into this study and practice in the first place.

“She always knew herself as wild.  As a little girl she smiled at things not one else seemed to see, and hid beneath the dining room table watching the adult’s feet move about like rabbits on an acrylic-pile meadow.  “Sometimes I wonder where you come from,” her Mother would say, holding her up with a combination of awe, fear and envy— but of course she came from here:  the Earth she could feel spinning about, with her its ever-delighted passenger!  She sensed that home was somehow the giving ground beneath the movements of her little girl dance, in lawns and parks and the strips between the sidewalk and  the street, and somewhere beyond all that she could see with her eyes alone,  in a place more “out” than anywhere else:  the dreamscape of her fairy tales, where wild things like her ran free” -JWH

The world is truly a wild  place.  Even now, enshrouded in a crust of asphalt and concrete, more and more of the largest predators driven from its face, its forests leveled for development.  The world is a wild place still, true to the process and essence of its own intrinsic, inherent nature— rhythmic patterns of impermanence and change mounting waves of their own fertile heat.  The birth and death of her varied parts are the flex and pause of Earthen heart muscle pumping new life through the arterial causeway of time.  The Earth is a wild, out of control, whole!  The ancient Greek named this wholeness “Gaia,” the daughter that emerges from chaos.  To the indigenous pagans of northern Europe, the living Earth was known as Nerthus, and when the image of the Goddess Earth was drawn being a sacred chariot joy and peace would follow.  By any name, this world is wild: willed, directed and empowered by its own inner nature rather than some outside force or idea.  And we too are wild originally.  We are, truly, deeply willed.  And willful.  For safety, certainty and comfort we may try to deny our wildness, sacrificing our will as we seek shelter in the tame.  Yet in spite of all the artifice and constraint we remain instinctual, dreaming beings who suffer in direct proportion to the suppression of our instincts and dreams.  We’re mirrors made of dancing flesh, interterrestrial sensors, activated nerve endings extending from the Gaian ganglion into the ever shifting universe of experience.  At our best we’re wild reflections of this greater whole, acting out our being, our gesture, our souls fee of the regulation and desensitization of the modernist paradigm.  At best we are true, willful and driven agents of healing – helping with the aid of our plant allies to heal our selves, each other, our community and our earth.  It is the real work, the great work, the work of being and doing, striving and celebrating.  It is at once the mission, and the reward.  Herbalists awakened!  Herbalists empowered!  Herbalists unplugged.  Unbowed.  Untamed.  Unleashed, and unchained!

Redefining “Wild”:
• How does society predominantly define the term “wild,” and why?
• How do YOU define the quality or condition of “wild”?
• Wild is being true to our own natures and needs, bodies and passions, callings and dreams
• Wild means willed

Wild (adj.) 1.  Occurring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated or tamed.  2. A natural, unrestrained life or state; Nature.

Wildness can be well described as a condition of oneness with our bodies, desires, needs, sensations, instincts, and dreams.  Wildness is oneness with the wild Earth, free of abstraction — where even turbulence manifests itself in purposeful patterns more akin to art than artifice.  The fear of sexuality, of mortality, of our natures and the natural world —  even the fear of illness and death is a fear of life.  The cure is in the reclamation of our wildness, a high-dive into the potent flux of natural forces, and the response-ability to act.

Think about the following, and the ways that these qualities, ways of perceiving and acting can be applied to your life and to your herbal practice

Qualities of wild:
• Alert and aware, deeply discerning
• Intense
• Embodying, growing and drawing from the essence, characteristics and capacities our true wild natures
• Drawing insight and nourishment from nature
• Adaptive but unmoldable
• Disciplined, but uncontrolled
• Sensitive to the state of health of others, sensitive to their emotions
• Acting out of instinct, rather to suit convention
• Making choices based on intuition as much as information
• Naturally assuming responsibility, but rejecting obligation
• Self empowered, and proactive
• Acting on behalf of some larger “self”, whether family, community or the natural world
• Doing what feels right, in the face of possible, known or predictable consequences
• Neither without doubt nor fearless, but resolute and determined in the face of threat and uncertainty
• Able to hear when called by some purpose, dream or mission, and apt to give it one’s all

Wild Perception:
• Wholly or largely inhabiting the present moment
• Wholly inhabiting one’s body
• Exceptional and ever deepening self awareness
• Deepened awareness of other people and lifeforms, and of what they’re experiencing
• Perceiving all things as relational and interconnected
• Able to see thing in patterns, and sense sequence, leading to often accurate prediction
• Heightened physical senses, attending to smells, tastes, sensations… reveling in the senses
• Well exercised intuitive or “6th” senses
• Sensing who and what people really are, beneath their practiced guises and projections
• Sensing what and how people are feeling, even when it’s counter to what they tell you or how they act
• Recognizing imbalances, perceiving possible adjustments, supplements or treatments
• Sensing how every act is consequential, every moment decisive

Reclaiming Our Wildness

Defining Feral:
Feral and Fabulous – The process of coming back to our true natures

ReWilding Our Daily Lives
• ReWilding Our Beings
• Paying attention to our needs and feelings, and faithfully and consciously acting on them
• Increasingly eating locally grown, native, acclimatized, natural and wild foods
• Exercising our bodies in varied and impromptu ways
• Exercising our minds in ever new ways
• Exerting and exercising our 5 senses, in unpleasant as well as pleasant environs
• Healing, exploring and deepening or natural sexuality
• Listening to our bodies (intuition and discernible biofeedback) to understand our primary needs
• Paying attention to our bodily responses when assessing the people and things around us
• Savoring and celebrating!
• ReWilding Our Days
• Wild education
• Studying everything of interest, regardless of chances of contributing to income
• Study how all interests and information connect to and can feed each other
• Pay for intense education when you can, trade for it or beg for it when necessary
• Relentless question everything and everybody, while never assuming you know it all
• Treating all of life as a lesson to learn from
• Treating all lessons as something to apply and benefit from
• Meeting our responsibilities and demonstrating good timing, without being slaves to schedules
• Putting adventure ahead of comfort
• Consciously apprenticing to the natural world
• Close, physical, intimate contact with the natural world
• Bouts of extreme physical and mental exertion, with intent
• Periods of utter rest, observation and the receiving of gifts
• Acting from two essential places: passion, and compassion
• Seeking or heeding a calling, one’s personal most meaningful purpose
• Breaking even our most favored habits, doing the unexpected and unplanned
• Dressing and decorating to express our true character and sensibilities, singing our song
• Taking conscious risks such as moving to a new place, quitting a job to hang an herbalist’s shingle
• ReWilding Our Relationships
• ReWilding Relationship With The Land
• Noticing details and changes of the natural world at all times, even/especially in the city
• Accepting nature’s gifts of food, medicine, beauty, and feeling of being restored
• Understanding that all things in nature have intrinsic value apart from any use to humans
• Being open to new revelations from nature and plants, rather than only their traditional uses
• Giving back, through acknowledgment and celebration, protection and propagation
• Urban greening and guerilla gardening
• Identifying endangered or threatened species, protecting or spreading them
• Identify ecosystem imbalances (sometimes called “invasive” species) and remediate
• Land trusts and backyard preserves
• Defending habitat
• Organizing campaigns, obstructing construction, civil disobedience
• Regaining Sense of Place:
• Feeling at home – in a sense – wherever we are
• Searching for and finding that one place feeling more like home than anywhere else
• ReWilding and restoring the places where we live
• Adopting a grove, a park, a wilderness, or just a strip of rewilded road median
• Seeking the voice and message of inspirited places, without projecting on them
• Benefitting from and celebrating special places of power and healing
• Hot springs, artesian springs, mountain peaks, hallowed groves, sacred sites
• ReWilding Communication & Language
• Speaking when there is something relevant or meaningful to impart
• Speaking when there is inquiry to be made
• Bravely speaking our thoughts and convictions, feelings and needs
• Practicing silence, listening and contemplation between!
• Putting truth ahead of comfort, concurrence and acceptance
• Reclaiming the language, redefining the terms of the trade
• Authoring one’s own personal code of honor and practice
• Recognizing that people are stories with meaning and feeling, and honoring that
• Acknowledging the power of our own lived and felt story, and sharing it
• Fitting In and Shaking It Loose
• The natural desire to belong to something, can be lead to dangerous conformity
• Importance of natural diversity, and of diversity in our field of practice
• Daring to be different
• Facing familial and societal disapproval
• Stratifying and marginalizing: Bush hippies and kitchen herbalists
• A tight fit leaves little room for movement
• Being accepted by those doing harm is in part acceptance of the harm they do
• The price of “mainstream” acceptance can be mighty high
• Loss or sublimation of personal character, style, method and approach
• Imposed personal or product “standards”
• Our hiding or downplaying of effective but unapproved actions
• “The trouble with normal, is it only gets worse”
• Wild is naturally showing your true colors
• Shake loose from the restraints of convention
• Experiment, adapt, meld, and otherwise created the personalized forms for the gifts you share
• Break away from our own inner “controlling mothers”, controlling fears and restrictive conventions
• ReWilding Relationship With Power
• Power over people is unhealthy and ignoble
• Power itself is also a measurement of life force and effectiveness
• There’s no shame in being a powerful person, any more than in being weakened
• The body has the power to heal, but there are powerful ways to assist that
• Power is most effective when incisive rather than excessive
• If you are wholly in your power, people can overwhelm you but not overpower you
• We’re born with the power to help sculpt evolving reality
• If we do not focus, maximize and employ that given power, we cop-out and abdicate
• Self Authority & The Herbal Outlaw
• Self authorization, self certification, self approval, giving ourselves permission
• What we do is not because of external authorization, even if it happens to be legal
• If we subject ourselves to licensing, it is strategic and not submissive
• Redefining Responsibility
• Resonse-Ability, the ability and call to respond
• Our responsibility is the same whether we are certified/licensed or not
• To ourselves and our mission
• To our dependents, students and clients
• To the community we serve and community of providers we’re members of
• To the biosystem, the plants, the soil, the land, the earth in whole
• Our knowledge and abilities are the same, whether we’re certified/licensed or not
• There’s greater harm done by legitimate armies, legislators and developers than by  outlaws, more damage caused in the licensed medical system than all folk healing  combined
• We never know everything we can about any situation or illness, we can never be too careful, and yet we have a responsibility to try our best to help
• In a time of unjust laws and free-ranging predatory corporations,
• The Wild Herbalist Is…
• Awakened and aware, and increasingly so
• Sensitized
• Making effective use of the senses
• Always Compassionate
• Sometimes Empathic
• Sensory impressions from plants, tasting one’s own medicines
• Experience-Driven
• Driven by the evidence of experience, regardless of how many years of practice
• Tests all methods, uses and “facts” against personal experience
• Get plants when gathering,
• The earned wisdom of the wounded healer
• Open to Intuition
• Trusting experience and intuition above corporate funded scientific research
• Open to weighing in new information and scientific research
• Trusting research over assumption, convention and dogma
• Eclectic
• Tuned in to the energetics of the clients, plants and their actions
• Knows that’s one size doesn’t fit all… that plants can act differently on different people
• Likely asks for no help from authorities and agencies, and rejects all interference
• Often prefers wild herbs to cultivated, gathered to bought, personally collected over that which someone else picked, organically grown to chemically treated, and natural to genetically modified
• Practices Bioregional Herbalism
• Sees themselves as agent of the earth’s needs, expressions and changes, not as managers
• Sees illness as an ecosystem imbalance, not as invaders to be warred against
• Uses local, wild and prolific medicinal species whenever possible, over imported
• Acts assertively to protect species and habitat
• Underharvests impacted or threatened species of herbs, enthusiastically harvests domineering introduced species as an agent of balance
• Honors and taps traditions, without acting bound and limited by them
• Responds extemporaneously, according to who and what’s involved, when, and in what context
• Gives themselves permission to act to tend, heal and improve their own bodies, to assist the healing of others… regardless of legislation
• Following their calling no matter how much or little income is ever involved, regardless of general societal acceptance

We Are The Weeds
• The Cultivated and The Uncultivated

In every yard there are usually some denatured, pampered, not-nativized, often delicate plant species picked for the way the color of their flowers match the rest of the neighborhood, and then there are the uninvited, uncontrolled, undiscouraged and unrepentant weeds — in their true natures, their genetics unmanipulated except by evolution and chance, native and adapted to the environs, unpampered and most often hardy species that no amount of eradication or suppression can phase.
• The Tamed and Same
• The words tame and same do more than rhyme
• Uniformity and uniforms, planted in straight neat rows, contributing to controllability
• To tame is to denature, hybridize, sterilize, civilize, to render similar and predictable, to give somethings power away
• Plants and Plant People With Attitude
• Not necessarily what you’d call “bad attitude” but strength of opinion, style, gusto and verve
• The strongest plant medicines often come from plants that have had a difficult life
• People with the strongest values, feelings and fortitude often had hard experiences
• The power of weeds lies not in being immune to the poisons, but in avoiding, adapting and circumventing, never giving up!
• Exceeding assumed limitations, doing the seemingly impossible
• The Flying Penguin
• Satisfaction, Celebration and Exuberance
• Learning to encourage, attain or regain the sense of excitement, self-direction and satisfaction that is  the heart and core of the wild herbalist
• What we find most interesting, compelling and exciting is what we will learn most from, and use most effectively
• Satisfaction is quiet celebration, a feeling of fullness that comes with acting out of purpose
• Results matter… but crucial satisfaction requires not success so much as the certainty of giving our full out effort
• The lesson of Kokopelli: dance our dance, live our song
• The dandelion, the weed, the self-heal herb growing in our hearts, the urge to find the cracks, break through the concrete and whatever holds us down
• The author is invited to speak to kids about wolves, but is unlikely to ever be asked again

A complete Anima ReWilding Home Study Course for practitioners is under construction and should be ready this Winter sometime, watch the Home Study page of the Anima School Site: www.AnimaCenter.org.  For further reading on the topic of ReWilding, go to www.AnimaCenter.org/blog and search for ReWilding in the blog archives.  The Wild Herbalist class will be taught the afternoon of the 17th, and there is still time to register for the conference if you haven’t done so already: www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

(Post and forward please)

2011 TWHC UPDATES

• First Look at Just Completed Conference Book
• Attendance Surpasses Last Year At This Time
• Important Conference Details
• and… a Canyon Greening

Progress on the Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference continues, in a rush of valuable tasks and crazed deadlines. We have a second wonderful outreach helper just volunteered, and Resolute takes care of so much from her home that we were able to focus this weeks on those things only Kiva and I can do. Many long days and late nights on the laptops have done a number on our computers, necessitating we find ways to pay for replacements, and with 700 page books in the works we needed more memory to handle our projects anyway. We have to trust that enough will come in to cover what is the largest expense since the wildfire preparations.

Conference Book Complete, and Doubled In Size!

First among those priorities was the writing, laying out and production of a new 2011 Conference Book with complete event details, schedule and extensive presenters’ class notes. Extensive, in fact, to the point of it being TWICE as big as last year, expanded to 176 pages! Here is an early look at what only a privileged few have so far seen, the front and rear covers that I only yesterday finished creating. Hope you like them!

Because of the thickness and cost of these books, we will have to ask $10 donation apiece for them at the event. But recognizing that not everyone may be able to afford one, we will call the ten dollars a donation, and everyone attending will be able to get a copy regardless of what they can or can’t give.

Conference Registration Exceeds This Time in 2010!

As of this week, we have now sold more tickets than at this same time last year. Due to our much higher expenses in 2011, we hope to reach our maximum number of participants, but it’s great to know we will already have more excited folks than the clearly successful premier event.

A final TWHC Newsletter will be sent out around the 18th or so, a special edition featuring not only very important updates on the conference, but also excerpts of exclusive interviews with TWHC Presenter Margi Flint and Plant Healer Magazine artist Joanna Powell Colbert.

Registration, Welcome & Music Starts Thursday Sept 15
If you are coming, remember that things get rolling sooner this year. Registration is from Noon until 7PM on Thursday the 15th, with live music, announcements and welcome beginning at 7:30 Thursday night.

Canyon Greening

The monsoons are minimal and no high river water impeding our trips in and out, but still enough water has fallen that the canyon is already covered in plants… and it is that which I see as I look out over the laptop screen to the mountains and river just outside. The grounds around the cabins that was raked clean of dried vegetation is now verdant with grass and lush purple flowered four o’clocks, as if the harsh going over actually benefited them with its wider dispersal and plowing under of seeds.

Many talk about the cherished color red with its associations with passion, some feel cooled or cleansed by luminous blue, but for me it is browns that ground, and greens that bring me the most happiness. What a boon and blessing in this drought ridden part of the country, to have a riparian forest fed by the Sweet Medicine River, and a resurgence of growth all around. Even indoors it feeds me, nourished by its beauty, and fired up by its alliance in our green healing cause.

-Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.TraditionsInWesternHerbalism.org

(please post and forward)

Wallow Fire Update New Mexico – June 17
Anima Sanctuary and School

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Busy as we are, we feel like we owe it to all those caring and asking, to try to post updates at least every couple of days… and especially given the sad dearth of up to date reports elsewhere.  Thank you so much for your comments, letters and support.

Update June 17th

The now infamous Wallow Fire Grows to Over 1/2 Million Acres – over 750 square miles in size – with only 33% containment… and with that containment on the heavily populated north side, while the eastern front continues to push towards and into New Mexico.

This spread is largely overlooked by the national news channels including Fox, who have reported only about fire fighting efforts “turning the corner” and Arizona residents’ relief at being allowed to return to towns like Springerville.  This is the equivalent of someone’s house being on fire, with only two thirds of the rooms continuing to blaze and flames moving outwards towards any remaining outbuildings.  The majority of our neighboring White Mountains are horribly scarred, and this weekends winds are expected to challenge the existing northeastern fire lines.

Our nearest village, the county seat of Reserve (affectionately known as “Reverse” for its archaic flair) is home to only a few hundred residents, but it now hosts over a thousand fire fighters, N.M. National Guard and state law enforcement, temporarily giving this proudly backwoods outpost the feel of a large and bustling town.  A vast array of brightly colored nylon tents fill both the Fairgrounds and our tiny county airport, our local grocery store struggles to keep food enough on the shelves for both the residents and guests, and long lines of trucks and Humvees make it difficult to get fuel.

Work to protect the N.M. pioneer town of Luna has been extensive, with a reported controlled burnout, the cutting of double fire lines around the entire community, and the stationing of fire engines at Luna residences likely to stave off its destruction even as the Wallow swells to the south of there.  It continues to be the SE quadrant that’s most worrisome, being fought hard near rural residences along Blue River, but apparently running its course unhindered further south at the Blue Primitive Area and near the Largo.  It’s from there that the smoke we see rises from, most evident in the evenings, and appearing much closer than it actually is.

Most recently, the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning today due to strong expected winds and continuing low humidity: “Southwest winds are forecast from 15 to 25 mph with gusts of 35 to 45.  Critical fire weather is expected through Sunday.  The hot, dry and windy weather coupled with the drought stressed vegetation and heavy fuel loading in mixed conifer forests has the potential to create extreme fire behavior.”

More Southwest Fires Compete for Finite Resources

Locals in this area have been told that some of the fire fighters are being sent home.  Some personnel are indeed being moved out, but near as I can determine they are being moved to other new fires in the region instead.  The Horseshoe Fire continues to burn south of the Wallow near the border with Mexico, and the last week has seen the eruption of a large (mostly grass) fire near Carlsbad in the S.E. corner of New Mexico, a gigantic fire in the N.E. of the state near Raton, and the Ridge Fire in the Manzano Mountains south of Albuquerque.

Tankers Left Grounded?

Success at halting the Wallow Fire spread depends on the USFS making the S.E. quadrant a priority, and finding ways to combat it in spite of the lack roads and steep terrain.  Ground crews will undoubtedly be used to establish a line if they haven’t done so already, but questions arise not only locally but among the national fire fighting community as to why so few air resources have been employed.  The steeper the landscape, the less effective any slurry (retardant) drops are, but that doesn’t explain why there have been so few planes and so few drops other than the much appreciated heli-tankers.  I’m not sure how many of the large slurry planes are in the USFS fleet, or how many might be available on loan from the Air Force, but if only one or two have been flying the Wallow as reported, there are some questions to be answered.  Word has leaked out from within the agency that additional large planes intended for use have been left parked in Tucson due to the contractor/supplier either not having been paid or some other absurd glitch.

Whatever the number of slurry tanker planes, we can compare that number to the many thousands of strategic bombers we maintain to fight our wars.  If the forests and rural communities of this country were considered even a fraction as important as a well equipped military, we would have fleets ready to fight our fires.

The Larger Wildfire Management Problem

In the long run, we will have to move away from the many decades of total suppression, reducing the fuel load in order to replicate what would be more natural conditions, and then allowing future, less destructive, low intensity wildfires to burn.  Ecologically sensitive thinning projects are far more expensive than clearcuts, and the only market has been for the large old growth rather than for the small trees that are removed in thinning operation.   In a time when money is considered the bottom line, products from small timber like pressboard lumber will need to be developed in order to fund the work.  Intentional or managed burns are hard to accept, but we humans have been altering the environment for so long that it will require further human engineering to return it to a more natural and dynamic state.

Projected Time for Fire’s Possible Arrival At Anima Sanctuary

We remain hopeful that something will be done to halt the southeastern spread before it gets here, even as we continue working hard to prepare.  Yesterday I carefully studied previous rates of Wallow Fire expansion in our direction, and it has averaged only 1.5 miles per day.   This means that unless the eastwardly winds greatly increase, we likely have at least a whole week before any evacuation… and it could easily take twice that long to actually get here.  That’s pretty good news.

The Strain of Uncertainty

The last 2 weeks of anxiety and uncertainty have been hard on us, however, with our bodies remaining in “fight or flight” mode even when we are able to calm and quiet our minds.  I in particular, do much better in the middle of dangerous situation where there is some way for me to attempt to resolve it.  In this case, we are in many ways powerless against the fire, and decisions about what we should be doing minute to minute hinge on information that is either slow or impossible to come by.  At our Anima botanical and wildlife refuge, we were in the midst of the first “home improvements” in decades, upgrading our solar electric system for improved reliability and installing a 1600 gallon green poly tank to replace the deteriorating “trash barrels” that we have used for 35 years to collect our sole source of water… the precious, decreasing rains.  Progress on building a small wooden building around it has come to a screeching halt, of course, with the knowledge that anything we construct now has a 50% of being reduced to ashes in a week’s time.  A juniper post had been cut to help prop up Rhiannon’s treehouse she lives in, sagging a bit after years of happy use, but it’s been dragged away from here for now so as to reduce the amount of burnable material nearby.  The only laundromat in the county now is filled with fire fighters of late, resulting of huge piles of dirty clothes that may have to be packed and evacuated as they are, and Loba cutting up old flannel sheets for handkerchiefs.  When I sleep, it is with a continued sense that danger is about and I must be ready to leap up at any minute.  This, in spite of my rational mind having concluded we probably have at 7 or 8 days before it might finally get here.

Loving Help and Anima Preparations Progress

There is no way we would be as prepared as we are, or as resistant to embers, without the intense efforts of our backwoods outlaw crew, especially the very devoted Dan’l and Don.  Their idea of sending love and wishes was to set aside every other project and priority in their lives in order to be down here a large part of the last few weeks doing all they can to assist, including getting our vehicles running and running saws, hauling brush and moving our pile firewood, installing a water tank and hauling up load after load of water.  There is an illusion of trades and wages, but in reality it is us giving them things like an antique Willy’s Jeep and handmade antler handled knives, and money when we have it and they need it, simply because we care about them… and with them helping not for what they might get, but because they care about us and the land, and because they support and are a close part of the teaching and healing work that we at Anima do.

They’ve also been central in our determining the best courses of action.  Many is the night they’ve stayed up late after a day of hard labor out in the sun, in order to research and make plans regarding what we might be able to purchase, implement or devise.  And for all my brain’s obnoxious cleverness, I’m just not that good at solving problems that involve the mechanical or mathematical, relying instead on the uncanny practical sense and downhome abilities of my adopted brother Dan’l and Don our intrepid “Trail Boss”.  Thank you, fellers, and now tip those new cowboy hats we got you.

Priorities, of course, include preserving a working solar and internet system, so that we’d be able to continue our magazine and conference work even if the fire came through, and doing what we can to ensure we will still have a humble roof over our heads when as reinhabit a burned land and do what we can to help seed and heal it.  To this end, emotionally troubling thinning around the main cabin/office is thankfully complete.  Prep continues with the last clearing of long-downed wood, low branches and dead scrub within a reasonable arc.  The trees themselves will be cut down and skidded away only if the fire is impending and assured, and only at the very last minute.  It looks like a neatly tended park close to the house now (which you can be sure we all find extremely disturbing).  This is apparently the best we can do for ourselves, with the expensive aluminum structure wrap unavailable in the midst of an awful fire season and retardants said to last only a few hours.   The one exception would be a very effective water sprinkler system, drawing from the river that lies 180 yards away and 225 feet lower than our main cabins, with the use of a portable high power water pump.  Such pumps are known to be expensive, which is why we never dared consider one before.

Emergency Fire Fund and The Hoped For Pump

Thanks solely to the over 40 donations that have come in over the past 4 days – both large and small – we were able to get on the internet last night and order the pump we believe we need: a 9.5 hp Honda driven high head unit reputed to be able to push water through a small (1.5”) hose up to 340 feet, with enough pressure to operate low volume sprinklers on all sides of the main cabins.  We hope to be able to raise an additional $1000 by no later than June 21st, mostly so that Dan’l can run to Albuquerque to buy the remaining hose, pipe, fittings and sprinklers before the pump arrives via freight delivery… and of course, hopefully before the east moving front of the Wallow Fire might could it this far.

We still have measures to consider for protecting the guest cabins, and may still end up needing help replacing belongings and paying for tools and seed if the blaze burns through.  But now as we concentrate on gathering the funds for the sprinklers and high pressure hose, we just want to focus on being grateful that we may have a water pump system that we can quickly set up when this or any future wildfire approaches.

Donations to the Anima Emergency Fund can be made at:

http://animacenter.org/donate.html

-JWH

(share freely)

Wallow Fire Update June 10

and  Emergency Fire Fund Set Up

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

We wake up again to a thick fog of smoke from the swelling Wallow wildfire, with the rising sun tinted a remarkable blood red color.   This is the point in the movie when Bambi and the other creatures of the forest sense the nearness of danger and begin their stampede in the direction of safety, but we are not ready to treat the burning of our canyon as inevitable.  This  botanical and wildlife sanctuary was devoid of most plant species when I moved here 35 Winters ago, and the thick green diversity and hundred feet high cottonwood trees I see from my cabin window are the result of those years of planting and protection.  The fires continue their push our way, yet until the moment they might be laid to waste, we can not and will not accept their loss.

Yet we wake up not only to ominous smoke, but to the unceasing work of Anima school, to the tasks revolving around our next Plant Healer magazine for herbalists, the folks awaiting personal counsel and herbal consultations, the watering of delicious edible nettles alongside the river… and awaken, also, to yet another dozen letters and blog comments with hopes and prayers, love and offers of help.  They are a counterforce to the once again growing winds of destruction, the juice needed for unabated healing and creation in the face of all challenges and threats.  “Though we have never met”, many of your messages begin, and it is proof of the depth of our connection that so many feel close.  We can’t thank you enough for being allied and caring in this troubling time, our students and allies, our extended family, our community of purpose.

Anima Emergency Fund

A fund has been set up for Anima Sanctuary and School, at the insistence of many.  Starting with the seed of an unsolicited donation from our author/herbalist friend Virginia, contributions will be accepted for land protection and repair, which will also help make possible our continuing healing work.

Expenses are climbing.  We have already had to shift funds from home repairs to evacuation preparedness, extra fuel for the vehicles and supplies, while our paid workers and gifting friends shift their emphasis from the water project to clearing the ground of flammables in a perimeter around the main cabins.  This Emergency Fund will help fund these preparations, and in the event the fire does indeed overtake and engulf us, it will be used to replace and repair the infrastructure of the sanctuary,clinic and school, and to pay for what will be a huge reseeding and restoration effort.

Donations to the Anima Emergency Fund can be made at http://animacenter.org/donate.html and indicate in the message box that it is intended for the fire fund.

or a check or m.o. made out to Gretchen Geggis (Loba), and mailed to:
Anima Emergency Fund
P.O. Box 688, Reserve, NM 87830

Thank you!

NonMonetary Donations

To those of you offering to send foods, herbs, tools and so forth, we ask that you send a letter to the above addresses with a list of what you can provide, and then IF and when they’re needed we’ll get back to you.  If the fire moves through this canyon and takes our living structures, a travel trailer will be the first item we look for.

Physically Assisting With Our Evacuation

Only a few of the many folks offering to come here and help, are even from the Southwest!  We will only accept the assistance of those who live close enough for it not to be a great hardship, and only in the last couple days before we need to be fully evacuated.  This could happen a week from now, several weeks from now, or in only a few short days depending on what the winds and blaze does.  If you are determined to help with an evacuation, please write us with your availability and how to reach you quickest.

June 10 General Wallow Fire Update

Here are the official numbers, but note that all reports are inevitably dated and often inaccurate:

Cause: Human – reported to have been a fisherman’s campfire
Size: 408,887 acres based on predawn June 10 infrared data
Percent Contained: 5%
Injuries to Date: 3
Losses to Residences so far: 4,018 threatened, 29 destroyed, 5 damaged
Other Losses: 24 non-residential structures destroyed
Number of Personnel: 3,137 +/-, with 19 hotshot crews and 45 hand crews
Equipment employed: 17 dozers, 221 engines, 66 watertenders
Aircraft employed: 14 helicopters, 1 slurry plane

Southeast Side of Wallow Fire Needs Attention

The Southeast side is where the growth is most worrisome for us, being the most likely source of any threat to the county seat of Reserve as well as the outlying subdivision known as Rancho Grande and the “Y”.  It is in the most rugged terrain of all the fire’s fronts, and roadless wilderness.   Little has been reported done to contain the spread from the Southeast, so our ears are open.

Onward

Today we will continue removing dead grass and downfall from the vicinity of our office and home, though our 3 other cabins are surrounded by thick forest and will have nothing but their luck going for them.  Rhiannon is being a trooper, busting her rear to help and keeping a strong heart and clear head through this stressful time.  Kiva is in town gathering information and taking care of internet downloads for the conference, and I am trying hard to focus on getting back to all of you waiting for a reply from us.  Glad this issue of the Plant Healer magazine is complete, one less deadline as we rush to take care of our commitments and still be ready for the fire.  Loba has just come back from one of her regular dips in the shallow Rio Frisco, with a breathless report on getting to see a rare family of German Shepherd sized Coatimundi, her excitement and gratitude undiminished by the growing threat.

The hardest thing for us so far is the stress of the unknown, the scary waiting when we might rather either be in the fight or out of the path.

But a new sun will rise each day for us, reddened or not.

(Forward and Post)

The following article on invasive plants is excerpted from a much longer version that appears in Issue #3 of Plant Healer Magazine. In the interest of full understanding, I recommend taking time to read the full piece, with its extensive discussion of the arguments and examples used by both sides of what has recently become a contentious debate. The fate of diverse ecosystems, as well as our personal evolving relationship with the plant world, may depend on a balanced investigation and our individual and collective response. -Kiva Rose

In Balance:

Invasive Species, Natives, Healing & Wholeness

By Jesse Wolf Hardin

“Unlike traditional people, most modern humans never get to the stage of knowing the place deeply. We are like tourists passing through the land in a diver’s helmet, even in our own backyards. If the place is truly known, the question of invasives and what to do about them answers itself with the wild voice of Mother Earth on a case by case basis, not with a set ideology or a simplistic answer.” -Paul Bergner

Discussion of what are commonly called “invasive” plant and animals species, has become increasingly polarized, and as a result less nuanced, reasonable and right.

On one side of the gaping divide are the official government experts using a species’ “illegal immigrant” status to justify eradication programs, usually intended to protect some financial interest like high dollar crops, alongside weed hating farmers, the majority of conservation scientists studying plant ecology, and the “nativists” who seek to preserve or recreate an American ecosystem’s species mix as it may have existed just prior to the arrival of Europeans with their exotic flora and fauna. The latter are understandably nostalgic for living landscapes that are not only healthy but representative of the particular, natural historic character of each region. Unfortunately, in their quest for a purified wilderness, they often ostracize all known late arrivals regardless of whether they are over-competitive or not and without respect for their edible or medicinal qualities, let alone for what is in some cases their stabilizing, diversifying, soil cleansing or enriching functions.

On the opposing side, are the “advocates” of prolific recent arrivals, consisting of another odd set of bedfellows. The most prominent of these are the landscapists and ornamental gardeners who vehemently defend their “right” to import and plant any darn species that they want, no matter what its possible impacts or the likelihood of it aggressively spreading into the wild. The second of the pro segments are the few maverick scientists getting press for their unpopular stance in defense of so-called invasives. The third, includes a wide range of New Age thinkers, admirably sensitive nature lovers and sincere plant aficionados who hurt to think about clearing out a riverbank full of Tamarisk (also known as Salt Cedar) for the sake of retracting species of willow and wildflower, and who are greatly relieved to imagine all plant introductions and population surges are beneficial and Gaia-planned. This is an especially tempting perspective for herbalists, who can be among the most empathic and caring of people, appreciative of all life, rightfully looking for any and all means to avoid an elitist sounding selection process for which species stay and which must go, uncomfortable with the immense responsibility of making such decisions, and hence relieved to be told anything resembling “it’s all good.” Yet for all their differences, the criteria used by both sides can at times be remarkably and unsettling similar.

2010 saw the release of a book “Invasive Plant Medicine” by Timothy Lee Scott, the first popular defense of invasives written especially for herbalists. It has been received with sighs of relief from plant lovers uncomfortable with the idea of excluding or limiting the spread of any plant, and correctly angry about the one-sided characterization of invasives as thoroughly and uniformly bad. I certainly recall how offended I felt, the first time I saw a government pamphlet featuring cartoons of sharp toothed, no doubt blood sucking plants as part of their public service information campaign. Scott’s treatise, however, also only covers one side, by excusing, recommending and in some cases exalting invasive species without adequately addressing the proven or possible ecological damage they can cause. Plant Monographs include sections on “ecological importance” but with none on “ecological impacts”.

Read side by side with any of the many volumes dealing with damage by invasives, books like Scott’s contribute to a balanced understanding. But considered separately, any single minded defense of invasives could prove an offense to the plants and plant ecosystems we love, specifically by undermining herbalist support for sensible conservation and management. Advocacy without visible balance not only discredits otherwise valid and valuable arguments in the eyes of any opponents, but it can also be the unintentional precipitator of unforeseen tragedies.

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We’re told by many that “Green is always good”, and in almost all cases it is far better than bare ground in the ecological sense. Sometimes, however, the choice isn’t between bare ground and the welcoming of an invasive plant at all, but between an invasive and any number of other species who are simply seeking their own small toehold in the sun.

We’re told that “plants migrate everywhere anyway, so we just need to accept it.“ But the fact that opportunistic exotics are endemic and pervasive, in no way negates our responsibility to weigh their impact whenever there are major incursions into balanced ecosystems. Certainly “all of a plant’s characteristic functions and abilities must be taken in context with the whole ecosystem that it inhabits,” and let’s be sure to add, that this relational context must reasonably include a species’ tendencies and impacts in any given situation.

We’re told that invasives can help remediate damage to the land, and often they can, but so can any number of native species, making it a moot point. What this does say about recent intrusive species, is that there are sometimes mitigating or compensating ecological benefits associated with them, as well as how foolish it can be to complete dismiss or vilify any species regardless of its pronounced adventurism.

In this vein, we’re also told to happily encourage invasives, even those leading to monocultures, because they may be a nutritional or medicinal resource… but as a deep ecologist I have to reject ever making the primary or sole measure of a plant’s acceptance be how “useful” it is to people, medicinally or otherwise. Such criteria is patently anthropocentric and, when fully conscious, selfish… and this is just as true whether it’s an insular developer justifying the destruction of a species because it has no known economic value for humans, or a well meaning but undiscriminating herbalist saying we should welcome an over-competitive species simply because it has medicinal or some other extractable riches for human kind.

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The majority of the world’s species – plants as well as people – are essentially immigrants, whether they’ve existed in a single spot for countless generations or mere decades. Those with the most claim to being “native” to their place aren’t intrinsically or in any moral sense superior to the more recent arrivals, but they’ve already adapted and integrated, committed to time-tested reciprocal or synergistic relationships with the environs and their fellow plants and creatures, proven to be functioning in concert, in balance, for the good of not only themselves but the ecosystem whole. This is the answer to the question “What is native?”, which Scott posed but could not answer: They have inhabited an area long enough to have been affected and formed by it, and have had their own affects measured… demonstrating they take into account and accommodate the rest of the biotic community, and reflect and express the distinguishing character of place. The relevant question is not how long a species has been resident, but what their various impacts might be… and whether they, as measured in each particular location and situation, contribute to an increase or reduction in the diversity so essential to ecological vitality and well being.

The greatest threat from botanical (as opposed to animal) invasives, is not so much the extinction of existing species but, rather, the conversion of diverse communities of flora into vast tracts of but a single dominate species, simultaneously narrowing the range of wildlife that can or will live there. Introduced species like Kudzu and Tamarisk (and Australian Melaleuca, scourge of Everglades species as well as source of antiseptic and antifungal Tea Tree oil), are not successional in any sense of the word, and are instead known for establishing giant, nearly impenetrable monocultures. The result is not only habitat loss for hundreds of other species, but the kind of awful monotony that homogenized white-bread cultures, conformist subcultures, guru cults, military uniformity, one party states and monopolies – corporate or biological – are known to produce.

In natural communities, each species has evolved adaptations to the peculiarities of the land and entered sustainable arrangements with the other life forms. It is precisely such adaptations that has resulted in the biodiversity we have, as small differences in soil conditions, rainfall or predation are often enough to result in the development of entirely unique varieties of otherwise familiar families. To the degree that we favor native species over exotics, invasive or not, it isn’t because they’re the “establishment,” or we fear change, or we harbor any xenophobia when it comes to visitors from unfamiliar places. It is because the natives have been in that place long enough to learn what membership in a particular community requires, to have tuned their species’ expressive voice to the pitch of each microecosystem’s signature orchestral composition. When we honor them for they ways they have – through deep listening, evolved arrangements and reciprocal interactions – come to truly and wholly belong.

Lacking this bioregional sense, advocates promote a more laissez faire approach, not unlike the “let the free market take its course” philosophy of uncritical speculative banking that resulted in the unbalancing of the American economy beginning in 2009!

We’ve 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 issue of salt cedars in the Anima 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 and art of the activist, ecological restorationist and permaculturist, artist and celebrant, gardener and herbal gatherer, of all care-takers of plants and our hopefully increasingly planted selves.

35 years of living in and working to restore our New Mexico riparian wilderness, has taught me what no amount of book studies – or thoughtful projections by armchair philosophers – ever could. The land breathes its truths, exhalations of diversity and not sameness, struggle as well as ease, discernment alongside attraction and repulsion. In the often misinterpreted language of plants, there is no call for blind acceptance, as there is no claim to divinity or perfection, and no penchant for selfless sacrifices. Nowhere is there demonstration of uncritical, indecisive meanderings of life, only myriad expressions of path and purpose, a vibrant meeting of chance and choice. And nowhere, does nature insinuate that everything is objectively equal or in all relations positive. What nature is, is all real and wondrous, meaningful and relevant, conditional and relational, a world that we consciously or unconsciously help co-create… whether we want the responsibility or not.

For the sake of the community of life wherever we live, we would do well to avoid both the purist and true believer extremes, and to carefully consider not only the potential benefits and harm of newly arriving prolific species, but also the full complexity of their evident relationships with the soil, wildlife and other plants. Some of these plant species will contribute nutrients, some will deplete them, and most will present a mix of subtle and not so subtle effects. Some will offer more to the butterflies than they deny to the preexisting flora, others will extirpate more native species than their beauty or value as a medicinal herb could possibly justify. What is needed is a balanced investigation but, even more so, our personal, intimate, intuitive as well as studied, hands-on over time sensing of the context, needs and health of the dynamic whole.

It may be the role of overseeing government, hierarchical religion and B grade movies to tell us what is categorically good and what is bad, to assign the absolutist black and white hats. But it is the job of the naturalist and conservationist to ever broaden and deepen our studies and perspective, and the calling of the herbalist to not just witness, excuse and use, but to try as best one can to discern and determine, evaluate and choose… in the interest and process of helping each other and this earth to heal.

Fact is, no plant is evil. And just as true, none are incapable of harm no matter how you define the word. They are not plagues through which we are punished for our ecological sins, neither are they saintly species sent according to plan on a specified mission to repair the lands that civilization has damaged. Some species, in some situations, will negatively impact the community, others will indeed help to cleanse and mend in restorative succession, but in both events it will be incidental to their mission to find environs and conditions that will sustain their own lives and growth.

There are, after all, members of at least one often invasive species endowed with an exceptional level of faculties, skills and functions, that may have in part evolved to help heal the land and soil, removing pollutants, cleaning the air, and possibly making way for the emergence and fulfillment of countless successional species. They are, as phrased by Buhner, “more than destructive pests,” they’re “ecological interventions generated out of the vast, long-scale movements of the Earth, intended to solve specific ecological problems.”

That species, we should make clear, is us!

The Language of Healing:

The Power Of Conscious Vernacular & Deliberate Terminology

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

An Excerpt from the full length article, in the March Issue of Plant Healer: A Journal of Traditional Western Herbalism.

Languages are forever evolving, depending on shifting understandings and cultural context, the watering down of some definitions and the recasting of others.  This is true of the English language in general, and the ways we use it, and even more so when it comes to the vernacular of informal and professional sub-groups such as the field of herbalism and its diverse community of herbalists.  Most obviously we can see how conflicted or detached patients can get due to the conventional modern biomedical use of oppositional metaphors such as “the war on cancer” or “the battle with disease”, with it sometimes recommended that they picture their illness as a hated enemy, visualizing antibodies as fast-firing little tanks attacking on their behalf.  In comparison, a client whose herbalist explains things in terms of the body as an ecosystem in which microorganisms are integral of often beneficial coinhabitants, where no one imagines our bodies have “betrayed” us just because we might be ill – and where we consider that we treat imbalances rather than somehow corrupted corporeal beings – is much more likely to trust and therefore better nourish, tend and listen to their bodies, more likely to be at ease and at home in their selves and in this way less stressed out and quicker to self-repair.

The ability of herbalist’s clients to accept, love and wholly inhabit their ailing bodies is supported by a language of nourishment and accord, more than by one of judgment or conflict, disassociation or transcendence.  And so it is for us as well, that the words we speak and write each have their own kind of power, and that the ways we perceive and define help to determine who we are.  The words we use and definitions we assign them affect our ability to wholly understand concepts and techniques, influence our self image as people and as practitioners and healers, help determine our degree of empowering self confidence or sabotaging self doubt, and both connect us to other discoveries, ideas and tools, and sometimes hinder us from seeing past our bias, dogma, systems, models and habits to new connections, combinations and conclusions.  It is with our selection of and understanding of terms, that we define not only words but our field, our calling, passion or profession.

To increase the chances that we are clearly imparting what is most important to clients and students, minimizing projection and confusion, avoiding unnecessary hot buttons and trigger words, encouraging rather than discouraging response, it’s important that we consciously craft our sentences to best effect.  The sample examples below are words central to the world of the herbalist, but the principle of a deliberated language and responsible communication applies to you no matter what your vocation, interests or mission.

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A Few Sample Misunderstood, Maldefined or Misused Terms

Health:  Wholeness, balance, functionality, integration and mutually beneficial cooperation of all our parts; measured not by some bodily perfection but by the degree of vitality, responsiveness, effectiveness, and satisfaction.

One example of a less helpful connotation is equating health to an absence of symptoms, sometimes resulting in insufficient attention to underlying foundational causes (such as lifestyle habits, degraded liver function or vitamin D deficiency).  Someone can have no symptoms and serious problems, obviously, or have certain recurrent symptoms but otherwise be vital and healthy.

Herbalist: Anyone and everyone who knowledgeably and effectively uses plants to help facilitate the natural healing process of their bodies or the bodies of others.

It feels important that this definition be deliberately wide, largely inclusive and possibly even generous, so as many herb allies and herb associates as possible can reasonably claim the title… even if they’re primarily herbal teachers, artists, activists, botanists or gardeners, whether they treat others professionally or only tend their families or their selves.  After all, the term “herbalist” has never ensured nor really indicated a specific level of proficiency or experience, a particular number of years of practice or amount of clients seen.

Certainly there is a qualitative difference between a veteran practitioner that is highly respected and uses freshly grown or gathered ingredients, and someone who has only read about herbs and perhaps always purchases their herbs from a whole-foods market.  But there is also a measurable difference between those who use fresh plants when appropriate and those who are limited to or only choose to use purchased and dried products.  Between those who have apprenticed and those who are self taught.  Between compassionate and service-focused practitioners and those who are simply brilliant herbalists.  A highly motivated herbalist who is adept at synthesizing ideas and information, or someone without much herbal knowledge who is especially intuitive, can prove better at diagnosis and formulations, and thus more effective with their treatments, than someone who has hung the herbalist shingle for decades.  For us to make such distinctions can be arrogant or self-effacing when applied to ourselves, disempowering or elevating for those people we evaluate and label, and divisive for the community.

Folk Herbalism: The herbalism of the common folk, or more importantly, diverse expressions of herbalism that is common to all kinds of folks… not only the schooled, certified or income producing but also the illiterate who learn their skills from watching their elders, those practicing without the approval or permission of modern health authorities, herbalists who provide assistance for free or treat only their neighbors and families.  Literally, folk herbalism applies equally to herbalcentric academians and the oft-maligned “kitchen herbalists,” professional certified clinical herbalists and plant-rendering rainforest shamans… though it characteristically evokes an herbalism which is personally empowering and largely egalitarian, experiential and in some ways subjective, available, accessible and gladly shared.  It appears grounded in the earth and the lessons of nature, and is thus home to the coveralls wearing herb gardener, the feather bedecked Hourani healer, the free clinic herbal anarchist, herbal rebel and herbal outcast.

At the same time, it could be a mistake to use language that unrealistically sentimentalizes or glorifies folk herbalism.  Just because someone was smart enough to quit a boring school doesn’t mean they’re necessarily innovative, self educated, experienced and wise… sometimes it just means that they can’t keep commitments and have accumulated less useful information.  Just because an herbalist rejects certification or bucks medical convention is no indication that their diagnosis or treatment will be any more effective, or even more innovative, than those closer affiliated with guilds, universities or hospitals.  And just because an herbal treatment derives from a cool tribal culture shouldn’t exempt it from analysis and evaluation, nor should even the most comfortable of traditional herbal story-lines prevent us from considering and weighing-in the latest scientific research or even our own sometimes contrary experiences.

Medical Herbalist: Basically any herbalist administering herbs or herbal advice in hopes of a medical outcome or improvement, a practitioner.  In some cases it seems employed primarily to make the practitioner or teacher feel more important.

Master Herbalist: A nice sounding title or herbal degree, but nonetheless kind of a bullshit term that anyone could be forgiven for feeling embarrassed about.  In one sense, to “master” means to rule over.  In another, it suggests someone has reached a level where there is nothing more to be learned.  In these two senses, no one really masters anything since there is always a possibility of new insights, greater wisdom and further developed proficiency.

Accredited Herbalist, Certified & Approved: Being given credit by an organization; being vouched for by an organization that certain qualifications are met; receiving approval from an organization, authority or agency acting as if they have the power to disapprove and deny.

Understand first of all, if you don’t already – that there is currently no licensure or certification required in the United States to practice herbalism.  And it is the language we speak, that can in part facilitate any systems and rules to follow, or that can establish the fact and tone of any alternative.

Accreditation and certification of herbalists can beneficially increase acceptance of our field by the large numbers of people in this culture brainwashed to equate official monikers and scientific degrees with knowledge and competence.  In this sense, a language of professionalism serves to legitimize the modern recommendation and use of herbs, theoretically reducing the future likelihood or extent of draconian governmental regulation, expanding the market for herbs and herbal information, and broadening the client base for practicing herbalists.  It could be useful to have a certification system whereby the overall quality of the plant is ensured, or to know that when we are ill, the herbalist we seek help from meets certain agreed upon standards.

At the same time, the language of certification can stratify the community, giving increasing control over roles and titles to a governing board, resulting in the unintentional impugning of the credits of those who do not qualify or belong, and inadvertently impacting their incomes.  A language of qualification and authorization can’t help but contribute to elitism, no matter how hard we might try to prevent that from happening.  Any type of accreditation, no matter how beneficial otherwise, unfortunately legitimizes less desirable official qualification and governance, setting the tenor for what will likely be much less benign herbal legislation, regulation or even prohibition on the part of our government.  Finally, as the government increasingly seeks in stages to control not only herbal products but also herbalist behavior and even who can practice, they may find membership lists a useful resource for management and repression.

The power of speaking professionally – and of employing letters of accreditation or certification at the ends of our names – is nothing less than great… both in the many benefits that can bring, and the problems that it without question ushers in.

Tradition: The system of knowledge, skills and customs passed from one generation to the next.   The value of tradition is huge, the ways that it delineates roles for new folks to identify with, equips them with an informational base to build upon, and sets out a way of perceiving and acting on the world that has already been well tested.  A significant portion of TWH and Plant Healer Magazine’s mission is to identify, explore, encourage, share and showcase the many under-promoted native, place-based Western folk herbal traditions.

The flip side is that tradition can become dogmatic, restrictive or resistant to new ideas and discoveries.  It’s essential that it be a vessel to carry us forward in our lives and practice, and not dogma we blindly repeat or a straight jacket within which we are unable to move or adapt.  A Taos Pueblo Indian friend of mine once told me a story one day that carries the point well: “My mother would always cut off and set aside one end of a venison roast, before putting it in a pan to cook.  One day when I was young, I asked her the reason for this ritual behavior, figuring it might have something to do with the spirit of the deer or some such thing, but all she could tell me was it was a family tradition and she had learned it from her mom.  Later, I witnessed my grandmother doing the exact same thing, cutting off and discarding one end of what would be our dinner, and when I inquired about it she told me almost the same thing, that it was just the way the women of the family had always done it, and that it was a tradition.  Some months down the road, I was fortunate to get to visit my ailing great grandmother.  I told her my story, and repeated the question as to why she and the rest of the family cut the ends off that way.  ‘I don’t know why they do it that way,’ she answered with one eyebrow up, ‘but the reason I always did, was because my only pan was too small.’”

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Whatever your identity, aims and intentions, describe it well… for it is the ideas that our chosen words convey that can either weaken our positions and purpose, or else help to make truly effective healing action possible.

Our hope is that this article will inspire discussion in the community, so please post and forward often.  For the complete 5,000 word version of this article, click here to go to the Plant Healer site and subscribe:
Plant Healer Magazine

The Herbalist’s Inner Sanctum

By Jesse Wolf Hardin

Excerpted from a larger essay “Imaginariums, Inner Sanctums & Cabinets of Wonder”,  appearing in an upcoming issue of Plant Healer Magazine: www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

There’s something mysterious – and therefore entirely irresistible to a child – about exploring a parent or grandparent’s special or private space.  It may be a cupboard out of reach without a stool, concealing curiosities like Mother’s mothballed wedding dress or her first pair of fancy dance shoes, apparently sitting there in the dark for years begging to be tried on by a five year old.  A never used bedroom where a Great Uncle’s old green army uniforms hang, its smell of pine disinfectant suggesting a government office or experimental laboratory with “No Admittance” signs.  Or an unlit and long neglected attic, its bounty made all the more enthralling by the spider webs draping from its steep sloped  ceiling to the archaic leather suitcases and wicker baskets arrayed on its dusty oakwood floor.  Up the creaky pull-down stairs they might go, hushing each other with little fingers to little lips even though all the adults are gone for the afternoon to town.

Not even a fabled pot of gold could outshine a youngster’s excited finds: An ingenious folding rack glinting with impossibly colorful spools of thread.  A heavy black telephone like you might have seen on the desk of some 1940’s private eye, ready to ring loud and clear when some spooky “dame” calls for help.  Costume jewelry with cultured pearls and dangling sea horses.  A dried flower arrangement as old as Moses, and a robe worthy of Merlin.  A selection of foppish hats, making ideal costumes for a hastily organized play about dancing pirates and quick-shooting outlaws.  An Etch-A-Sketch toy from back when television shows were so few and screens so small that they couldn’t compete with trying to draw a perfect circle using twin knobs.  Faded black and white photographs of mainly unrecognizable relatives and straight faced ancestors giving inexplicable looks, some creased or torn, some with the glued-on corners that had once held them to the pages of bobby-soxer scrapbooks.  A tobacco can marked “Dirt taken from sweet Cleo’s grave,” too sacred or scary for casual handling, or an oil portrait of an old homestead that looks either haunted or enchanted depending on the angle viewed by a susceptible child.

A naturalist’s or herbalist’s inner dominion can similarly be a wondrous place, filled with secrets informed by a long life spent partly out of doors and partly in the ever expanding diorama of the human imagination.  Like the wizard Merlin’s mythical sanctus sanctorum, it is often a library of tales waiting to be told, an assortment of curiosity-stirring objects and character-revealing art.  It may be housed in a quaint garden cottage apart from the rest of the domicile, covered with a dangling mantle of useful vines, or simply be a certain room in an otherwise too-white stucco suburban house, exclusively dedicated to plant studies, wildlife passions or artisan obsessions.  Either way, when we open its door and step inside it’s as if we have suddenly entered some enchanted parallel reality, dropped into the white hare’s hole leading to a miraculous Oz or embraced by and lifted into the high twisty branches of Yggdrasal, the mythic world tree connecting all things, all beings, all ideas and possibilities.

Even without the transportive allure and amore of lit candles or golden kerosene lamps, the lighting will usually appear somehow different.  This can be true whether or not the overhead fixtures are the same as in the next room, as even the most sterile and artificial of white light waves are absorbed, refracted and reflected, tinted and toned, touched and transformed by all that they fall upon, by the walls full of earth hued items and shelves of leaf, soil and sky colored glass.  The sparse and predictable decorations of other rooms or buildings drop away to reveal a richer and more suggestive world, to a hodgepodge of necessity and embellishment that is emblematic of its inhabitant’s character and interests, evincing no accommodation for contemporary tastes or transitory fads, no dilution of the intensity of its composition or purpose since it is designed and maintained not for occasional guests but for its creator and primary inhabitants, beheld only by the trusted and the initiated… and just maybe, by the unrestrained child sneaking a peek at its rumored treasures and gallery of mystery.

Arrayed on tapestry draped tables and shelves may be a mix of scientific and craftsman’s tools and instruments, an antique brass and wood scale for measuring small quantities of precious herbs or a vintage Ohaus triple-beam for weighing larger quantities, an iron tincture press for extruding liquid medicine from generous leaves.  Magnifying glasses of various shapes and sizes, some being Sherlock Holmes-looking hand held antiques with exaggerated lenses and ivory or onyx handles, others on tripods or extending from metal goosenecks like long necked birds leaning over subject or prey.  A microscope perhaps, a leather-skinned brass anachronism or plastic up-to-date stereo version, for the most intimate examinations of plant structures, the psychedelic patterns of bug wings or indications in affected blood.  And in balance, a plaster sculpture of the Venus of Willendorf, or macabre skeletal Mariachi band courtesy of a Santa Fe yard sale during Mexican culture’s Dios de los Muerte.  A beer stein requisitioned by the muse and festooned with micron pens, #2 pencils and a mix of flat, round and pointed tip brushes made of wickedly supple sable and paint wicking camel hair.

Any furniture is probably old, whether intricately carved or a plain Goodwill find, and most likely natural materials.  Cloth abounds in this place of textures, in curtains, hangings and throws, decorative weaves of wool and rayon, cotton and silk.  The floor will be adorned and softened with tattered Persian carpets or maybe oval braided rag rugs, and fine-to-feel clothes from Uzbekistan or Thailand via swap meet or Ebay may have been tossed onto the couch rather than put away… a couch that either folds out into a bed, or is wide enough to sleep comfortably on when having either worked on a project late or just wanted to rest among such energies and ambiance, to soak in the energy or be subject to its inspiration.

Cabinets may feature a cloister of containers, sorted and selected items and ingredients segregated into dedicated vessels carved from wood or stone, pieced together with stained glass and lead bezels, or hand formed from Gaian clay into bowls and lids.  Each appears as a cauldron of possibilities that one naturally slows and considers before stirring, but that like Pandora’s box, simultaneously dares the adventurer to open it up and take chance to discover whatever might lay inside.  Shelves host collected rocks and curvaceous (curvaceous what?), or maybe row after row of dark brown and cobalt blue tincture bottles topped with rubber droppers.  The more stout might bear the collective weight of quart jars filled with Galium aparine, Passiflora incarnata or Eschscholzia californica suspended in extractive alcohol baths, or perhaps with blended remedies as complex and likely more useful than any alchemist’s potion.

Other shelves shoulder stacks of spiral bound reports with up-to-date research, mixing it up with the field guides covered with weather resistant, transparent shelf paper, and with a handful of respected antiquarian volumes with iconic symbols embossed on their worn leather spines, the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy and truth-woven fiction of Philip Pullman sitting somehow at home next to Culpepper’s Herbal and numerous fact and photo filled reference books.  Nailed to any remaining wall space we might find a framed print of an inspiring medicine woman by Joanna Colbert, or a slightly twisted self portrait by Frida Kahlo, an attractive poster explaining herbal actions, shadow boxes of naturally deceased butterflies or rare plants both dry and fragile.  It could be the ceiling that hosts the more recent botanical acquisitions, fresh monarda, mint and chamomile tied into bundles and hanging from available rafters out of reach of the harmful sun, while rambunctious and unapologetic house plants appropriate whole sections of the room in search of its rays.

Altogether it is not only a feast for hungry eyes, but a delight to the other senses as well, with so much aurally alluring and tactically tempting.  And a feast to the nose especially, blessed and beseeched by the diverse insistent smells of those various aromatic plants hanging above our heads, of the damp earth supporting nearly translucent Aloe in fired ceramic pots, remnant clouds of dark coffee or golden tea, any number of barely contained essential oils, and a bowl of oranges blaring loud olfactory signals directly to some primitive and highly responsive part of our animal brains.  It is no less exotic than an appropriately appointed shaman’s yurt in Tuva or a Kasbah herb stall, and yet somehow native only to the place where it nests, a part and product of its bioregion.  A collection point for substances and for significance.  A site for the celebration of, study of, and dispensing of nature wisdom and plant medicine.  A nature-interface through which we learn and thus better survive, heal but also thrive.

To the honored guest – as to the wide eyed inquiring child – such a room proffers the rudiments of an education in content as well as form, a piquing of interest that could lead to an in-depth study or personalized practice, or at least the motivating of us to ensure that we always envision and manifest a work, study and reflection space that both mirrors and feeds who we really and wholly are, our interests and aims, tendencies and tastes.  No matter how small one’s home, there has to be a room that can be re-purposed to this need, a subterranean basement ready for retrofitting, or a backyard tool shed that could be opened up with the installation of windows and insulated against the cold.

Such a place is not a refuge from the distracting and the tasteless, so much as a den of sustenance, providing the rooting medium and nutrients necessary for our optimum growth, an ideal micro-ecosystem with our ideal PH.  Its earliest corollary is the ancient torch lit cave with separate secluded chambers, each individuated by poignant symbols painted in soot and ochre on its walls, and likely marked for a focused interest and intended or ritual purpose… a kind of place subsequently expressed in Native American medicine women’s intriguing huts, in the home laboratories of alchemists, rebel scientists and over-enthused botanists, and in the inspirational studies, special herbal rooms and inner sanctums that we ourselves must create.

All photos ©2011 Jesse Wolf Hardin

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged us to take a break, after nonstop deadlines around the 2011 TWH Conference organizing and the production of the first ever Plant Healer Magazine.  There are still lots of tasks to be done this month on both projects, as well as tons of emails needing answering… but that said, we’ve still been treating the last few days as a bit of a break, and are feeling more relaxed and rewarded right now.  7Song, our valued herbalist ally and friend has been visiting and checking out what he can see of Anima Sanctuary’s plant life in Winter.  And for the past week we’ve had almost Summer-like weather, the “Indian Summer” Wolf had predicted.  While the nights have been getting down below freezing, the afternoons are brilliantly sunny are warm.

We take to heart the rewards of the work we do, the people we affect and community we so our part to help grow, the getting to work here in such a wild and special place, and the blessings of the plants.  And we’ve taken to heart the meaningful gifts we’ve received from folks since the conference, most recently one pulled last night from the volumes of careful padding that encased and protected it.  Sandwiched between clear glass is our poster memorializing the first annual Traditions In Western Herbalism Conference many of you attended last September, its peach toned canyon cliffs exaggerated by the complimentary hued and agate textured frame that surrounds it, each piece bound to the other by glimmering strips of beaded copper leading.  Herbalists and fellow wildland residents Denise and Pepper have blown us over with the beauty of this gift, the hours that went into its creation along with the suggestion of folks thinking about us so sweetly, and caring this much.

-Wolf & Kiva

Plant Adventuring and Fall Wildcrafting

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Anima Lifeways and Herbal School

I rouse early, as I almost always do, but this morning it was with designs on a trip outside this special canyon.  Opening my eyes to the sparkling river and clucking ravens, white barked cottonwoods and swaying pines, it requires a task or destination with mighty heavy draw to tempt my eyes and mind away from this place even for a short while.  Depending on the need, circumstance or season, it most likely means an inescapable shopping trip or dental visit, an invitation for me to speak at an event within a day’s driving distance of our sanctuary.  Or when it comes to a relaxing break from writing on the computers, it most likely means a plant gathering trip.

Here you see recent photos of our cabins, as taken from the river, looking through the arbor of cottonwood trees that I’ve grown and protected for the past 31 years.  Our new set of solar panels can be seen between the cabins, one of which is actually my old schoolbus-home covered over with untreated wood.

Our trips are are never just about plant gathering, of course, but about our family gathering together in order to take in the beauty and knowledge that experiences in new and wild places afford.

The flora of the arid Southwest are extraordinarily diverse yet easily impacted, and so as a personal conservation practice we never sell – and seldom trade – any of the gathered bounty… thus a relatively small amount of our time away is expended on the actually clipping or digging of needed medicines.  Far more of our hours apart from dear home and ongoing mission, are given to plant exploration, estimation, classification and deep appreciation, to energetic exchange and mutual recognition, communion and reunion, to what might in aggregate be more accurately referred to as plant encounters, excursions or adventures.

Due to the very nature of our purposeful work and ambitious mission, such adventures inevitably feel both a little mischievous and a mite truant, and therein undoubtedly lies a fair portion of the pleasure.  In spite of their often sudden and impromptu feel – dashing away between needy emails and essential deadlines – these are very much planned trips, talked about days or weeks in advance, with local medicinal plants researched, trail guides and maps poured over and promising areas circled, the days checked off with my partner Kiva cautioning me not to change my mind.  Before we go to bed the night before, she’s already filled the preferred green canvas daypack that I bought her, with the most relevant and trusted plant identification guides and botanical keys (research being an important adjunct to intuition, energetics and impressions), tools like her root-scooping hori-hori and small clippers, protective work gloves, a waterproofed map and compass or GPS.  Bags for plant storage, preferably porous burlap, are stacked by the door, with the camera on top so we can’t possibly forget it.   Youngsters are known for getting extra excited on the night before Christmas, but in our odd-otter daughter Rhiannon’s case it is anticipation of an upcoming plant trip that spurs her to spin and spin before going off to her treehouse to sleep.

Gathering the plants that Kiva needs for making medicine, is compelling enough.  But what excites us most is the exploring of new terrain and what feels like exotically different elevations, varied biota in places we’re visiting for the first time.  And for me especially – much more of an ally and aficionado of plants than an herbalist – a good part of the thrill is in coming across an interesting or unusual species that whether medicinal or not, I might never have laid eyes on before.  The overriding inspiration for this trip was the end of the growing season and the certain and soon emergence of Winter, a final chance this year for gathering most varieties of fresh plants, and an opportunity to gasp and giggle over the high country’s mad display of Fall color.

Everyone climbed into the jeep for the trip through the river crossings, a ten or fifteen minute bit of bouncing before being disgorged at the back gate of the Owl (Land) Rover for the remainder of the trip.  Our destination this time was alpine meadows and draw at 8 to 10,000 feet, the habitat of white skinned aspen and coal black bears, deep rooted osha and hearty lupine.  We had permission this time to do some gathering as well as exploring on a private inholding near what is called Hannagan’s Meadow, not very many miles over the New Mexico border and into the mountains of eastern Arizona.

It seemed as if a number of conditions had combined and concluded, such that the meadows area trails remained moist year round, with a soft and padded feel to the bare feet uncommon in this part of the country.

The brilliant crimson and gold colors of the oak and aspen leaf skylines, was found duplicated in miniature on the verdant forest bottom.

Loba and Rhiannon rested on the trail, after recently fending off colds with the help of Kiva’s elderberry elixir and herbal steams.

Carpeting long stretches of the trail were layers of bright Aspen leaves forming a mind spinning mosaic, their brilliant yellow hue not the result of new pigment but rather, the seasonal leaching out of green chlorophyll.  I take numerous photos of this arboreal art, always looking for more shots that can be used for feature illustrations and background layers for the Anima and Traditions In Western Herbalism websites, as well as for the new and full color Plant Healer Magazine.

Looking up, one sees a similar pattern of back-lit leaves, not waiting their turn to fall, but minute by minute sustained by their connection to the tree, delighting in their place in the sky.

…and this is how it must have looked to Kiva:

Stunning in their own way, were the predigous shelf mushrooms, nested in a matrix of lush moss.

These firm bodied mushrooms are a service to the ecosystem, as well as are incredibly beautiful to me.

Their undersides are a wonderful, creamy, abalone white.

The greenest of the remaining annuals, was this species we have yet to have had tome to key out and identify.  Possibly a member of the wild pea family, it grew nearly 4′ high, with no leaf discoloration or die-back yet in spite of the frigid night time temperatures in November at 10,000 feet.

A few plants were actually still blooming, like this hearty wild strawberry…

…and this resilient yarrow, its flowers celebrating life and fecundity even as its leaves are rendered a dark honey brown by the turnover of the mountain Southwest’s distinct seasons.

It’s only at the end of the season, with the leaves of this plant starting to look a lot like the leaves on corn, that it becomes obvious why they named it Corn Lilly.

And here is what this Lilly’s seed pods look like, dry, opened, and having already discharged most of their contents for another generation on the mountain.

Winter’s can be heavy enough up here, that we saw many young trees either snapped in half or bent over by the weight of winds and snow.  This particular one especially caught my eye, having responded to being nearly broke in half by continuing its heroic skyward climb.

While I seldom feel accomplished enough to feel heroic, I share with this tree certain twists of character formed in response to wound and challenge, and continue a purposeful climb.  In our case, of course, the aim is not only to survive and taste the sun, but to consciously and effectively do all we can for this living earth, and help others to awaken and heal.

After Hannagan’s Meadow, we headed over to a favorite place for serious harvesting.

Developing a genuine relationship with landowners, and conserving or even helping to propagate resident species, is  great way to secure long term gathering rights.  Rural Western landowners are generally against federal environmental regulation, but are often enthusiastically supportive of private efforts to perpetuate the traditional healing herbs used by their pioneer forebears.

Kiva and Loba always bring home some White Fir, rare at lower elevations, and a favorite of theirs for a flavorful and healthy tea.

And while it may sound silly to those of you living in forests of Blue and Engelman’s Spruce, it’s admittedly an extra big treat for me whenever I am high enough up the New Mexico/Arizona mountains to be able to bask among these luxurious and deliciously scented trees.

Note that these kinds of plant excursions earn the title of “adventures” for a reason — not just because of the excitement and surprises involved, but partly for the difficult dirt roads and challenging foot trails they afford, the sudden shifts in weather and vehicle breakdowns.  This fact led me to write an entire article of suggestions and guidelines for the upcoming first issue of our new Plant Healer: A Journal of Traditional Western Herbalism... crucial for those just getting into herbal wildcrafting or other plant adventuring for the first time, and hopefully a helpful aid to longtime plant folks who could use an organized list of hints and tips to pass on to their herbal students.  While the Anima Blog and Medicine Woman’s Roots Blog will continue featuring announcements and stories, after December all of Kiva’s and my most in-depth, information filled articles will be appearing in the Plant Healer instead, with only excerpts appearing on these blogs.  For this reason alone, we strongly encourage anyone with an interest in herbalism and wildcrafting, plant conservation and activism, to subscribe to this art and photo filled journal of Western folk herbalism… with articles written by some of the leading voices in the herbal and healing community.

Plant Healer subscriptions will be available very soon.  To read the latest of Kiva’s always insightful pieces, my new wildcrafter’s hints and tips and a dozen other engaging articles by featured authors, please keep checking for subscription updates at the
Plant Healer Journal Website: www.PlantHealerMagazine.com

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.