“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” – Kurt Vonnegut

Herbalist. The term can make the role we fill sound as if it’s a single job rather than the multitude of overlapping and intersecting skills that it actually is. Gardener, Wildcrafter, Clinician, Medicine Maker, Field Botanist, Educator, Counselor, Activist, Accountant, Grant Writer and Advocate are just a few of the most common roles many herbalists find themselves filling. We will often find that our work is most powerful and authentic in the borderlands where these roles meet and overlap. To be an herbalist, especially in this era and place, is to walk the edge.

The word edgy is so overused as to be a cliche unto itself. And yet, that’s exactly what this work is. It’s learning the language of traditional medicine and conventional medicine and trying to speak it in an understandable way to people who may understand neither or have a distinct prejudice against either or both. It’s teaching gutter punks and retired RNs physiology from a new perspective and opening their eyes to the complex array of plant life that surrounds us at all times. It’s making old-fashioned medicine from common weeds and then attempting to understand how that medicine might interact with newly introduced pharmaceuticals or affect organ systems that scientists are just beginning to understand the function of.

Some would have us think that herbalism remains the domain only of “primitive” peoples or, on the other hand, conventional medical professionals who have the accreditation considered necessary to treat clients. And so we walk another kind of edge, within the legal system and the regulations created by entities such as the FDA.

These edges are important, imperative even. This is a time of many people being both disempowered and disconnected from even the most basic healthcare, often from a lack of education and finances. As herbalists, we’re pushing at the borders of what’s considered normal, sensible, and sometimes even acceptable, within mainstream society. Regardless of how straight we look, speak or feel, the very act of teaching or treating with botanical medicine tends to immediately place us on the fringes of standard American culture.

Within my practice, teaching, organizing, editing and writing I constantly strive to further acknowledge and embrace these edges and borders. To walk them consciously and with intent. Plant Healer Magazine and TWHC have been a furthering of that boundary pushing and edge walking. Wolf and I are in constant discussion and reassessment of that this means and how we can be most effective.

This is not easy work, especially when we live a culture that asks us to separate ourselves into pieces. That suggests we have different social media accounts for each and every one of our personal and professional roles for our many fragments, and the masks they each wear. That tries to insist that we splinter ourselves into cliches and titles and aliases until even we can’t remember which part of us is talking and what’s safe to say. But don’t worry, there’s a social media app for that.

My big mouth, constant questioning of the status quo and sometimes unpopular opinions have earned me more than a few disparaging comments both locally and in the larger herbal community. I admit that it’s sometimes tempting to shut up and play it a bit safer. To keep my opinions neutral. To make every response politic to the expected audience.

But really, fuck that.

For me, herbalism always has been about and continues to be primarily about the plants. Their beauty and inherent value as living parts of a larger organism we call Earth. The miracle of how even being near them in their chosen habitat is healing in and of itself. The myriad ways we interact with and rely on them. The magic, yes magic, of their bodies as medicine for our bodies. Only when all of these layers are present and integrated do I feel whole and happy with my work, my life, my self.

Occasionally I have to remind myself that my work with clients isn’t as a doctor, dictator or a magician, but simply as a matchmaker between person and plants. It’s that simple, and that difficult. There are other sorts of herbalists of course, and this description of my approach isn’t meant to be a definition of what you or anyone else does or needs to do. It’s here as remembrance that there are many ways to work in the diverse and dynamic field of herbalism.

As the snow clouds hang low over the canyon and surrounding mountains I realize that I’ve never before looked on the long, cold months of Winter with such anticipation. After more than two years of frenzied activity of putting together the TWH conference, Plant Healer Magazine and various teaching projects along with still seeing clients and trying to keep up with wildcrafting and medicine making, I realize I’m more than ready for some time turned inward.

It’s been easy to lose myself in the work of organizing and managing, to be subsumed by the large personalities I spend so much time promoting and working with. To forget the strands of my mission that are rooted in the Appalachian culture I come from and the New Mexico mountains that are my home. To find myself too exhausted at the end of any given day to nourish myself. To remember how to integrate all of the skills and roles into a functional whole.

While the deadlines and effort required for my work are undeniably endless, I’m creating new ways to reprioritize my time and energy. As the last copper-tinted leaves are blown from the Cottonwood trees, I find myself returning to the projects that keep me most in touch with what I care about, and what I most love about herbalism. I notice that I’m more frequently wandering into the kitchen to muse over my favorite Siberian inspired elk pelmeni recipe or breathe in the warm citrus scent of White Fir tea simmering on the woodstove. The mornings have more often been spent on a lichen clad boulder staring through the long threads of Usnea out at the Ponderosas bending with the winds and the river rippling sinuously between its banks.

As a result, I’ll be blogging more often, and my posts will return to their previously personal and wide topic range. You’ll also notice I’ve updated my blog header and am in process of updating the overall feel of the site and my writing. While it sometimes seems easier to restrict the subject matter on the Medicine Woman’s Roots to being strictly related to botanical medicine, I’ve found that this negates the original purpose and even the title of the blog. I don’t want a fracturing of myself into personal and professional personas. My vocation is a huge part of who I am and it’s more than a job, it’s my passion and a lasting love.

And if I ramble on about the color of Monkeyflowers and rant about the pseudoscience that passes for medical research and eat with my hands in public and climb trees in high heels and swear with great enthusiasm, well… you were forewarned.

Expect tales and monographs, case studies and rants, pictures and ramblings.

Expect to find yourself up against the edge, gazing out over where the vast diversity of traditions, medicine, cultures, plants and peoples come together.

A freeze damaged Opuntia pad

The drought withered leaf of Lonicera albiflora

With the current drought here in southwestern New Mexico only getting worse right now, I have never been so grateful for widely available, locally abundant, feral as all hell weeds. So much of the land in every direction is eerily brown and dormant despite the warm weather. There are very few birds or insects compared to a normal May in the canyon. And from photographs, you’d be likely to think it’s Winter right now. The quickest way to get a fix of lush green is to find a perennial waterway like our lovely San Francisco River running just below the mesa our cabins are situation on and…. checking out the weeds in people’s yards, in vacant lots and other disturbed areas. Some of these species are native, some are not, but what unites them is a particular tenacity and insistence. While many other plants have pulled back into dormancy to await the next rains, this particular botanical cadre is fiercely green in the face of unquenched thirst and scorching sun.

Indecorous Plants

Lemon Balm bursting back after being chewed down to nothing by hungry critters.

One of the primary indications that a plant will be called a weed is that it is common and thus giving the implication of being vulgar. And in fact, the word vulgar has its roots in the Latin vulgus, which appropriately enough means “folk” or “common people” but has the common definition of something (or someone) that is unrefined, ordinary, coarse… and even indecorous (lord protect us from indecorous plants) to the point of being obnoxious. Low class in other words, usually relegated to that status primarily by their commonness, their ability to thrive. This is not a matter of competition between plants within a particular habitat but rather a troubling projection of human origin. Wherever we are, modern humans have a tendency to most highly value what is hard to come by, that which is rare, exotic and comes at a great price.

It seems to me that if we’re going to place value judgments on plants as medicine and food, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to greatly value (getting past ingrained ideas about economics) what we have access to, what is sustainable and what we are able to cultivate intimacy with. The herbal community often excels at this, and I am eternally heartened by the excitement that a patch of Chickweed or stand of Wild Roses can evoke in any number of plant people. The exuberant pointing, shrieking and jumping up and down of otherwise dignified adults at the sight of Stinging Nettles on a riverbank is certainly one of the reasons I adore what I do.

The Why of Weeds

Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) in our garden struggling to grow back after very hungry packrats have stripped much of its bark.

Personally, as much as I love and work to preserve rare or endangered plants, it is the common weeds that I am most likely to get excited about as an herbalist. Why? Because there’s lots of them and lots of potential for working with them and helping people without endangering the species. Think about it, a tiny stand of delicate and slow growing plants may have good medicine but the capacity for real life use is small. On the other hand, a yard full of Dandelions, Chickweed  and Mallow that just seems to multiply like rodents in Spring no matter how much you pick, pull, chop and run over them has HUGE capacity for treating and feeding people in a way that doesn’t harm the plant community. This seems especially important if we recognize that plants have intrinsic value in and of themselves outside of human use and deserve to thrive and live their own lives regardless of their value to us.

I also appreciate the feral nature of plants that survive where and when they can, digging in with roots and tendrils and running wild across the face of buildings, fences, lawns and whatever else will sit still long enough for them grow in, over or through. For me, the plants serve as role models and teachers, friends and confidantes. I’ve always found this especially true of unruly wildflowers and rebellious weeds that give the finger to herbicides and lawn regulations, busily growing and blooming from every crevice and empty patch of dirt.

Especially during dry times like these, I’m incredibly grateful for the soothing mucilage of Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila) and Mallow (Malva spp.) that somehow still manage to leaf out and spread along sidewalks and doorsteps. Last week, I was struck by the sight of a young Elm tree sawed down about four feet from the ground and all its branches stripped off with its remaining trunk a strange black color. It was positioned in the middle of a gravel pile at the center of the village in a place where everything near it was dead from lack of water and soil. And yet, the Elm tree had dozens new leaves emerging from its ragged stump. Not just growing back from the roots, but shooting out from where it was broken. I keep its image in my mind as an emblem of hope right now as the leaves on the Oaks hang shriveled and black and the absence of the Canyon Wrens’ song renders the mesa scarily silent. Life is insistent, it will find a way.

Rhiannon with a green handful of River Mint in an otherwise barren field.

Weed Tending

What qualifies as weeds surely differs from place to place. Herbs like Plantain often known as weeds in moister climes are actually fairly difficult to track down here in southwestern New Mexico. And this year, with scarcity and fragility of many otherwise moderately common plants has me carefully considering what’s really ethical and sustainable to harvest and use as medicine. My goal is to adapt my current practice to what the land can easily bear and what the people need. I aim to be flexible enough to provide effective treatment while not presenting a burden to already stressed land. Some elements in this approach include:

1. Only harvesting from plants and plant communities that appear to be healthy and able to reproduce. This means staying away from plants that have only partially leafed out, are dropping leaves, have brown or black leaves or are unable to flower. Another reason for this, besides consideration for the plant, is that stressed plants can have somewhat different balances constituents than what we’re accustomed to and the medicine may not behave as we expected.
2. Going out of my way even more than normal to help plants reproduce by dividing roots and replanting rather than taking the whole root system when harvesting, waiting until a plant is in seed before harvesting roots and being sure to spread the seeds, making cuttings of plants easily spread that way as with Salix species and even being extra careful where I walk on wild land. This may seem somewhat ridiculous in lush habitats, but here in the dry SW, compressing the soil and squashing barely surviving plants can have a very noticeable effect.
3. Sorting through my existing stock of herbal preparations and preserved foraged foods and being sure to carefully note what I have and what I really need more of. Then making a point of using what I have abundant stores of rather than impulsively going after whatever new creature catches my fancy. It’s likely that even the weeds are under stress this season and I prefer not to add to that if possible. I’ll also go out of my way not to recommend larger doses than necessary and more likely to admonish people not to lose, ruin (kindly don’t leave your tincture bottles and tea mixes on the dash of your sealed car in an Albuquerque parking lot, people) or otherwise waste existing medicines.
4. And for my own sake, I’ll spend a great deal of time with both the thriving and hurting plants, noticing how they respond to the current conditions and appreciating even the ones I know are dying, thanking them for their beauty even as they lose their life to this painfully dry season.

Village Weeds

The very persistant Periwinkle (Vinca major)

As I mentioned above, here in the SW we don’t always have the same weeds as other places, but here are a few of our most persistent and multi-purpose weedy plants at the middle elevations along with a selection of their primary qualities and uses.

• Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila) – Basically interchangeable with Slippery Elm (Ulmus rubra), making it an exceedingly useful constitutional tonic for those who tend in the direction of dry as well as a remarkably effective gut healer, useful even in extreme digestive debility where there is inflammation and pronounced irritability of the gastric mucosa. Also useful externally as a drawing agent or soothing abraded areas.
• Sweet Clover (Melilotus spp.) – This fragrant and abundant roadside weed is not only an excellent wild food (especially in pesto) and tasty beverage tea but also a useful medicine. A notable aromatic, its carminative properties work well on their own to resolve bloating and discomfort or blend well with more obvious choices such as Chamomile. Sweet Clover is also a very useful anti-inflammatory, especially for soft tissue and the vascular system. Topically, it makes an excellent first aid salve  and a poultice, soak, salve for vascular weakness.
• Periwinkle (Vinca major) – The astringent flowers and leaves of vining, groundcover-like Periwinkle are an effective vascular tonic, serving to tighten up the tissue of the vascular system wherever there is laxity. Based on this same systemic tonifying action, I frequently utilize Vinca as a vasoconstrictor for certain kinds of migraines.
• Evening Primrose (Oenothera spp.) – Despite its delicate appearance, I’ve seen Evening Primrose bloom from the cracks in rocks, in parking lots and even sprout of the crevices of old building foundations. The aromatic species are relaxant nervines and very effective antispasmodics, especially useful in the treatment of mild to severe uterine/ovarian cramping with accompanying tension and irritability. All species seem to act as mucus membrane tonics, reducing inflammation, tightening lax tissues and preventing further degradation. This is especially useful in formulas for gut, reproductive or respiratory inflammation.

A Feral Heart

Fragrant Evening Primrose (Oenothera caespitosa)

Yes, I love and identify with the common and vulgar, the feral and fierce. I’m as likely to call myself a weedwife or plant lover as clinical herbalist, although I would consider all of these term to be true to my work. I value the common, the ordinary even, for its vitality and profusion. For its resilience and flexibility in the face of droughts and floods, habitat change and ever shifting interactions with the humans they share land with.

This applies to herbalists as well. Sure, there’s lots of us at the level of herbwife, kitchen herbalist, practitioner and village herbalist. There are no rock star requirements for what we do and in fact, such a status can keep us from being maximally approachable and accessible to others. There’s an ancient lineage for our work, for mothers and wildcrafters and weedwives, of the common people working together with common plants to bring a bit more healing and beauty  to the world with our work. Our resilience and adaptability is part of why we survive and revive time after time, despite periodic suppression and stifling regulation.

Digging In

In this vein, I’m offering a free webinar on May 18th called Root to Fruit: Folk Herbalism From the Ground Up where I’ll be discussing one of my favorite weedy plants, how to both deepen and broaden your materia medica and elements for a balanced approach to practicing herbalism.

And oh yes, during the webinar (sponsored/produced by Learningherbs.com), we’ll be giving away a free ticket to the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference, a free copy of the sold out Culinary Herbalism online course and all sorts of other lovely things.

To listen in, you have to register ahead of time, so just click on the link below and sign up to participate.

Root To Fruit: Folk Herbalism From the Ground Up

Water Crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis var. diffusus)

]]> http://bearmedicineherbals.com/weedwifery.html/feed 9 http://bearmedicineherbals.com/rootsrevival.html http://bearmedicineherbals.com/rootsrevival.html#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 18:45:35 +0000 Kiva Rose http://bearmedicineherbals.com/?p=1292
This particular piece is part of a larger project I’m working on for the upcoming issue of Plant Healer: A Journal of Traditional Western Herbalism but something that I feel strongly about sharing with all my blog readers as well. As most of you are well aware of, grassroots herbalism is something I’m incredibly passionate [...]]]>

This particular piece is part of a larger project I’m working on for the upcoming issue of Plant Healer: A Journal of Traditional Western Herbalism but something that I feel strongly about sharing with all my blog readers as well. As most of you are well aware of, grassroots herbalism is something I’m incredibly passionate about and I see more reason than ever to be celebrating the growth and diversity of our community than ever!

~Kiva

—-

Roots Revival: Celebrating The New Folk Herbalism Resurgence

by Kiva Rose

“All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”

-Louis Armstrong

“We were created out of the earth there. Well, we’re part of the earth, and that’s what we’ve got to go back to the earth to get something to keep this body a-ticking. Just like the tree, of course, and the herbs here, they’ve got sap in em, and we’ve got blood.”

- Tommie Bass, Appalachian Folk Herbalist

With the current economic hardships, there’s been a revived interest in all sorts of folk arts as well as an upsurge in enthusiasm for the do-it-yourself mentality. And rightly so, as our culture finally awakens to the need for increased sustainability and self-sufficiency. Once relegated to the impoverished or for decorative purposes only, gardening has seen an incredible upsurge as we once again take an interest in where and how our food is grown. Likewise, many folk arts, from artisan breads to hand woven fibers have become increasingly popular and valued in recent years. Handmade has become something to value rather than scorn in favor of their store boughten counterparts. Locally crafted goods are esteemed over exotic imports as being not only more economical, but also more meaningful and desirable as they connect us to our own bioregions and facilitate an intimacy with place.

In the context of herbalism, however, it seems that the term “folk” is still frequently accompanied by disdainful sentiments, and for the more open minded, a sense of the quaint and cute and old fashioned. Yep, go ahead and look up folk herbalism or folk medicine. Count how many times the terms “rustic”, “primitive” and “non-scientific” come up. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary is kinder, defining  folk medicine as the “treatment of ailments outside clinical medicine by remedies and simple measures based on experience and knowledge handed down from generation to generation.”

Technically, the term folk in this context applies strictly to non-professional or lay people using local or handed down knowledge to treat illness. More realistically, folk herbalism is simply whatever herbal practitioners (professional or not) and practices not currently recognized as valid, acceptable or popular by conventional medicine and mainstream culture. In the U.S., that seems to be just about damn near all of us. Yeah, sure, some of us have managed to fit in a little better, but among plant-loving people there’s still likely to be sage leaves clinging to our lab coats and chokecherry twigs tangled in our hair no matter how many hospitals or integrated clinics we’ve worked in.

I personally see the term folk as an underlying commonality for all grassroots practitioners, all those herbalists who get out in the forests and meadows and gardens and harvest their own medicines and who can recognize their favorite remedies while still growing in the ground and not just from a label on a fancy bottle. After all, folk are just the people. Usually the common people, the non-elite who need sustainable, cheap remedies that actually work without worrying about academic theories or even government endorsement. Implied by the term is a lack of exclusivity, embracing rather than shunning and encouraging a sense of sharing what we know without hoarding or copywriting our experiences. At its root, folk arts of any kind tend to be unpretentious while still beautiful and useful, a testament to the efficiency and aesthetics of an earlier era with increasing relevance for our current challenging times.

The more popular term “traditional herbalism” encompasses folk herbalism as well as a great deal more, including the more highly systemized herbal practices around the world, such as Ayurveda, Unani Tibb and Traditional Chinese Medicine. All folk herbalism is a form of traditional herbalism, but not all traditional herbalism is folk herbalism, especially as some traditional medicine becomes ever more formalized and merges with conventional medicine. By it’s very nature, folk herbalism tends to be unstructured, unruly and constantly adapting to the needs of the current place and people. Standardized extracts aren’t likely to be of much use to these people, as they almost always prefer making their own herbal preparations and are more likely to trust a remedy made from the whole plant than isolated constituents for isolated health diagnoses.

Many, if not all, forms of the more systemized herbal traditions include within them many elements of folk herbalism. As with any attempted categorizations, the borders are fairly fuzzy. What’s probably most important to recognize about folk herbalism is its wild and wooly nature that generally defies being fit inside any construct and tends to vary radically depending on locale, culture and era. There are certainly underlying commonalities though, especially a dependence on weeds, locally abundant wild plants and easily grown garden herbs as well as the independent nature of its practitioners and their deep connection with plants, people and place. Experience, empiricism and even thoughtful anecdote are also essential elements of this ubiquitous breed of botanical medicine.

Folk herbalism certainly includes kitchen herbalism and backyard herbalism, but can also encompass many forms of professionalized herbalism as well. It’s likely that the greatest majority of folk herbalists primarily treat their families or close friends, although many will eventually look to help their larger community, especially when word gets out and people come knocking on the front door, looking for diaper rash salve and something to quiet an old cough. And some will go on to make teaching and practicing the mainstay of their livelihood, passing on their knowledge to an even wider range of those interested in plant medicine.

Unfortunately, even from within the herbal community, there seems to be the tendency to create hierarchal divisions of professional, community, kitchen and other types of herbalists. I certainly see that these descriptions can be useful in helping potential clients and students choose who they’d benefit most from working with. What seems less rational is the need to create a hierarchy of what is best.

What we most need within herbalism right now is increased diversity, not not less. Just as in any intact or recovering ecosystem, diversity breeds health and proliferation. We need the grandmother in her kitchen serving Chamomile tea to a teething toddler just as much as we need the professional herbalist working in a clinic or the rural rancher who treats a bull-gored horse with Indian Root. None of these choices are more valid than another, they are all vital elements of a thriving culture and people.

I don’t see the necessity for only one type of healthcare and healing, even within herbalism.  I hear many arguments from all different camps each insisting that their method is the best, the most natural or the only effective way. Personally, when it comes to human health and well-being, I think we can use as many options as are viable, sustainable and relevant. Our very strength is often in our differences and the way we come together to work from so many angles and perspectives. It’s time to break down these needless divisions, these private clubs of who’s important and who’s not. In a grassroots vocation, there’s no reason or room for harmful divisiveness that could well alienate many talented and skilled members of our craft.

Those of us residing in Western Civilization are a mostly mongrel people and our herbal traditions reflect our varied heritage. Remnants of Greek humoral theory merge with Cherokee materia medica only to further blend with Hispanic energetics concepts and German phytotherapy. We’re a wild and weedy bunch, with a penchant for sidewalk-cracking garden escapees and feral flowers. Our traditions have loose ends and broken strands. We weave and reweave while bringing in the multicolored fibers from a hundred different sources. We’re eclectic but still somehow cohesive, even as we struggle for clarity and coherence in our approach and practice.

To deny our diversity for the sake of homogeny and a more respectable appearance is to give up some of the incredible dynamism of Western herbalism, and perhaps especially American herbalism. Instead, we have ever growing reasons for a celebration of the kaleidoscope of our colors and tones. Just as in folk music, our traditions and practices build one off the other, incorporating new harmonies into time-honored melodies, mixing modern instrumentation into century old songs.

We’re still the folk, including herbalist doctors and curanderas, plant-loving nurses and squat-dwelling herb students. We need education and healthcare everywhere, in both clinics and on the streets, in urban centers as well as the backwoods. Herbalists, by their very nature, tend to be boundary walkers, traveling between different worlds and communities in order to provide care and help to those who need it most.

What we all have in common is the knowledge that healthcare and healing are not only the terrain of the expert and the elite. We know that human has the right to facilitate healing in themselves and their family through food, lifestyle, herbs and more. This is an imperative element in sustainability, self-sufficiency and personal responsibility. A roots resurgence in folk wisdom is not only about healthcare but is one part of a return to direct connection with the natural world and our own bodies. The honoring of folk medicine, of the herbal knowledge of the common people steeped in the day to day work with the plants is in itself a sort of revolution.

After all, there’s a certain, irreplaceable power and beauty to knowing your medicines so well that you know them by the shape of their stark winter stems, by one whiff of their just sliced roots, by the particular pattern of their seeds within its fruit. Whether feral sidewalk weeds, carefully tended garden flowers or wild mountain roots, the work of the herbalist is grounded in place. And also in community – whether seeing folks on their own back porches or in integrative clinics, we are inextricably interwoven with the people we care for and offer knowledge to.

Folk music, folk dance, folklore – it can be easy to forget that healing is an art as well as a science and that the lines between the two are finer and grayer than is generally acknowledged. Folk herbalism doesn’t just mean rustic or undeveloped, but rather points to a long history of traditional knowledge passed down and refined over time. Even where our traditions have fractured and been partly forgotten, new knowledge and experiences are forever sprouting up with each new generation – the insistent call and craft of plant-based medicine consistently regrowing even when cut down. Every folk herbalist is an integral part of this emerging resurgence from our shared roots.

~~~~

All photos © 2011 Kiva Rose

Herbal Conformism and the Illusion of Normalcy:

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

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.animacenter.org

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

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

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

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

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

-Jesse Wolf Hardin

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

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

Grassroots Herbalism: The Weeds & Wildlings of Folk Medicine

by Kiva Rose

Mexican Poppy (Eschscholzia californica var. mexicana)

Any of ya’ll who’ve been reading The Medicine Woman’s Roots for very long are likely familiar with my penchant for all things weedy and wild. Garden flowers are pretty enough, but I prefer the bad attitude of rebellious weeds and fierce insistence of wild plants growing out of sharp-edged rock crevices and boggy swamp bottoms. Rare, esteemed herbs from the other side of the globe can be useful enough medicines, but my heart (and the heart of my practice as an herbalist) definitely lies with the common, abundant plants that grow just outside my door and down by the river.

Even in my small, feral garden, I don’t baby anyone. If they can’t hold their own with the Lamb’s Quarters and Wild Mustard, that’s just tough. I’m a great fan of such qualities of tenacity, fierceness, badassness (yes, that IS a quality, if not a word) and even a bit of outright mule-headedness can serve very well. And really, this is where my roots grow deepest – among strong, willful plants, land, culture and people. Yep, I like weedy and wild people too. Stubborn, skeptical and child-like in the way that rural and earthy (even while still urban) folks can be. Whether in Appalachia or the Mountain Southwest, I am inevitably drawn to those who not only survive adversity, but thrive despite the difficulties.

Kiva Rose by the Gila River with a skirt full of Galium aparine and Corydalis aurea

I see grassroots herbalism as having direct connections with local plants, with the land both we and the herbs grow from and with the people we work with. All this directness leads to a certain kind of messiness. Sometimes picking your own medicine means there’s strange little bugs in your most recent harvest and sometimes talking to folks about their problems on their back porch leads to a much more complicated conversation than if you’d kept it in your air-conditioned office. Working this way, you get to know the plants in the context of their environment, of their relationship with other plants, with the dirt, with humans. Likewise, we also learn to understand people in the context of their human community and the connections they have to place and more-than-human people (you know, critters of various sorts).

I approach healing as a means of facilitating wholeness in whatever form that takes for each individual. Context is essential to any sort of wholeness. I don’t want to isolate bits of synthesized plant parts for my remedies, and I find my best success therapeutically has always come from working with whole plants. And I don’t desire to remove the people I help from their circumstances and ways of being. I work best when I get to know folks, hear about their life and what they love and what gets under their skin. I can’t really imagine any old-time root doctor or indigenous medicine person working any other way, and it seems the only approach I know how to practice anyhow.

Homemade Herbal Medicine

If you want to make lots of money with herbs, this sure as hell isn’t the way to do it. Often enough, I don’t make any money at all for the work I do or the herbs I hand out. Sometimes I get live chickens or whiskey (for tinctures, folks, for tinctures) or fresh plants or even slabs of fresh killed Elk for my work. I, like just about anyone else, do need money to feed my family, tend the land where I live, and even just to pay for all that alcohol for tinctures. But I enjoy working by donation whenever I can, and being able to give regardless of a person’s financial status.

The work I do (and love) is folk medicine, it’s accessible and subversive and messy and is all about the magic of the everyday. It revolves around good food and weeds and  conversation and a return to the heart of what healing is all about: wholeness embodied in the individual, the community and the land.

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In case you’ve missed it up ‘til now (or have waffled a bit about actually getting signed up), I and John Gallagher of LearningHerbs.com are doing a free teleseminar (this means you call in on a telephone and get to listen to us ramble on about our favorite subjects) on Wednesday evening (that would be June 9th) called the The Wild Remedy: Grassroots Herbalism from Your Backyard and Beyond. This includes a whole bunch of giveaways including a year subscription to HerbMentor.com and even a free ticket to the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference in September. Space is limited but there’s still room as of now so head over to http://WildRemedy.com to learn more and to sign up.

Note: I’m rather behind on my emails (as per usual). I get a crazy volume of correspondence in, and I can’t always write everyone back even though I’d love to. And if you’ve written about studying or consulting with me and its been more than two weeks and you haven’t heard back, feel free to write again. I can’t promise an immediate response, but you can figure I’m working on it.

Rhiannon helping to process plants for medicine.

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All Photos ©2010 Kiva Rose

The beautiful logo my partner Wolf created for the Medicine Woman Herbal Clinic and for my line of herbal products, Medicine Woman Herbals.

I’ve recently opened an office, one day a week, at the new Frisco Wellness Center here in the local village of Reserve. I call my herbal and nutrition consulting The Medicine Woman Herbal Clinic, and share the space with Kristen Ehrlich, who is a massage therapist. While I’m already seeing folks there, we’re celebrating the opening with an open house and small gathering at the Wellness Center on June 12th (that’s 43 Main Street next to the daycare and community garden, if any of you locals happen to be reading this).

In the process of opening up this office, I’ve also been conducting a serious reevaluation of my own practice and work as an herbalist. I have always considered myself to be very hands-on, common sense and grounded in what works. I don’t have any letters after my name, no special certification or even any fancy memberships to prove my status as a professional herbalist. But as I’ve begun teaching and working with more and more people, and expanding my practice, I’ve noticed that I sometimes find myself wishing I could prove myself with more than just my reputation and the thanks of those I’ve treated or taught. After all, there is a certain allure to having people trust you based on your education or official status in the world. And of course, within the realm of mainstream medicine, or even mainstream alternative medicine, it is nearly a requirement you at least pretend to have some sort of certification, some document that assures your clients and students of your competence, if not your excellence. Now, I think there’s some real validity to this way of thinking if you intend to work within the medical system or desire the respect of other healthcare professionals. This sort of respect and acknowledgment from within the system creates a very specific kind of accessibility and allows the public to know that herbalists even exist in the world. Which in turn provides them with options for health and healing they didn’t previously have, something that is almost always a good thing.

The more I think on it though, the less I’m interested in any official status. I’m happy for those herbalists who work in a more widely accepted model of practice that allows them greater freedom of movement within our culture… but for myself, I intend to stay right here, at the grassroots. For me personally, this means continuing to work with people as an herbal practitioner, as a village herbalist, on a nearly daily basis. It means leaning over peoples’ backyard fences and teaching them how to work with the weeds that grow all around them. It means gathering wild plants for food and medicine for my family and friends. It means when I sit down with people to try and help them with whatever discomfort or problem they’re experiencing that my aim is to nourish and promote wholeness and vital health. It means I’m a weedy herbalist, subverting the dominant culture with chicken soup and wildflowers, and by reminding people that medicine comes from right here – from the earth we’re connected to and from inside our own bodies.

It doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop learning, or quit trying to understand the intricacies of human physiology or the magical complexity of botany. In fact, I think I might learn that much more with all the time I’ll save not filling out paperwork or proving I know what I’m doing to the proper authorities. For myself, authority as an herbalist comes from myself and from the community I serve. This is how I practice and this is how I teach my students. My people come to study with me initially looking to become a “certified herbalist” and while I do offer a certificate of completion at the end of some of my more demanding programs, those certificates are just that, a piece of paper informing you (and whoever you show it to) that you managed to finish the course of work set before you. It, like me, offers no entitlement or authority.

At my core, I’m a traditional herbalist, what people ’round these parts call a medicine woman, and what’s called an herbwife or grannywoman if you’re from Appalachia or the Ozarks. Nope, I sure haven’t finished college, but I sure do know what herbs to use on an assassin bug bite or if you’ve got a migraine. Like all of us, I’ll be working to understand how it all works until my very last breath. I’m excited for that journey, and to spend every day of the rest of my life learning how to better help the community I serve as an herbalist, a healer, a human being.

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In case you missed yesterday’s post, be sure to check out the FREE teleseminar I’m doing with John Gallagher:
The Wild Remedy: Grassroots Herbalism from Our Backyards & Beyond

Here you’ll find a few pointers for both neophyte and tenured herbalists practicing in rural areas based on my own experience. Seeing as my community is a tiny village in the mountains of New Mexico, I have neither office nor herb store nearby so I am my own walking dispensatory and workspace most of the time. There’s lots of old-fashioned house calls and short followups in the general store here, and my work as an herbalist mingles and blends with everything else I do within the community rather than being a nine-to-five thing. I’m sure some of this applies to an urban practice as well, but I can only speak from what I know, so my tips are firmly situated from a country person’s perspective.

Be a Part of the Community.

I’m a fringe-dweller and loner by nature (and really, I’m kind of odd from anyone’s point of view) but I make an effort to get to know my neighbors and the local people. And despite differences (be they political, class, ethnicity etc.) I try to find some common ground. Around here, much of that’s based on being self-reliant, low-income and hard-working, which is something I really like and value about rural NM. The benefit of this is that people trust me with their kids and grandmas in a way they rarely grant to outsiders or city-slickers. They’re not afraid to tell me about their health woes or emotional ups and downs, and will often share more with me than with their doctor or spouse. And sometimes they tell me about how their great grandpa used herbs or the plants their abuela used for healing, sharing a bit of precious, nearly lost story and information of the land and people here.

Cultivate Mutual Respect

I try to be aware and sensitive to their cultural affinities and in return, ask them to treat me with respect even if they don’t like what they think they know about my religious views, parenting style, carnivorous eating habits or weird hippy clothes. I’m here to help people, and hopefully they’re here to be helped. It’s that simple.

At all costs, avoid politics! Raising the client’s blood pressure by arguing the merits or downfalls of the president, gun laws, abortion or immigration is not helpful to the healing process or respectful of their trust in you as their herbalist. And I say that as a very outspoken and opinionated woman (just ask anyone, heh). I’m not quiet about my views, I just save them for outside the intimacy and vulnerability of the practitioner/client relationship.

Consider Trade, Sliding Scale, Payment Plans and Donations.

Taking trade and donations are definitely not the way to make big bucks (but hell, if you were out for the bling, you probably wouldn’t have become an herbalist anyway, right?) but it does make your work accessible to many people who might not otherwise be able to afford an herbalist’s services. Being willing to take payments over time and using a sliding scale can also be very helpful, and may make a consultation more feasible to someone even if you ask for a set fee.

In order to prevent a client from becoming dependent on purchasing my medicines for their health maintenance, I try to teach each person how to gather and make their own medicines (yet another reason to use common, local plants), if they show even the slightest hint of interest. If they won’t or can’t make their own, I’m open to trade in the form of garden space, fresh eggs, handmade knives, garden grown veggies, chickens (no, really), wild meat, local honey, mechanic work, guns, and other useful things in addition to or instead of payment or donation.

And remember, accepting donations or even working for free doesn’t mean you’re devaluing or allowing other people to devalue your work and help. A gift isn’t worthless just because it didn’t cost the person any money. I’ve found that if my clients aren’t grateful and respectful of my gifts, I probably don’t need to be working with them. Respect yourself and your work at all times.

Focus on Local, Common Plants.

I know damn well that if I recommend that my clients go buy some proprietary herb extract or tea, chances are slim to none that they’ll ever do it. Same with local students, if I suggest they buy some Ginseng and Goldenseal from an herb farm, it’s never going to happen. These people can’t afford expensive plants from other places for the most part, nor would they know one end of a health food or herb store from another (and the closest one is at least two hours away). They may look at me like I’m loco for suggesting they pull those sticky buds off Cottonwood trees or eat the Mallow that’s taking over their garden, but they’ll know exactly what I’m talking about and how to go about it. If I were in an urban environment, I would likely have to change this around to suit local needs, but this is what works here.

People around here really like the words “free” and “cheap” and the idea that they can get food and medicine from their backyards and local riversides is appealing to them. So I mostly teach about local, very common, easily recognizable plants. Clients and students appreciate this and feel like they have something special on their own land, as indeed they do.

Simple Preparations.

People often get scared by the ideas of ratios and math when it comes to making tinctures, so I’m more likely to teach how to create simple teas, infusions and decoctions for both internal and external uses. Just about everyone drinks tea and/or coffee, which makes it easy to explain water based herbal preparations. For those who are more self-motivated and interested in the process, I’ll teach them the simpler-style proportions for tinctures and infused oils.

Stay in Familiar Settings & Maintain Focus.

I try to do my plant walks on well-known, well-liked local people’s land so that a variety of people feel welcome and on familiar territory. Once a group has had a good experience I’m more likely to do walk on wilder public land with them. Same goes for workshops, either at a local person’s home or at a well-known and easily accessed public place. Consultations usually take place in the local café, their home or on a bench outside the corner store. I try to keep things relaxed but focused, and refuse to compete with casual chatter or screaming children. I know from experience that distractions will keep the client from benefiting from or being able to integrate what I give them, so I’d rather wait until they have time to give it their full attention.

Work with Local Doctors and Health Care Practitioners.

Life as the village herbalist is a whole lot easier with a close alliance with the local general practitioner, chiropractor and other health care professionals. I’m especially blessed that our village doctor is a Seventh Day Adventist and so exceptionally open to alternative treatments. Even if your client base is only as broad as your immediate family, you’ll still likely be sharing them with a doctor or dentist. The more you can cooperate with them, the easier your life will be. It’s no fun at all for a client to feel like her doctor and herbalist are playing tug of war with her health by constantly negating each other’s advice and recommendations. Of course, I’m unlikely to ever encourage the use of statins in any case and they’re probably not going to understand my paleo/primal dietary guidelines but nevertheless, I try my damnedest work with and not against the doctors.

Be Human and Be a Role Model (At The Same Time)

It’s entirely too common for alternative health practitioners to try to project an image of purity and holiness, complete with self-righteous dietary rants and broad condemnation of other people’s lifestyles. A word to the wise: get over yourself. There’s no point in trying to be perfect for your community, they prefer you human and relatable — someone they can talk to without fearing judgment and vilification. Save the fire and brimstone for the local preacher, he’s probably better at it anyway.

The balance to being human for the herbalist is being a role model. They’re not really different, after all, just two sides of the same coin. The reality is that people will watch you. They want to see your humanness but they’ll trust your help more if you can take your own advice. If you stress nutritional measures in your consultations, be prepared to answer questions about your own diet and have people be annoyingly interested in your plate when you’re in the local café.  In the city, it may be possible to maintain some kind of professional anonymity, but in a village with a population of 300, not so much. I’m not saying you have to be the perfect model of health and moderation, or even that you have to give up your two pack a day habit. Just that the more you can consistently come from a place of authenticity and down to earth wholeness, the more the medicine will peek out from your own face and come tumbling out of your mouth. It’s not JUST the plants after all, you personally are a big part of the healing your clients will receive from your work. So go ahead and get comfortable with that now, and settle in for the long haul.