• And the Plants Will Set You Free

    Through knowing and using the plants that grow around us—the ones in our backyard, the weeds that resist all efforts to control them, the abundance and diversity of the species in the Cascadian forests—we are more whole, secure and free. What’s right under our feet are, by their very nature, agents of freedom. [Read full post]
  • Design Thinking for the Creative Herbalist

    As herbalists, we are naturally using design processes all the time. Working in the plant and human world for the purpose of healing we are constantly dealing in very complex worlds. I want to push you to go past what you know is comfortable and reimagine your practice so you are doing the wildest, most liberating brilliant work that you can. [Read full post]
  • Aesthetic & Beauty in Practice

    It’s touching the dirt, digging roots, preparing and sipping beautiful garden tea blends, smelling the flowers, having my apothecary full of jars containing gorgeous, whole-leaf herbs. Microwaving a wack bag of herb tea is a completely different game. Authentic botanical practice is a lifestyle that honors the sanctity of life and the ecological patterns around us. It’s how we connect to the larger planetary system. [Read full post]

Design Thinking for the Creative Herbalist

Christopher Reiger "More Some Thing From No Thing" 2010

As herbalists, we are naturally using design processes all the time. Working in the plant and human world for the purpose of healing we are constantly dealing in very complex worlds. Plants are extremely complex as beings, as are human (& other animals). To deal with this complexity, we like to learn a tradition and adopt a framework for navigating this wildly colorful territory.

But maybe you, like me, constantly bump up against the fact that these are indeed lenses that we choose in order to understand these relationships and subsequently interact with those around us. From our studies, teachers and experiences we create conceptual frameworks from which we act. That’s helpful and practical, but I want to push you to go past what you know is comfortable and reimagine your practice so you are doing the wildest, most liberating brilliant work that you can. It’s because I care about your work–it’s hugely important! & we, the World, want you to bring your best to us. Read More »

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Why I Don’t Want to Talk About Natural Cures

Had to pick on you, Kev, for this one.

I dislike the phrase ‘herbal remedies’. Reminds me too much of bad marketing campaigns over the years. Honestly, I also don’t like to use the word ‘natural’ either. It’s been so co-opted by all sorts of factions of society. I think of Clorox’s Greenworks, or the rebranding of Aspartame as Aminosweet and being marketed as a ‘natural sweetener’. And ‘natural remedies’ reminds me of the sad section of the pharmacy where they stock some herb capsules.

You know the Alternative Medicine section of Barnes & Noble? I like to avoid words used in those titles.

I prefer talking about local botanical medicine and community health. It avoids some of the judgement people have around bad marketing of herbs, bad science and poor judgement calls. I’d prefer to speak directly to the issue at hand and less to people’s judgements and preconceptions.

How do you talk about your passions & practice? And what are the embodied metaphors/assumptions behind that language? It’s always worth reexamining how you communicate these ideas with others.

We shape language and language shapes us. Be in the driver’s seat on that one.

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Aesthetic & Beauty in Practice

While reviewing the scientific literature on my thesis on the contribution of ethnobotanical knowledge & practice to public health, I come across a ton of ethnobotanical surveys, case studies and what-not that tend to skirt the issue and dance around this connection. The information I do find basically states:

  • ethnobotanical knowledge/practice leads to greater self-care practices,
  • children of mothers with active ethnobotanical practice are healthier,
  • gardening improves fruit & vegetable consumption and social relationships,
  • traditional medicine has some vague role, maybe, in health policy.

And other stuff like that. You get the point.

What’s uninspiring about this kind of reviewing is there’s no mention of aesthetic, grace or beauty in this practice. And I shouldn’t be surprised: if I wrote a peer-reviewed paper about the beauty and life-giving aesthetic of botanical practice it likely wouldn’t go very far. Trouble is, I think it’s an essential part of the conversation.

Because it’s not just the fact that I use local plants for food, medicine and other uses daily. It’s touching the dirt, digging roots, preparing and sipping beautiful garden tea blends, smelling the flowers, having my apothecary full of jars containing gorgeous, whole-leaf herbs. Microwaving a wack bag of herb tea is a completely different game. Authentic botanical practice is a lifestyle that honors the sanctity of life and the ecological patterns around us. It’s how we connect to the larger planetary system.

There's a difference.

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Emerging Patterns & Trends, Happening Now

In the digital chatter of Twitter, @HenryDeMaio said:

Just FYI, everything is going to be amazing.

Rene Lynch, Procession (2009)

There’s momentum building lately. And I like where this is all heading.

The status quo is changing. We don’t care about commodities, standardization and corporatization anymore. We want authenticity, wildness, audacity, art and magic. We’re becoming more connected, more real with each other. We want heart and genuine connection. We want it—so please share your gifts, art & genius with us.

Seth Godin said that honest signals are the only ones that really travel. I think he’s right. People are tired of crap. We’re becoming more aware of our conditioning, the things that control us, artificiality. It’s cracking.

And there are more leaders now. People are showing up in their beauty, truth and strength. People are increasingly letting themselves be weird. I want that. We all want your pure and undiluted genius. Nobody wants mediocrity. It doesn’t serve anyone.

We have each other’s backs more. Let’s keep that going.

I commend and thank you all for your service to me and everyone else. Please keep it going.

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And the Plants Will Set You Free

Byron Eggenschwiler, "Where Do We Come From"

Through knowing and using the plants that grow around us—the ones in our backyard, the weeds that resist all efforts to control them, the abundance and diversity of the species in the Cascadian forests—we are more whole, secure and free.

Grocery stores could shut down tomorrow and I could ride my bike 10 minutes out of the city and gather berries, roots and some leaves and feed myself (and some others). I could use these plants to prevent and treat most diseases. These plants have gotten me through the worst of illnesses.

We need our communities—communities of our own species and communities of other species—to be whole and free. Plants as food, medicine or building materials shifts the power and brings it home. What’s right under our feet are, by their very nature, agents of freedom.

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She’s Back from the Blogging Hiatus!

Christian Boian

There’s quite a bit that goes into creating and maintaing a blog. It’s a complex medium that requires some semblance of consistency and regular input. If you start to change your thinking around it, it shows.

Earlier this year, I lost my stride a bit. I felt that the content had little cohesion and I didn’t really peg down who I really wanted to write to. I wanted to share my experience and knowledge of herbs, but felt really passionate about other subjects also. I knew they fit together, somehow, and maybe having a blog would help me organization my thinking around the subjects of botanical medicine practice, resilience, art, and so forth. But it didn’t, so I had to step away for a while. And I was also dealing with things like full-time grad school and Master’s thesis, 2 jobs, 2 volunteer commitments, catching up with my sweetie, and eating well and taking good care of myself.

Then I missed it. I really love writing and sharing. So I gave things a reworking and edited down a lot of content. And I know the direction I’d like to take this blog. So stay tuned–I’ve got lots to share about community work in these areas, herb conferences, medicines & wildcrafting, systemic change and more.

All in all, thanks for sticking around…

-Renee

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Larger than the Licensing Issue: The Debate Over Herb Regulations in the U.S.

Honesty moment: I’m really concerned about the conversation going on today about regulations over herbal practice. As a present herbalist and former research and policy analyst, I am interested in the policies being formulated that will affect herbal practice and feel a responsibility to participate in the discussion around it.  And as a human being, I am frustrated over the stalemate that’s occurred in the American herbal community around the issue. The world around us is changing quickly, and we must figure out a way to get it together as practitioners and advocates, lest we leave it to ill-informed policy makers and regulatory bureaucrats to decide the future of herbal practice here in the United States. Read More »

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On the History of Herbals

from the Pseudo-Apuleius Herbal

Some time ago I began working on what I’ve dubbed a working herbal. Er, maybe just a notebook of plant information…either way, I have a 18″ by 30″ monster of a moleskine notebook (my unrivaled favorite notebook). Each page is dedicated to an herb. At first I freaked out because the paper was unlined. I wanted all my information to be neat and easily accessible, unmerciful Virgo that I am.

But as I toyed with the layout, I found that it would be much more useful and authentic to not have the information embedded in this working herbal to be linear. I could divide up the page in strange and dorky ways, write in circles, use symbols, codes and pictures. I could have the most lavish illustrations and have the actual plants and tinctures on the page.  Information is transmitted in many ways. Plants, especially medicinal plants, and their interaction with the human being is a complex phenomenon. So, why in the dickens am I just using words? Rich and varied materials create a more rich and varied experience.

All of this musing about design of herbals has brought me deep into the history of herbals. In case someone reading were interested in similar topics, I wanted to provide some information and resources. I love old herbals, not only for their unique perspective of bodily processes, but also for their design and illustrations. Read More »

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Plant Healer Magazine

This week saw the first issue of the new Plant Healer Magazine: A Quarterly Journal of Traditional Western Herbalism. It dubs itself as the quarterly journal for the new folk herbalism resurgence. And, after doing a hearty and enthusiastic read-through yesterday, I quite agree!

This is the new creation of Anima Center’s Kiva Rose and Jesse Wolf, traditional herbalists, wild people and organizers of the Traditions in Western Herbalism conference. They’re helping bring together the American herbal community by creating the space and providing a voice for us herb n’ plant people in these times. (I especially love Wolf’s Diversity in Herbalism poster series, which include “All herbalists are not hippies” and “All herbalists are not Anglos.” Such a good and important message, and so true.) Read More »

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Infernal Proteus: A Musical Herbal

The herbalist Karyn Sanders gathered a bunch of artist and music folk to compile an album of songs about plants. This 96-page book contains 40 songs about plants–each from a different artist. Each band chose a plant to compose a song around. From her site:

The musical styles cover an equally as diverse spectrum as that of the art encompassing sounds considered to be of the genres: pop, folk, gothic, electronic, ambient, experimental, industrial and ingenious.

A sampling of the flora included: Belladonna, Beech, Borage, Chrysanthemum, Dandelion, Edelweiss, Ginkgo, Hops, Lily of the Valley, Mandrake, Milk Thistle, Myrtle, Oak, Poison Ivy, Redwood, Sundew, Yarrow, and Yew.

This came out a few years ago, so most readers will already be familiar with this project, but I just couldn’t resist including it in these blog pages. I very much enjoy listening to everyone’s interpretations of the plants, especially artists I already listened to (Allerseelen, In Gowan Ring, Waldteufel). A great project!

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Juliette of the Herbs

And as this year winds down, I find myself spending more time inside making dinners with friends, sipping cordials and (of course) watching movies. One that I’ve recently (and finally!) seen is Juliette of the Herbs. It’s a movie about Juliette de Bairacli Levy, the Gypsy herbalist of Europe and pioneer of holistic veterinary medicine.

It’s a gorgeous film that chronicles her years of traveling, curing and learning from the nomads and peasant people of the places she visited. She authored many books–her herbals were very influential to American herbalists, and her poetry is divine.

I never got to meet Juliette. She passed in 2009. But in watching her speak in this film I’m touched by the brightness and simplicity of her spirit. Her laugh is very sweet and youthful, and her eyes are so kind. People like her inspire me. I am reminded of the simplicity of life that I long for, but don’t allow myself. She’s an example of being–not necessarily doing all the time. We live in a society where we feel that we have to keep up with everyone else…and we’re very fast. I definitely live this pace myself, and I wonder if that’s how I really want to live on this planet. Working with the healing plants draws me back to the simplicity of Nature and the abundance of healing. I, like many others (I’m sure), need this more than ever. In this film, Juliette embodies this way of life. She’s an incredible light.

She was a true lover of animals, and the way she interacts with them brings tears to my eyes. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading her herbals for animals, but as I’m now a feline parent, they’re at the top of my list.

If you ever get a chance, make some tea and watch this film. In closing, I’ll post one of her poems below. Enjoy! Read More »

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Old Turtle and the Broken Truth by Douglas Wood

We’re getting into winter up here, which means less time active and outside and more time inside drinking chai and telling stories. I came across this one from a classmate, and I loved it so much that I just had to share it here. Enjoy!

Once, in a beautiful, faraway land…that was, somehow, not so very far…

A land where every stone was a teacher and every breeze a language, where every lake was a mirror and every tree a ladder to the stars. Into this far and lovely land there fell… a truth. It streaked down from the stars, trailing a tail as long as the sky. But as it fell, it broke. One of the pieces blazed off through the night sky, and the other fell to earth in the beautiful land.

In the morning, Crow found the fallen piece. It seemed to be a sort of stone, shiny and pleasing to the eye. He picked it up.

“This is a lovely truth,” said Crow. “I will keep it.” And he carried it away. But after he had held it for a while, and examined it closely, Crow said, “This truth does not feel quite right. A part of it is missing. I will look for a whole one.” He flew off and dropped it to the ground.

Other creatures who liked shiny things soon noticed the truth as well – Fox, Coyote, Raccoon, each picked it up and carried it awhile. But they, too, found that it had rough edges and was difficult to carry, and its sparkle soon lost its appeal. “We do not need this broken truth,” they said. “We will find a whole one.” Read More »

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Les Fleurs Animées

Rose

Works taken from JJ Grandville’s ‘Les Fleurs Animées‘, 1847 (Via BibliOdyssey). Read More »

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Ecological Medicine and the Grey Area of Individual Treatment and Systemic Change

I’m unreasonably excited about the ecological medicine movement. Here’s why.

For my entire academic and professional life, I’ve struggled in committing (and therefore confining) myself to a particular discipline. Because of the way that knowledge is fragmented, playing within the bounds of one discipline confines my understanding to that portion of the whole system. None of the disciplines gets the full picture; they are not meant to. It’s deliberate and purposeful fragmentation, now inappropriate for the complex challenges that the planet faces.

I’ve jumped around a lot in my academic and professional life so far. I started out at Pratt Institute as a painter, became a chemistry major, ended in ethnobotany, became a researcher in tribal policy and traditional medicine, then became a practicing herbalist who’s studying complex systems. This has all made for a colorful and interesting CV, but hasn’t distracted my focus. Though I draw from many aspects of my environment, my energy and skills converge in herbal practice. But I’ve had many bewildered mentors, teachers and professors that see my passion about clinical practice and systemic change as contradictory. I’ve taken the road of being stubborn about it and insisting that each informs the other, that the relationships are so complex and the layers so many that I can’t help but continue exploring them.

And it turns out I’m not alone. Those involved in the ecological medicine movement are with me.

The term ‘ecological medicine’ was coined in 2001 by Carolyn Raffensperger, Executive Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. Ken Ausubel, founder of Bioneers, has really engaged in this field. He describes some basic tenets (extracted from here):

  • The first goal of medicine is to establish the conditions for health and wholeness, thus preventing disease and illness. The second goal is to cure.
  • The earth is also the physician’s client. The patient under the physician’s care is one part of the earth.
  • Humans are part of a local ecosystem. Following the ecopsychological insight that a disturbed ecosystem can make people mentally ill, a disturbed ecosystem can surely make people physically ill.
  • Medicine should not add to the illnesses of humans or the planet. Medical practices themselves should not damage other species or the ecosystem. Read More »
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The Systemic Theory of Living Systems and Relevance to CAM

To my delight, I’ve found a 3-part article that actually addresses the systems view of biological systems in relation to medicine practice and design. As much as I’d like to keep this blog focused strictly on traditional Western herbal practice, my work in systems theory is just bound to creep in at some point.

This piece comes to us from José A. Olalde Rangel of Adaptogenic Educational Medical Centers and the Venezuelan Association of Systemic Medicine in Caracas. Originally a lecture series, it was published in 2005 by the Oxford University Press. Below is an excerpt to get you to open the full texts (posted here: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). Read More »

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