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Where to Begin with Making Spagyrics

Overview

When you’re studying alchemical herbalism, the first step towards making spagyric medicine is with making the seven basics. You can complete this process in two ways; by looking outside yourself for quick answers or by developing a relationship that requires time and patience. Although the first may be tempting, taking your time yields an unparalleled potency.

In today’s blog post, you’ll learn:

How to integrate your intellectual knowledge into actionable steps 

What the “seven basics” are in the alchemical tradition 

Why it’s worthwhile to skip shortcuts and take the long route when making spagyric medicine

The importance of incorporating the mind, body, and spirit into producing spagyric medicine 

Where to Begin with Making Spagyrics

If there’s a shorter and more efficient method to get things done, why not take it?

This might sound like a foolproof approach to crossing tasks off your list, especially in the fast-paced world we live in. However, with alchemical herbalism, and more specifically, its tradition of spagyrics, it’s precisely this mentality that you want to avoid. With this herbal practice, it’s the process, time, and energy itself that infuses into your spagyric to make it a potent medicine. 

Like a butterfly in a chrysalis, its process cannot be rushed. If you remove a butterfly before it’s ready, its wings will be unable to carry it through flight. There’s a natural cycle and process to all things living. When you offer time and space, that’s when you witness the beauty that transforms the caterpillar into a breathtaking butterfly opening its wings and taking its first flight. 

You can learn a lot about the process of making spagyric medicine from the cycle that the humble caterpillar follows  to transform into the magnificent butterfly. It does so quietly, sometimes obviously, sometimes hidden, but most of all, it follows its natural rhythm and cycle. 

The making of spagyric medicine is rooted in the tradition of tuning into the natural world, honoring its cycles, and celebrating the harmonic union that exists between all sentient beings.

By giving yourself time to develop a relationship with the herbal medicine you’re making rather than “overnighting” it, you’re able to lean in and listen to the tune of your heart, mind, and body that guides you towards developing a deep and profound relationship with the plant world, which in turn, helps you to formulate powerful spagyric medicines. 

Whether it takes a month or a year, there’s no way to rush the butterfly’s process, nor a spagyric that truly touches the heart, mind, body, and spirit; so take a breath, lean in, and enjoy the process.

Keep it Simple With the Seven Basics 

Making a spagyric can feel daunting if you’re new to alchemical herbalism. With its esoteric nature, it’s easy to disconnect from the heart and opt-out for following a simple formula you find instead.

However, making a spagyric medicine is not like baking a cake, where you stir in the ingredients and pop it in the oven at 350 F. Rather, it’s the art of infusing the intellect, heart, body, and soul into your medicinal craft.  If you seek a strong spagyric medicine, it’s not something you can produce over the span of a few hours. 

One way to get out of the herbalism armchair and into the world of making spagyric medicine is to start with preparing what’s referred to as “the seven basics.” In this tradition, you’d select seven different herbs, each one ruled by one of the seven inner planets of astrology. By the end of the process, you’ll have seven unique remedies, each one correlating to its planet of rulership and containing the healing virtue associated with it. 

Starting your spagyric path with the seven basics is a fantastic way to programmatically apply the information you’ve learned; transforming your accumulated knowledge into actionable steps. 

The Three Outer Planets

When formulating spagyric medicine, the seven inner planets are used. These include the sun, moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury. However, what about the three outer planets?

From an astrological perspective, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto move particularly slowly in comparison to the seven inner planets. As a result, they operate following different patterns, frames, and scales, causing them to affect entire generations rather than individual lives. 

In alchemical herbalism, the three outer planets are classified as higher octaves of the inner planets. For example, Uranus is a higher octave of Mercury; Pluto, a higher octave of Mars; and Neptune, a higher octave of Venus. In modern alchemy, it’s common practice to harvest and prepare your spagyric medicine in accordance with its lower octave. For example, if you’re working with a Plutonian plant, you would work with it in accordance with Mars. 

  Siri, Which Herb is Ruled by Venus?

When determining which plants to use in your formulas, there are two main processes you can follow.

One involves opening your browser and searching for a quick reference chart that neatly lists several herbs into categories based on their planetary rulership.

Easy, right?

There’s no doubt this method is efficient, which is why many folks choose this method. However, it bypasses the very purpose of producing spagyric medicine, which is to form a deep connection with the natural world and seek to know the plants as well as you know yourself. 

Strong spagyric medicine is obtained from developing this relationship and from understanding the harmonics that unite us with the natural world that surrounds us. So although you can shortcut it, formulas produced in this fashion lack the vibrant spiritual essence that define it.

  Building a relationship 

If you’re not going to ask Siri to open up a Google webpage for you, where do you begin? First, with a gentle curiosity. If alchemical herbalism is something that calls to you, read about it, take a course, or watch video content that excites you and engages your mind. The next step involves engaging your heart. Start to notice the plants that grow near you, which seem to always pop up as you go about your day, and the ones you feel drawn to explore further. Observe the plant, and watch as it evolves throughout its life cycle. When it feels like the right time to pick the plant, offer thanks and cultivate with intention. Engage your senses while working with it, noticing its color, scent, texture, taste, and other qualities. Work with the plant in your cooking when suitable, make a tea with it, or a decoction. When you take the remedy, notice how and where you feel it in your body and continue to deepen your relationship with the plant in whatever way feels right for you.

This humbling and touching experience is an intimate portrait of what it feels like to connect with a plant, tuning into its life cycle, and gently remembering what it feels like to be a microcosm in the macrocosm that surrounds you.

After developing this relationship with your plant of choice, you’ll start to notice archetypal qualities about it that correlate to a particular planet. Once you make this connection, you can identify which day and hour are associated with that planet and use those as references to know when to plant, cultivate, and use your plant in your spagyrics lab. 

For example, if your herb has a very Venusian quality, you might consider making medicine with it on a Friday at X, which is the day and hour ruled by Venus. 

Easy Does It

When you choose herbs for your seven basics in this manner, it might take many months or years to complete. However, the time, energy, and devotion you commit to your craft compounds, yielding a plant medicine so profoundly powerful, it can provide healing in ways that would be considered outside its normal range of actions. Working with the plants is a synergistic relationship. When you put in the effort to form a relationship with the plant, it can act on your behalf to provide healing for people in ways that can only be described as extraordinary. 

Although looking outside yourself for quick answers and using modern shortcuts might be tempting, doing so is antithetical to the nature of spagyric medicine. Enter your heart, lean into your psyche, and allow it to be the dowsing stick that leads you to the right herbs. This process takes time, but in the words of alchemist Frater Albertus, “Easy does it. Easy does it.” Allow your spirit to dance with the process of connecting to nature, knowing that you receive back what you put in. 

  PS. We have an exciting announcement!!

Next week is a big week here at the School of Evolutionary Herbalism as we’re releasing our annual Herbal Alchemy Training Sessions where I teach you how to harness the full medicinal potency of plants through the power of herbal alchemy and how it unites the science and spirit of plant medicine.

This is a FREE, 3-part workshop where you’ll learn the step-by-step process of traditional herbal alchemy and how to create spagyric plant extracts that heal the body and evolve the soul.

CLICK HERE to subscribe to our waitlist and be the first to know when registration opens!

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Cultural Differences in Medicine Making

Overview

Herbal medicine is and has always been, the peoples’ medicine. 

Just as there’s significant variation in the people and cultures that fill our world, there’s a myriad of medicine-making techniques that reflect these differences. 

What are some traditional forms of medicine making and how do they compare to today’s more “scientific” approaches to herbal pharmacy? Furthermore, is there one that’s better than the rest?

In today’s topic, we’ll be discussing: 

How formulating herbal medicine is a practice as nuanced as the development of herbalism itself

The ancient, modern, spiritual, and medical practices that all offer unique pathways to healing and their medicine making methodologies

The pros and cons of taking a standardized approach to medicine-making versus taking a more personal approach 

The unique aspects that each tradition specializes in 

How to identify the best medicine making practice for yourself 

  A blend of Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), and Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) from the garden

Medicine Making Throughout the Years

Out with the old and in with the new.

That’s the saying, anyway.

But does this apply to preparing herbal medicines? With practices dating back to Mesopotamia, are our current medicine-making techniques superior, more precise, and overall preferred to older methods? How do the more scientifically oriented approaches to extracting plants compare to the older, yet time tested methods? 

Rather than asking which tradition offers the best practice for formulating herbal medicine, a question you might ask yourself is “what herbal destination or result do I have in mind, and which road will take me there?”

Folk Practice

One of the oldest traditions in herbalism is to quite literally eat your medicine; to familiarize yourself with the lush expanse that surrounds you and to pick the berries, leaves, and other edible plant parts that can be easily incorporated into your cooking. 

Although the potency of most of these medicinal plants is quite low, this is precisely what allows us to eat copious amounts of them while bolstering our health. For example, you can freely pile that Nettle pesto onto your toast without worrying about eating too much of it. 

Developing a relationship with nature that is built off learning the seasonal plants, harvesting them intentionally, and using them in the kitchen fosters an intimacy that can’t be bought from an herbal shop or read about in a book . It also lends itself towards developing a profound knowledge of the plant world that is learned through kinesthetic and sensory experience. 

Cooking herbs into medicinal broths, infusions, and decoctions were all universally practiced forms of medicine across the world. With 95% proof alcohol not yet available on the market, wine became a humble substitute used for fermenting herbs. We can see this illustrated with the usage of medicinal wines that Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda both share. 

Dried Nettles (Urtica dioica)

What these all share in common is that they are based on extracting the medicinal components of plants with water, which I like to consider the “universal solvent.” Water is life, and inherently contains within it the intelligence to draw out the core medicinal virtues of most plants.

To clarify a small point, an infusion is simply pouring boiling water over lighter or aromatic plant parts and allowing it to steep for 15-20 minutes. A decoction is actively boiling denser plant parts (like roots and barks) in water for anywhere between 30 minutes and a whole day.

One of the main issues with water based extracts is that they do not preserve well, hence the development of fermented extracts like wines, which then led to further refinement of alcohol and thus the creation of herbal tinctures. It is said that in European herbalism, this was strongly influenced and developed by the alchemical tradition.

Alchemical Work

One of the great gifts born of the alchemical movement was the production of spagyric medicine, and with it, an entirely new way of preparing plants that has ultimately led to more scientifically refined methods of extraction. With an emphasis on utilizing every part of the plant in a way that potentiates its larger whole, spagyricists refined their medicines until the greatest level of the physical and spiritual potency of the plant was achieved. 

By using the entire plant to make herbal medicine, spagyricists aim to honor and support the entire ecosystem that lives within a person; in mind, body, and soul. This is achieved through specific processes that extract what is referred to as the Salt, Mercury, and Sulfur of the plant, or its body, spirit and soul. 

Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) – Photo Credit: Elisha Storey

  Although this work is fueled with spiritual insight, the formulaic process used with making spagyrics is not for the light of heart. It requires precision, focus, and concentration in a way that might even resemble modern lab work to some. However, one of the key distinctions between more scientific methods of extraction and alchemical methods, is that the latter concentrates the physical, energetic, AND spiritual properties of the plants. This makes them (in my opinion) one of the most potent and powerful forms of herbal medicine. Ultimately alchemy was the root of iatrochemistry, which later turned into the practice of chemistry, and into modern pharmacology, with a gradual de-spiritualizing of the system of alchemy into a strictly scientific approach.  

The Eclectic Movement

With our current phytopharmaceutical industry today, it’s not difficult to isolate medicinal constituents in a plant to create an isolated product. However, this didn’t stop folks from the eclectic herbal movement in the 1800’s- early 1900’s from trying their hand at this – and achieving great success. 

Eclectic physicians during that time were highly influenced by new forms of herbal extracts developed by a man named John Uri Lloyd, who was a notable figure that made great strides in distilling plant medicine and concentrating plants to yield specific actions. These herbal extracts were referred to “specific medications,” which was aligned to their method of “specific diagnosis,” developed by the physician John Scudder. This ultimately saved the Eclectic school of medicine which was at the time facing a sort of identity crisis and established it as a valid model of medical practice. 

Although the practitioners of this movement did not have the same access to modern technology we have today, they developed their own techniques to reach similar results and the success of their work is a testimony to the curiosity and devotion they brought to their craft. While their specific medications were not necessarily simple herbal tinctures, they also were not nearly as refined as isolated plant extracts we see in modern herbal medicine. 

Western Anemone (Anemone occidentalis)

Standardizing Herbal Medicine

With an emphasis on consistency, potency, and efficacy, many medical herbalists place these values as the epicenter of their medicine-making practice.

As a result, using high-proof content alcohol along with other measured agents and a set protocol has become a technique favored by many. This is primarily done by standardizing the percentage of alcohol used to extract the plant, and the particular ratio of grams of herb to ml alcohol. This approach enables the practitioner to know precisely how much of an herb is being delivered per dose. This is particularly important when using low dose botanicals such as Lilly of the Valley (Convallaria majalis), Poke (Phytolacca decandra), and Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea).

For example, in a 1:2 ratio tincture, for every 2 ml of tincture taken, they get 1 gram of herb. So if you want them to get 2 grams per dose, they would take 4 ml of herb. Although many herbal companies employ this strategy to produce large quantities of a consistent and reliable product, there are also home herbalists who love following this method for their own practice.

The other level of “standardizing herbal medicine” is in the form of manufactured products referred to as “standardized extracts.” These more industrially and scientifically prepared medicines focus on isolating and concentrating specific active constituents in the plant that have been studied and shown to have pharmacologically active medicinal properties.

These are often beyond the scope of most practitioners and home medicine makers, as the methods of extraction involve fancy (and likely expensive) equipment to not only prepare, but chemically measure the product. These forms of extract are commonly used by naturally oriented physicians, Naturopaths, and some clinical herbalists.

Sage (Salvia officinalis)

Indigenous Traditions

With an emphasis on the spiritual side of nature and the divine breath that runs through people and plants, many traditional healers would not pick an herb or prepare a medicine until they’ve met the person in need of help.This is because many would not keep a stockpile of dried herbs or bottled preparations on hand, but rather preferred to pick the specific plant that was suited to the person needing help. And by specific plant, I don’t just mean the species, I really mean, the specific plant that matched the signature of the person. 

After speaking, it was common practice for the healer to identify which plant medicine was in need and then intentionally gather the plants for its preparation; all the while holding a prayer for the specific person in mind.

With such an intentional process, we might better understand why some folks feel that cultivating or harvesting an herb when it’s in season and simply bottling it up for future use is a reductionist way of working with plant medicine. Many see it as disrespecting the spirit of the plant to “trap it in a bottle.”

Besides for crafting an herbal medicine with the intention of a single individual in mind, there are other factors that a traditional healer might take into account. For example, is the Dandelion growing in the shade near a babbling brook on the southside of a hill, or is it blooming in direct sunlight on a northern mound? 

It’s common for them to see the environment and location where the plant grows as subtly changing its properties. Another may be using a specific part of the plant that matches the person, for example, harvesting a Mullein flower on the same area of the flowering stalk as the part of the spine that is in pain.

These are factors that may be overlooked in the modern medicine-making process. After all, Matricaria chamomilla (Chamomile), is the same flower any way you slice it, right?

To the modern practitioner, a common response might be “yes.” To the indigenous healer, the elements that surround these plants imbue spiritual energy that may indicate for them to be used in completely different ways. 

They have an awareness and acuity of perception of how plants heal that many of us modern folk just simply don’t have, or have lost. Luckily, many of us are rediscovering these levels of specificity in how we work with our plants and are working hard to restore our relationship with them and understanding of their spiritual properties alongside their physical attributes. 

Sage (Salvia officinalis)

Intention As the Foundation for Medicine-Making

Whether you’re a budding herbalist preparing a humble glycerite in your kitchen or a medically inclined practitioner calculating a new herbal formula, there’s one common factor shared in every medicine-making tradition; and that’s in being precise with intention. 

If you’re a folk herbalist, you may not be as concerned with the exact percentages and measurements you’re using when medicine-making, but the intention you have while working with the plant may be sublime and the most important part of the process. 

As a medical herbalist, your precision may lay in the strategic process you follow when formulating medicine and the specific ratio of herb to menstruum in your extracts. 

There is an element of intention and precision that lives within every herbal tradition and the medicine-making techniques they share. 

Each containing unique strengths and differences, they all provide healing for ourselves and the community we serve. Rather than trying to seek the “best” one, consider which one you feel most drawn to exploring and follow the road that will take you there. 

When laying out your tools and herbs needed for your plant path, pull up a chair, remembering that at the table of herbalism, there’s a seat for everyone.

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The Herbal Detox Myth

Detoxification

“Detoxification” is a term that gets used a lot in alternative medicine. Perhaps it’s become a bit of a fad to cleanse or detox, trying to purge the body of toxins that shouldn’t be there by using specific herbal medicines to assist the process. While this intention is really great, what people don’t realize is that there can also be issues around what those herbs will actually cleanse out of the body and how might your body handle it.

Additionally, from traditional perspectives when we look at the concept of detoxification or purifying the blood and tissues of the body, it is different from the way people are looking at it here in the modern world. It can potentially lead to misuse of what we in Western herbalism refer to as the alterative category of medicinal plants. There’s appropriate usage of alteratives, but inappropriate usage of those plants can lead to some adverse reactions and can lead to constitutional harm.

I find this topic important to talk about because we see the term “detoxification” thrown around a lot. If we look at the supplement industry for instance—which is a whole industry built around detoxification-based products, that are available over the counter, which could potentially be detrimental to people’s health.

Traditionally, herbal remedies that were considered detoxifying agents—what in traditional Western herbalism would usually be referred to as alteratives or blood purifiers—were used for a specific constellation of symptoms, a specific pattern that we might refer to generally as damp heat patterns, where we see people with fluid congestion; stagnation in the joints and the tissues; skin conditions—inflamed, damp, wet skin conditions like eczema; oily acne; joint pain; arthritis; headaches; digestive stagnation; sluggishness; heaviness; and liver stagnation—things that are indicating that this person’s metabolism is such that it’s not able to tolerate their basic metabolic waste products. Meaning that they eat food but their body, their cells, and their organs of elimination can’t effectively get the waste products out of their body. So this is where the channels and organs of elimination are blocked and congested, basically ineffectively removing wastes out of the body.

Oregon Grape (Mahonia spp.)

So things accumulate within the body and lead to this constellation of symptoms that I just listed—a handful of standard ones—classically referred to as “bad blood” syndrome. And this is where our alterative plants come in and have been used for a long time. There are a lot of different types of alteratives. We’ve got diarrhetic alteratives, we’ve got diaphoretic alteratives, we’ve got bitter liver-based alteratives, we’ve got laxative alteratives, and we’ve got respiratory alteratives. There are all sorts of different types of alteratives, but essentially an alterative plant helps to open those channels of elimination and enhance the body’s natural innate detoxification processes.

So what’s this detoxification of waste products in metabolism? We consume foods, then our body has to get rid of the waste. While the term “detoxification” is used in a lot of alternative medicine, detoxifying plants are ingested outside of the traditional context. People say that these plants will detox the body of pesticides, herbicides, and environmental pollutants, or other genetically modified organisms, but oftentimes this concept hasn’t actually been studied from a scientific perspective. There isn’t clear proof that a herb can be taken in a certain quantity for a period and show that it removes all these environmental pollutants, pesticides, and herbicides.

This has led to detoxifying herbs being looked at differently and used to cleanse the body from pollutants and toxins that are outside of the sphere of metabolic waste products. Those herbs being used in sometimes high amounts for extended periods are taken without consideration of the constitutional effects that these plants have on a person’s body. This is one of the biggest mistakes that is made in more of the biomedical model of herbal medicine, or especially a cookie-cutter one for all types of formulations that we see in the supplement industry, which is an oversight of how those plants will affect someone’s constitution.

Alteratives

So taking a closer look, most of these “detoxifying” plants tend to be cooling, drying, and draining remedies from a humoral perspective. From the Ayurvedic humoral perspective with the doshas, most of these types of plants are aggravating to the vata dosha, or the air and ether elements of the body. They tend to cool you down and drain fluids. Their whole effect is to cleanse and purge fluid, it’s like removal therapy. Now if someone is already verging on the dryer side, or has a vata type constitution, it’s not going to be the ideal choice of remedy, because vata generally tends to be cold, dry, weak, emaciated, malnourished, and quite variable in their digestion. A person with a vata constitution oftentimes has a difficult time absorbing foods, and if we study alteratives, they are actually increasing the elimination of things. So it’s the reverse action you’d want to give someone with this type of constitution. 

For those of you who don’t know, I was really involved in the raw food world when raw foodism was a really popular thing and when the raw diet was similar to what keto is now, where everyone’s like, “Keto, keto, keto,” and before that it was “Paleo, paleo, paleo,” and before that it was “Raw, raw, raw.” There’s always some sort of dietary fad that everyone jumps on the bandwagon of, and then something else comes and replaces it. It’s almost humorous at this point.

But I was really on the raw food bandwagon, and that dietary protocol/fad was set on detoxification. What I saw in the raw food world was pretty much across the board a Vata imbalance, meaning thin, weak, emaciated looking people who were cold, dry, and constantly detoxifying themselves but becoming unhealthy from it. They had cold damage to the digestive system, constitutional weakness, and lowered energy. They would feel a lot of energy in the beginning, but over time they would become weak and deficient. This is because there was so much focus on detoxifying, and forgetting about rejuvenation and rebuilding with nourishing foods. 

Burdock (Arctium lappa)

So my point is that there is a big difference between the traditional understanding of a detoxifying alterative medicinal plant, how it is used, and what it is used for, vs the modern approach to people wanting to cleanse and detoxify because they’re paranoid about environmental pollutants and toxins. I’m not denying the fact that those things exist—those things do for sure exist, but it’s a bit of a leap for people to start saying that all alterative plants are detoxifying plants and therefore they will cleanse the body of heavy metals, environmental pollutants, and toxins.

As I mentioned above, alteratives are cold, draining, drying, eliminative plants and they have certain requirements for their usage, specifically damp-heat type patterns, patterns of excess that we see within people. We need to cleanse, lighten, open up and move these organs and channels of elimination. If these categories of plants are used outside of that context, they can lead to constitutional damage. Damage may be a hard word, but constitutional imbalance, especially in the digestive system, or in the mucosa will procure an overall aggravation of the Vata dosha. We can see people getting more nervous, tenser, more anxious, and tend to constrict and spasm. 

Different Protocols for Different People

So when it comes to detoxification, it’s good to turn to traditions and see how the process of cleansing and detoxification has been done traditionally. Ayurveda has quite a bit to offer in this regard. One thing that this system does well is they don’t have one set protocol for everyone. They fine-tune the herbs and the timing and the protocol for cleansing and detoxification, according to the needs of the individual. Their protocol is referred to as “panchakarma” which is their refined system of cleansing and detoxification. One of the things that to me is the most important factor of panchakarma—that I don’t think anyone looks at if we’re looking at it from more of a biomedical Western perspective—is the timing of it and the constitutional factors of it. We need to know who’s detoxing. Is it a vata person, a pitta person, or a kapha person? What season is it? A kapha person probably shouldn’t be doing a whole bunch of detoxification in the middle of winter, because winter is not the time to detox. Springtime is really the ideal timing to detox certain constitutions.

Red Clover (Trifolium pratense)

So that’s what we’re all about as holistic herbalists: not just having a cookie-cutter, one-and-done model for everyone but having things be customized, having things be tailored to suit the unique and specific needs of each individual person. That is probably one of the most effective ways to consider and understand and approach detoxification.

It’s important to follow up detoxification as well with some form of rejuvenation and revitalization. One of the big mistakes that I saw in the raw food world was that people were just cleansing all the time and they never rebuilt themselves, which led to profound levels of weakness and what I saw as emaciation and malnourishment.

Detoxification is something that is good for folks to do every now and then. Especially in our modern world in regards to how most folks eat, and the way people’s activity levels are, and detoxification can be a good thing to do, but it certainly isn’t for everyone.

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The Importance of Moistening Plants

From a constitutional perspective, it appears that most herbal medicines have a drying effect upon the tissues. Whether it’s from increasing urination, exocrine gland secretions, sweating…. there are many ways that herbs lead to fluids leaving the body and this ultimately has a net drying effect.

Thus, knowing your moistening materia medica is critical for success as an herbalist and a formulator, especially in our modern world where there is a great prevalence of constitutional dryness.

Cross comparing different traditional models of dryness, we see that in Chinese Medicine it is referred to as Yin Deficiency. In Ayurveda dryness is governed by the Vata Dosha, which also tends to be cold and tense. From the perspective of our western herbal energetic model, this would be classified as the Dry/Atrophy tissue state, characterized by weakness, emaciation, withering tissues that are malnourished and loosing function. I remember one time Michael Tierra commented in a lecture that Yin Deficiency is likely one of the most overlooked patterns by western herbalists and will usually be an obstacle to cure. If the herbs you are giving aren’t working and should be working then it’s likely you have an underlying Yin Deficiency to correct.

In regards to herbal formulation, knowing your moistening remedies is critical because most herbal remedies are drying in nature. There are often times you want to give someone a certain herb, but the moisture quality of the herb may not match that of the person. It doesn’t mean you can’t give that herb to them, you simply need to formulate it in a way that will bring it into greater balance for that person.

This is a formulation principle we see in the Unani-Tibb system (Arabic medicine) called corrigents. This is oftentimes seen as just adding certain herbs to formulas to make them taste better, but in actuality the principle of corrigents is adding remedies to an herbal formula to correct its underlying energetics or constitutional actions.

In this post I share some core concepts of dryness in the body, how and why to use moistening remedies and a few of my favorite examples.

Drying plants

If we look at most of our herbal medicines, we see that a lot of them tend to be drying energetically. They’re bitter, warming or astringent and they tend to make the body secrete fluids that over the long term leave the body dry or have a drying effect.  This is important because the dynamic of dryness in terms of the state of our tissues or the state of someone’s constitution is common or what in Chinese medicine is referred to as yin deficiency. Yin is basically talking about the fluidic element of the body. The qualities of yin are cool, sinking and moistening, so when that yin quality becomes deficient, oftentimes it manifests constitutionally as dryness. 

In our Western physiomedicalist tradition, this would be referred to as the dry atrophy tissue state. In Ayurveda, this would be considered an excess of vata dosha, which is predominantly the dry dosha in Ayurveda. 

The dry atrophy tissue state basically describes vata. An excess of vata presents as cold, dry, tense, light, mobile, mutable, changeable. It’s governed by the air and ether elements and those two elements in the Ayurvedic tradition are said to have a drying action on the body. But one of the things about dry atrophy is this dynamic of “atrophy.” Atrophy basically means withering, weakening, emaciating of the tissues, because the tissues aren’t getting the nutrition that they require. And so they become very brittle or very weak and  malnourished, emaciated and ultimately aren’t functioning as properly as they should. 

Oil and Water

So why would that be? Basically what we’re talking about here is the Water element, predominantly in deficiency. And this fluid element of the body manifests in two forms: water and oil, showing us that there are two types of hydration; water hydration and oil hydration. The oil component is something that is commonly overlooked in terms of hydration. We see the importance of that with the sebaceous secretions on the skin, the oily secretions of the skin. We see that with the nervous system, which is coated in oils. We see that with the hair. Literally every cell membrane of your body is composed of fats and oils, which is called the phospholipid bilayer. The integrity of the membrane of the cell is determined by the quality of the oils that we’re getting predominantly from our diet. This is why eating crappy oils isn’t good—because if you’re eating hydrogenated oils or unnatural processed kinds of oils, the integrity of that cell membrane is compromised. A cell membrane should be very fluid. It’s suspended in this aqueous matrix—or the extracellular fluid, and if that cell membrane is basically hydrogenated—i.e., solid—it becomes rigid. If it’s rigid, then it affects inner-cellular communication and affects the channels of the cell’s ability to open and close, to receive nutrients, and to expel waste products. 

Marshmallow (Althea officinalis)

One of the things that we see with a deficiency of either water or oil is this atrophy, this emaciation, this weakness that starts to happen in the body. Fluids are the delivery mechanism. Most of our body is water. If we’re deficient in that water, then the body’s going to have an extremely difficult time delivering nutrients to the cells. If the cell is all dried up and cracked and the river is dried up, it’s going to be pretty hard to deliver nutrients to that cell to nourish it. Conversely, it’s also going to be very difficult for that cell to adequately expel and eliminate its waste products. Because that fluid element isn’t only delivering nutrients. It’s also allowing the waste products to leave the cell, get delivered to the liver or the kidneys to be ultimately eliminated from the body. 

So with the dry atrophy tissue state, we see not only the cells becoming weak and emaciated from a lack of nutrients, but also an accumulation of metabolic waste products, because nothing’s going to be able to get in or get out. Everything is stuck. 

A Cascade of Affects

The dry atrophy tissue state also especially affects a couple of different tissues and organs. We see it affects the mucus membranes which line the lungs, the urinary tract, and the digestive system. When those mucus membranes become dry, the local immunity in these organ systems become impaired because our immune system need fluids in the mucus membranes to be present. So if the mucus membranes aren’t secreting, we’re going to see decreased immunity in these local tissues. 

We also see that the nervous system strongly affected by this tissue state because the nervous system is coated in oils. What we call the “myelin sheathing” that surrounds the nerves which allows the electrical signals through the nervous system to be conducted, as well as for those neurotransmitters to cross the synaptic cleft. When we see dryness in there, it really affects the nerves. This is why vata tends to be tense and nervous. 

Lastly we see it affect the endocrine system. A lot of this comes back to the oil piece, because a lot of the hormones in our body need oil to function. Hormones generally have to travel a long distance through the body, and if that oil is deficient, we can actually see endocrine function lowered, because their delivery mechanism isn’t there. That’s one element of endocrine imbalance that I don’t think many people look at. We tend to ask whether it’s too high or too low. But we don’t look at whether it can even travel through the body to get to where it needs to go, which can ultimately be affected by oil. We also see that with the adrenal glands—a lot of the manufacturing of those adrenal hormones is fat. The whole outer part of the adrenal gland is basically fat. So when we see this oily dehydration or atrophy tissue state in its more extreme manifestation, you can see actual adrenal atrophy, which would be true adrenal burnout and fatigue, which is pretty serious. It’s not just that you’re tired or feel like your adrenals are burned out, it’s deep, vital exhaustion. It’s a pretty serious state. 

So I wanted to mention some of the different patterns that we see in Eastern and Western systems and how those tend to manifest within the body. Because most of our herbs are drying, this makes our moistening materia medica important to learn, important to study and know the specificities of our different moistening herbs. 

Milky Oats (Avena sativa)

Yin Deficiency

One of the things that Michael Tierra says about yin deficiency is that for Western herbalists, it’s actually one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of someone. In a workshop I took with Tierra at an herb conference years ago, he said that if your herbs aren’t working or your protocol isn’t working and you’re giving them all of the “right” herbs, there’s quite likely an under-the-surface yin deficiency, because yin as this fluid element is what allows the body to absorb and distribute things. So if the yin is deficient, then the body isn’t going to be able to make use of what you’re giving it, because it can’t absorb and it can’t distribute and utilize the protocol that you’re giving it. Tierra said that it’s one of the most overlooked patterns that you have to learn to assess. He says that yin deficiency is very common with high vata, stress, nervous, tense, anxious, not enough sleep, drinking too much coffee, eating processed foods, not drinking enough water, not eating adequate oils. All of these things compound into a yin-deficient, dry, high-vata constitutional pattern in a person. Hence we need to know our moistening materia medica. 

I tell my students that it’s best to just learn all the herbs that are typically moistening and especially what organ systems they are moistening for. And then basically from there on, you can assume that most other herbs are drying. Obviously there are exceptions to that rule, like any rule in herbal medicine. 

Demulcents

In general, what we’re looking at here is a category of herbs that we refer to as demulcents or emollients. Demulcents basically moisten dryness. One thing that dryness ultimately leads to is hardness. So emollients soften hardness. Ultimately something that’s demulcent is emollient and something that’s emollient is demulcent. They’re pretty much the same thing. They have just a slightly different meaning. 

These are remedies that typically contain mucilaginous polysaccharides that have a sweet flavor to them and that ultimately generate yin inside the body, meaning that they increase hydration and moisture within the tissues, predominantly within the mucosal membranes. That’s really where we see most of our demulcents work. Again, that’s the lungs, that’s the gut, and that’s the urinary tract. We do have certain herbs that work on all of these very nicely. These are our more common or popular demulcents, but then we do have certain demulcents that might have more specific affinities for the certain organ systems. 

My number one demulcent straight up is marshmallow (Althaea officinalis). I use marshmallow a lot. One thing about many, though not all, demulcents is that they’re only water soluble. That’s not true across the board, but for the most part, mucilaginous polysaccharides are not well extracted in alcohol. Slippery elm (Ulmus rubra) is another demulcent, though I prefer to use marshmallow because slippery elm has a threatened ecological status. It’s been on the United Plant Savers at-risk list for a while. Paul Bergner says that any elm will do, any Ulmus will do. They’ve done some experiments with other species of elm and shown them to have demulcent properties. Maybe not quite as demulcent as slippery elm, but it’s still there. 

But marshmallow root to me is the quintessential demulcent yin, tonic, moistening remedy in Western herbalism. It’s got an affinity for the lungs, the gut, and the urinary tract. It’s very versatile in its affinity for all of the mucus membranes of the body. Pretty much any time I see someone with dryness, I recommend they start taking some powdered marshmallow. It’s generally the easiest way to take it. Or we can have them make a cold infusion, mixing a couple tablespoons of the dried herb in a quart of water. Let it sit overnight on the counter and then drink that throughout the day. 

Another major demulcent that we see ultimately coming from Chinese medicine, but it’s so integrated in Western herbalism that it’s basically a Western herb, is licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra). This is a remedy formulated with a lot in Chinese medicine, and they say it’s a harmonizer. The way I’ve heard a lot of herbalists talk about licorice is that it harmonizes a formula because it tastes good. I think that’s true to a certain extent, but ultimately the reason I think licorice is a harmonizer is because it moistens formulas that typically are really drying. Since most herbs are drying, I think this is why licorice was used so much in Chinese medicine—because they recognize that if we add a little bit of this into our formulas, it’s not going to be as significantly drying as it would be without the licorice. Licorice has a pretty strong affinity for the respiratory system in terms of its moistening properties, though it will affect the gut and the urinary tract. Technically licorice can pretty much affect everywhere in the body because it’s a complex remedy. It does have an affinity for atrophied adrenal glands. Licorice is an excellent remedy to consider. 

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra)

Remedies that are really great in the lungs include Mullein leaf. Plantain is a good one. Another one that I like but is more of a fringy remedy is pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa), which is a nice moistening remedy for lungs. Plantain will also work in the gut. I love marshmallow in the gut as well as. For the urinary tract, plantain is going to work in there too. I also like corn silk (zea mays), which is all the little stringy stuff inside the corn when you’re shucking corn. It’s demulcent and moistening for the urinary tract. Another remedy is couch grass (Elymus repens). It’s a nice demulcent, soothing, cooling, moistening remedy in the urinary tract. So it’s nice to add to formulas for urinary tract infections, especially those where it’s hot, irritated, dry, possibly bleeding. These herbs formulate very nicely with things like uva ursi or Oregon grape or yarrow or pipsissewa, some of these other remedies that might be a little bit more drying in the urinary tract. 

Another remedy that I really like that doesn’t fit in the mucosal membrane dynamic is actually more in the joints, and that remedy is Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum). Solomon’s seal is excellent for what we would call yin deficiency in the joints or high vata in the joints—dry, creaky, popping, cracking, stiffness in the joints. Solomon’s seal brings a lot of moisture into the joints. It’s an awesome remedy that I’ve used a lot. Another remedy that I like for the joints is pleurisy root, which is nice for drawing moisture into the joints. Those are the two main ones that I like. Licorice can be used there as well. 

For the nervous system, my top remedy for dry atrophy in the nerves is milky oats (Avena sativa). It’s an excellent moistening remedy that is pretty neutral temperature wise. I rarely say that everyone can take an herb, but I feel like almost everyone can take milky oats safely. It’s very gentle. But it’s very nice for restoring and rebuilding. That’s a key thing for atrophy in the nervous system. The old doctors would refer to that as neurasthenia or nervous system burnout. It’s one of our most specific remedies there. I have milky oats in pretty much every nervous system formula because a lot of our nervine remedies tend to be drying—either they’re warming and drying like valerian or asafetida or they tend to be bitter and drying like motherwort or skullcap or hops. Bitter tends to be draining on the system, so I really like to add milky oats to a lot of those formulas because it moistens and balances the formula out. It’s ironic because a lot of our nervines tend to be drying, yet the constitution that gets nervous is vata and vata is dry. 

Vata is the most difficult constitution to treat (a) because it changes a lot, but (b) because they’re dry and most of our herbs are dry. So you have to be aware of this whenever you’re treating either vata conditions or someone with a vata constitution. You’ve got to make sure that you’re not overly drying them out. You need to know to check for that. So dry skin, dry hair, dry eyes, dry mouth, a dry tongue—maybe cracking or in serious cases withering—dry constipation, a dry cough—just dryness. Usually people know if they feel very dry. So you just want to assess those kinds of things.

In the liver, we have milk thistle (Silybum marianum). This is one of our remedies that’s specific for what we might refer to in the Chinese model as liver yin deficiency. Milk thistle is nice for helping the liver to process metabolic waste products, to rebuild and strengthen an atrophied liver. This is why the “atrophy” piece of that tissue state is so critical, because it’s not just dry, it’s this weak, withering, brittle, not-functioning-as-well property. That’s an important indication for these types of remedies. Milk thistle is good in terms of that dryness or atrophy in the liver. 

Astringents

This is going to confuse you at first, but I’m going to do my best to explain it: the other action that can be great for dryness is astringents. How can an astringent be good for dryness? That doesn’t make any sense. You eat a green banana and it dries your mouth out, or you let your black tea steep too long and you drink it, and everything gets dry. How can an astringent be good for dryness? Well, we’ve got to think this through. 

Pleurisy (Asclepias tuberosa)

Astringents treat a tissue state that we call relaxation. Matt Wood refers to this as damp relaxation. This is a state of the tissues when the tone of the tissue is loose. So instead of being nice and tight, it gets loose and lax and boggy and kind of saggy. It loses its tone, like a guitar string that’s not wound too tight. A tissue that has lost its tone doesn’t hold fluids in. So with the relaxation tissue state, what we can see is excess sweating, urination, diarrhea. The old term for diarrhea was relaxation of the bowel. It’s not holding fluids in. 

Say someone’s sweating all the time, peeing all the time, and has diarrhea all the time. They’ve got the worst of the worst of this tissue state. On the surface, they look really wet. All this fluid is just pouring out of them. But that fluid is going out of the body. Those fluids are leaving the body, which ultimately in the long-term is going to lead to dryness. So it is common for long-term damp relaxation, if the fluids are leaving the body, to turn into dry atrophy. Now there are ways this tissue state can be present but the fluids don’t leave the body, like with hemorrhoids or varicose veins or prolapsed tissues or prolapsed organs, and so on. That’s still the relaxation tissue state, but they’re not losing fluids. But if this tissue state is present and they’re leaking a bunch of fluids out, ultimately they’re going to get dry. 

The way that we treat that relaxation is by astringents, by taking that loose, flabby, floppy tissue and tightening it up, bringing more tone back so then it can hold those fluids in. This can be confusing, but if someone is leaking fluids all the time, it doesn’t matter how much more fluids you put in their system. If they keep leaking them out, they’re not holding it in. Think of a garden hose with a hole in it. If you’re not getting enough water coming out of the sprinkler because there’s a hole in the garden hose, it doesn’t matter how much more water you force through the hose. You’ve got to patch the hole. That’s what our astringents do. 

This is why sometimes, especially in Matthew Wood’s work, you’ll see things that seem a little bit paradoxical. I was just reading through his Earthwise Herbal Repertory, and he’s got a whole section on the tissue states. I was looking at some of his lists of remedies for dry atrophy. One remedy that he had there is Ceanothus, which is red root. Red root is so astringent, bitter and intense! I tend to think of that for relaxation. Or I think of it for stagnation. But he had it as a remedy for dry atrophy. I realized that it’s because it’s astringent, and it’s going to hold the fluids in a little bit better. That’s my way of thinking it through. 

You also have to understand that many of Matthew Wood’s herb listings for this tissue state may not necessarily be focused on the dry aspect of it, but more for the atrophy aspect of it. A good example of that would be nettles. Nettles is a pretty drying remedy. It makes you pee more. It’s very diuretic. But it’s good for the atrophy side of this tissue state, which is weak, emaciated, and malnourished. Nettles is full of amino acids and nutrients and minerals and that can help to rebuild and restore that emaciation side of this tissue state. 

There are different astringent remedies, from oak bark to blackberry root to red root to sage, raspberry leaf, lady’s mantle, rose, yarrow. These are all wonderful astringents. This is a very specific application of a certain kind of remedy that you only want to use when there’s dryness associated with relaxation. 

Those are some of our main actions that we want to think about, that we want to consider for this dry atrophy tissue state. This is why you have to know your moistening remedies. I really encourage you to research herbs that will moisten vata or nourish yin if you’re studying Chinese systems, or just increase dampness in the tissues. These are all critical remedies to know. 

I hope that was illuminating and clarifying for you. Obviously I didn’t cover every single moistening remedy in the universe. I wanted to give you a context here of something to think about, something to begin to be aware of both in your studies and research and work with medicinal plants and also when you start working with people to start tuning into this moisture quality. Is the person dry? Are they absorbing? Are they distributing? Is there any water or oil dehydration? Make sure your clients are drinking enough water, that they’re eating quality oils and fats in their diet. Hopefully this gives you a useful tool that you can take out into the world and help people.

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[keiithmingo]

Terrain vs. Germ Theory

  Living amidst a global pandemic has led to some interesting (and sometimes very heated) questions and discussions amongst people in the alternative medicine community. But one that I haven’t heard discussed very much really goes back to one of the questions all doctors, healers, and herbalists have been asking since people started healing and helping other people: why do we get sick?

Obviously in light of COVID, when people get it, they presume it’s because they were simply around someone else that had it, the pathogen got into their body, reproduced, and made them sick. But why is it that someone else was also exposed but didn’t get sick? This is where the holistic approach can provide us with some possible answers.

When you come down with a cough, a cold, or a flu, what do you think the reason is? Why and how exactly do we get sick? I think this question lies at the root of all systems of medicine, both ancient and modern. And while the answer varies drastically depending on what point in history we’re looking at (from astrological triggers, constitutional weakness, or evil spirits), the most modern accepted theory is that we get sick because of germs, that is, pathogenic microorganisms enter the body that are read as foreign and a systemic immunological reaction ensues. We get the cough, the cold, the fever, the body aches and pains, and a host of other highly uncomfortable sensations. 

This brings up a discussion that comes up in herbal and other spheres of alternative medicine, which is the difference between pathogenic germs at the root cause or what is sometimes referred to as “the terrain,” which can be thought of as the unique state of the tissues themselves. Do we get sick because a pathogen gets into the body and makes us sick? Or does it happen because the ecological terrain of the body is in a state of imbalance which makes them more hospitable to those pathogens? 

It’s almost a “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” kind of question. I think this is an important thing to consider as herbalists, because ultimately, in terms of germs versus terrain, this question is really a question of allopathic versus vitalist approaches to herbal medicine. 

Lomatium (Lomatium dissectum)

  A Place for Allopathic Herbalism

I know I can sometimes be perceived as being a bit hard or down on the allopathic approach, because we generally want to do our best to be holistic, but I also feel that it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes there is a place for an allopathic approach to herbal medicine. Because there are times, especially in very acute situations, when you need to get in there, be aggressive, and address things in that orientation, i.e., kill the pathogen!  

The most important thing as herbalists is that we’re helping people, that people are getting well and healed, regardless of our philosophical orientation or overall approach.

Of course we want to be considering the whole person as much as possible.

Of course we want to follow the vital force.

Of course we want to understand and utilize the whole plant.

But I do think there is a time and a place for an allopathic approach. Shocking, I know! I said it!! Don’t be too hard on me about it though… hear me out, because there is a time and a place for everything. And sometimes during a serious infection, you need to call upon your plants to go to war on a pathogen for you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you abandon the reality that there’s an ecosystem in the body that must be considered as well. 

Usnea (Usnea spp.)

Germs and Terrain: Finding a Balance

It’s interesting that the discussion is of terrain “versus” germ theory, as if they’re opposites. I think there’s space for both in our approach and understanding of herbal medicine. For those of you who have been following me for some time, you’ll find that I always do my best to find a middle ground. I strive to not be extremist in my approaches to things, preferring  to see as many sides of things as possible and come to a well-rounded understanding to the best of my ability. Ultimately a place for all of it, because the most important thing is that people are getting healed with the plants, regardless of the approach. 

Germs are real. Pathogenic microorganisms are real. But the environment in which they thrive and survive is also real. Something that Matthew Wood was always quite adamant about in my apprenticing with him was the importance of the terrain, or bodily ecosystem. That the tissues and organs of the human body are reflections of nature. They are not just biochemical processes, but have qualities of an ecosystem, such as damp, cold, hot, or dry. One of my teachers at Bastyr always said, “The issue is in the tissue.” This is really referring to the energetics, or constitutional pattern of a particular part of the body being a root of symptoms, not necessarily a biochemical imbalance. 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this conversion, on one side you get people who say “Germs make you sick,” and on the other side are people who say, “No, it’s not the germs that make you sick. It’s that your body was predisposed to hosting that germ. The ecosystem of the body was such that it allowed that pathogen to thrive and then make you sick. It’s the terrain.” Again, a chicken or the egg thing.

Yet at the same time, many pathogens tend to create the terrain in the body where they thrive, which more often than not is dampness. So the terrain predisposes the body to host the pathogen, and the pathogen in turn further creates that environment. Perhaps the pathogen gets into the body and doesn’t produce a symptom until it changes the tissue state to the point where it thrives and then the symptom emerges. Which comes first? It’s hard to say. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle and both need to be considered. 

I believe the terrain is a very important piece, because I think that’s how herbal medicines actually work. Sure, herbs and their constituents have been studied and shown to have antimicrobial, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, etc. properties. But they also predominantly work on the ecosystem of the body. They are adjusting or altering the ecological landscape of the organ systems through their energetics—through warming it up or cooling it down or moistening it or drying it. This is how herbal medicines have been understood to heal cross-culturally for a very long time. An approach that shouldn’t be abandoned just because science has discovered germs and plant constituents.

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra)

How This Influences Treatment of COVID

Killing germs is an allopathic way of thinking. Changing the ecosystem or environment of the body is a vitalist way of thinking. The ecological approach is looking at the body’s relationship to nature, the plant’s relationship to nature and how, when a plant enters the human body, it’s those two natures influencing and affecting one another. Allopathy is more of a warring approach—that we’ve got to get the big guns out and get in there and wage war on those pathogens and kill, kill, kill. The middle ground is that perhaps there’s space for both. That we can, when necessary, call upon our plants to go to war for us. But we absolutely cannot forget the tissue ecosystem. 

That was the approach that I took when I got COVID. I said, “Man, this thing’s really serious. I better not mess around.” So I took a rather aggressive approach to it and used a wide range of “herbal antivirals” while at the same time, keeping the terrain in mind. One of the big things with COVID is that it’s quite common for the respiratory mucosa to reach a serious state of dryness. Unfortunately, many of our herbal antivirals with a respiratory affinity are also very drying plants. An allopathic herbalist might miss this and end up causing more harm than good by overly drying out the mucosa. Sure maybe they killed some virus, but the tissue state is still imbalanced. So while I used remedies like Lomatium (Lomatium dissectum), Usnea (Usnea spp.), and Osha (Ligusticum grayii), I also balanced their drying energetics with moistening demulcents like Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) and Marshmallow root (Althea officinalis). I took an allopathic and holistic approach at the same time. 

So yeah, go ahead and wage war on some bacteria, but don’t forget your tissue states. Don’t forget to make sure you don’t get too dried out or you get too cold or you get too hot. You’ve got to keep them in balance. 

I think the key thing is that they both have their place. Terrain is really the dominion of herbal medicine. You can think in terms of germs, but don’t forget the terrain. Even with COVID, the terrain was key. Even allopathic medicine is talking about it. They say, “They’ve got a dry cough. Make sure you’re drinking enough water. Make sure you’re staying hydrated.” They’re talking about energetics. Herbs are incredible in how they work on the energetics of the body in ways that most allopathic medicines don’t. And yet they have the power to kill those little germs striking fear into the heart of the masses.

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[keiithmingo]

Addicted to Bitters

  In our modern world where it seems like almost everyone has a digestive symptom of some sort, and bitters or bitter tasting herbs, are becoming significantly more popular. Bitters are a common category of herbal medicine that are universally used to support digestion. While bitters are amazing and incredible in all the many ways in which they support the digestive system, they’re not always the most appropriate type of remedy for everyone to use. 

There is some danger in terms of whether bitters are appropriate for certain people with a certain constitution. A question also came to me recently in regards to whether someone could actually be dependent on bitters because of the way in which bitters stimulate our bile secretions, digestive enzymes and stomach acid. Is there a possibility that our body becomes dependent on bitter stimulation in order for those secretions to happen? 

There are 3 main factors that I think are important as herbalists for us to consider when we’re treating the digestive system that can be easy to overlook. So I’m also going to discuss what I see as important and should be considered when treating chronic digestive symptoms. Even if it’s something as mild as gas or bloating or sensations of fullness – which we might not consider as major but more as a minor annoyance, but are still important things to treat because it might be indicating something going on at a deeper level. 

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

So if someone is using bitters before a meal, will the body eventually become dependent on the bitters for normal bodily function / bile secretions? This is a question that I have wondered myself, and to be 100% transparent, I don’t 100% know the answer. But what I can share with you is my guess based on my own understanding of the way bitters work and the way digestion works.

In general, what I do know is that an excess of use or too prolonged use of bitters can lead to some coldness in the digestive system because those bitters are constantly cooling you down. That constant cold property of the bitters can lead to cold digestion, which in some people is not good. This is why usually they’re formulated with some warming carminatives like Fennel and Angelica, Caraway, Cardamom, Oregano, Rosemary, things like warming spices and so on. If someone absolutely has to take their bitters before a meal—because if they don’t, they get gas and bloating or some kind of upset tummy—what’s really going on here? Why is your body not digesting well? 

Bitters can potentially be more palliative rather than a longer-term curative agent.  Sometimes people just need to take some bitters for a while that retrain the body, reset their liver, reset their gallbladder, to get things moving again. But if someone is dependent on it, it’s worth exploring potential deeper things going on there. So my first go to is food intolerance – are there any allergies? And the other one is antibiotic trauma. Probiotics are usually important for people who have chronic digestive issues. It’s not always that way, but in general, that’s a pretty safe assumption. Food intolerance and antibiotic trauma—those are two important things to screen for. 

Oregon Grape Root (Mahonia aquifolium)

The 3rd thing is nervous system health. The important thing to understand is that your whole digestive system is governed by the autonomic nervous system, specifically the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. In that way, none of that stuff works if someone is stressed out all the time. So bitters are good, but maybe the person needs work on their nervous system, maybe they need to learn how to chill out, to calm down when they eat. Maybe they’re burned out and they need to replenish and rejuvenate their nervous system so that they can be a little more even-keeled and calm so they can actually digest their foods better. 

So it’s important to look at the role of the nervous system and how it assists in governing and determining the health of the digestive system – and yes, it’s such an easy thing to overlook. It’s so easy to just turn to bitters when something is wrong in the GI. And yes, they usually have a pretty noticeable effect, but sometimes they’re just working on that surface level. So sometimes we need to look a little deeper to see the real reason why someone’s having digestive issues. 

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

So those are the 3 factors which are important to consider, especially if you’re addressing someone with chronic digestive system problems. #1 – What are the foods they’re putting in their mouth every day? Are they potentially intolerant or allergic to any of those foods? #2 – Have they ever had to take antibiotics that wiped out their gut flora? That’s usually the case with a lot of folks, especially as antibiotics are overprescribed in general, at least here in the United States. And #3 – What is the state of the nervous system? 

As far as the body becoming dependent on the bitters, I do think it’s possible, but I also think there’s a need to have that deeper-level reset happen, because the bile secretions are determined by the parasympathetic nervous system. So if that’s not happening, perhaps just straight bitters will help aid in that release, but the deeper-level nervous system reset is going to help the body to be retrained, re-attuned to when to secrete bile at the appropriate time.

I hope this post has opened a slightly different perspective and this helps you use and see bitters in a different way.

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[keiithmingo]

Willow Bark vs. Aspirin

It’s common these days for folks to think about Willow as an alternative to aspirin. Many people know that Willow bark also contains salicylic acid, which is the main compound in aspirin. This is a great place to illustrate the difference between looking at a plant through more of a biomedical or allopathic lens versus through more of a holistic or vitalist lens. When we look at willow bark and see it as just an herbal form of salicylic acid, we’re overlooking a lot of attributes of this plant that are very important to understand in order to use it holistically.

If we think of Willow as merely an herbal form of aspirin, it can lead to confusion and potential misuse of this plant, which can potentially cause adverse side effects if you give it to the wrong person. But more often than not, what that will lead to is it not working in the way that you think it will, because Willow bark is much more complex than simple aspirin. It can set people up for disappointment if they think drinking a cup of Willow bark tea or taking a dropperful Willow bark tincture is going to take away their pain or headache as well as popping an aspirin. 

But I also think that, contrary to popular belief, there are times where aspirin has its place. As herbalists practicing in this modern world, I believe it’s important to make sure we adopt more of an open mind when it comes to healing and helping people, and that means navigating people’s usage of over-the-counter and prescription drugs. Indeed, there are certain situations where an aspirin actually might be able to save a life. So be sure to read this entire article to find out what that situation looks like. 

This topic was prompted by a few questions from a student: “Is Willow bark tincture a good alternative to aspirin? Aspirin is used to thin the blood for those who have clogged arteries in emergency situations. Can Willow bark be used in the same way with the same effect? Am I right in thinking that aspirin numbs pain, whereas Willow bark will help with pain by drawing out the cause of the pain? Can you take Willow bark alongside aspirin to help support the body and the liver? What is a cold-type headache as mentioned in one of the videos in the vitalist herbal practitioner program?” 

Willow Bark as an Alternative to Aspirin

Aspirin was first synthesized from the herb Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria). Willow bark and Meadowsweet contain the biochemical compound salicylic acid, which is the basis for aspirin. This is where we come up against more allopathic ways of thinking versus vitalist ways of thinking. While Willow bark indeed contains the same biochemical compound as aspirin, it is a stretch to think that Willow is simply a “natural alternative to aspirin.” Because when you take Willow bark, it works differently than taking an aspirin. Willow bark is a much more complex substance than aspirin which is a single isolated compound. While Willow bark has that single isolated compound, it is in significantly lower concentrations and alongside a whole bunch of other compounds that likely work with it in a synergistic manner. So thinking about willow bark as just a straight alternative to aspirin is not an effective way of thinking about it. It is in fact, applying an allopathic model to a holistic plant. You can, but it’s not going to give you the full picture of what Willow bark is actually doing.

In regards to whether it’s a good alternative to aspirin, it is, kind of. Paul Bergner notes that 1 oz of Willow bark contains approximately the equivalent to ½ of a baby aspirin. The amounts are going to differ slightly from Willow bark to Willow bark, but it’s a very small amount of salicylates. If you were trying to drink as much Willow bark decoction or take as much tincture to get an equivalent amount to a regular-strength aspirin, you would have to take so much of it that it could possibly just be nauseating. In short, it’d be tough to take an aspirin’s worth of Willow bark. You might end up just drunk by the time you get enough tincture in you to get that milligram equivalent of salicylates. So it’s not worth thinking about Willow bark as a one-to-one replacement with aspirin, because the concentration of the constituents is so much lower, but also there’s so much more going on with Willow bark chemically than just a straight-up aspirin.

Blood-Thinning Effect

Certainly Willow bark is said to have a bit of a blood-thinning effect. This is not quite as concentrated as aspirin. But in an emergency situation, it’s better than nothing. If someone’s in an emergency situation—say they have a deep vein thrombosis or they’re having a heart attack or something where there’s clogged or stagnant blood, some sort of blockage or a clogged artery—if you have an aspirin, give them an aspirin. In an emergency situation like that, it’s not effective to be rigid in terms of, “I don’t believe in an over-the-counter drug.” That over-the-counter drug can save a life right now, possibly. Of course, if you only have Willow bark, give them the Willow bark for sure. 

But for me, to be perfectly honest, if I was in that situation—someone was having an emergency and I had a choice between the willow bark and an aspirin, and it was a life-and-death situation—I’d give them the aspirin because I know that it’s going to thin the blood more effectively than the Willow bark tincture. I know that might be shocking and offensive to people, and maybe I’ll get hate mail for it or a bunch of mean comments. But again, even though I am an herbalist, what’s more important to me is that someone gets healed, someone is effectively taken care of, and someone’s life is saved. That’s more important than what I use to help them. So if an aspirin is going to do a better job than the herb in a very acute emergency situation like that, I’m going to grab the aspirin. 

Will Willow bark have the same effect? I’m not totally sure. It’s a good question. It might require such a high dose of it that it might be difficult to get that into someone. 

The other thing that I would mention here with regard to a clogged artery, and this is especially true for a clogged coronary artery—i.e., someone having an acute heart attack—is that Cayenne pepper is a critical herb. It is such a powerful circulatory stimulant that it can dilate the blood vessels and help to push that blood through a blocked vessel. And it specifically does this in the coronary artery, so it’s a specific remedy that can save a life during an acute heart attack. 

It’s possible that rather than Willow bark on its own, there could be some sort of formulation that happens—blood thinners, antispasmodics—to dilate the vessels and blood drivers to move the blood. You’re thinning the blood, you’re dilating the vessels, and you’re driving the blood to help remove that clog in the artery. So that could be something like possibly Willow bark. We know Gingko (Ginko biloba) thins the blood and dilates the blood vessels. We know Lobelia (Lobelia inflata) dilates blood vessels. 

So thinking it through more in terms of a formula rather than just single willow bark to thin the blood might be a more effective, broad spectrum approach. 

Aspirin vs. Willow Bark for Pain

One of the most common ways aspirin is used is for inflammatory type pain, particularly in the joints, injury, and headaches. Next, thinking of aspirin numbing the pain vs. willow bark drawing out the cause of the pain, it really depends. Pain can be complicated, as we can have it for a lot of different reasons. There’s pain due to muscle spasm and tension. There’s pain because of irritation and inflammation. There’s pain because of swelling. There’s pain because of a nerve being stimulated. These are all very different types of pain, with some being taken care of by a salicylate and others possibly not. 

I don’t think it is accurate to say that aspirin numbs the pain while willow bark gets to the root cause. Aspirin and other NSAIDs—non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs—are working by literally shutting down a part of the inflammatory pathway by working through inhibiting a compound referred to as cyclooxygenase (COX-2 inhibitors). They’re inhibiting cyclooxygenase, which is stopping the inflammatory process from occurring higher up in the pathway. This is why NSAID’s like aspirin are specific for inflammatory-based pain and work for certain types of headaches and not for others. It’s why they’re used for joint pain, stiffness, soreness, any inflammatory manner of pain, and why they work very nicely there. 

Willow bark will work similarly to an extent, but if we think of the smaller amount of salicylic acid that you’re getting in Willow bark, it’s important to consider how Willow bark is relieving pain. Is it through the biochemical property of salicylic acid, even though it’s being delivered to the body in a significantly lower amount than half of a baby aspirin (and that’s if you have the guts to take a whole ounce at once!)? Or is Willow bark relieving pain because it’s cooling down constitutional heat and irritation in the tissues? Or because it’s bitter and draining fluids out from a tissue that is perhaps puffy and swollen with dampness and pressing on a nerve ending?

It’s important to remember that plants do not only work through biochemical constituents, but through their humoral or constitutional effects as well. This is considering how the plant influences the ecosystem of the tissues, which is the hallmark of a holistic understanding of the body and herbalism as a whole. In the case of Willow, we see that this is a cooling, draining, drying, bitter, and astringent plant, which is a major contributing factor to its pain-relieving effects. 

It is cooling down heat, inflammation and irritation. It is draining and drying fluid accumulation and swelling. This is combination with slightly inhibiting COX-2 all contribute to Willow bark helping relieve this specific pattern of pain.

Taking Willow Bark Alongside Aspirin

Could you take willow bark alongside aspirin to support the body and the liver? Sure. I don’t see why not. I don’t have a problem if someone takes an aspirin every once in a while. It’s when people are taking aspirin every day or multiple times a day, or even multiple times a week for long periods of time—that’s when we need to dig in a little deeper to figure out what’s going on. Why are you in pain? Why are you getting these headaches? Why are you consistently taking these aspirins or any other type of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug? Because people shouldn’t have to rely on something like aspirin on a consistent basis. It’s not ideal and can lead to side-effects, most notably gastric ulcers.

I don’t see why taking aspirin next to willow bark could not be done, but I would say if someone is having to take it consistently, there’s some work that needs to be done to figure out why they are inflamed. Because that’s ultimately how an aspirin is helping someone feel better—it’s reducing their inflammation. So the question to ask is what’s causing the inflammation and how can we adjust their lifestyle, diet, habits and whatever it is that they’re doing that’s leading to that inflammation and then try to remove that root cause.

Cold Headaches

Temperature is a great way to differentiate headaches. A hot-type headache is one that is a sharper pain. There’s oftentimes a sensitivity to light. It’s worse with heat, and that could be hot weather, hot environment, hot, spicy food. Oftentimes the face will be really red. And the pain feels sharp. 

A cold-type headache is the opposite. It’s going to be aggravated or triggered by cold weather, cold environments, really cold foods, ice cream, dairy foods, and things like that. The skin and face will usually be pale. 

A hot-type headache is too much blood flow going up into the head, and a cold-type headache is not enough blood flow getting up into the head. Oftentimes a cold headache is going to be a little more dull and achy and throbbing rather than sharp, targeted, and specific. Those are some really basic differentials between a hot and a cold type headache. 

Another differentiation in headaches is the difference between a tension-based headache versus a relaxation-based headache. Another way of saying this is an excess vs. deficiency headache. Here we’re looking at the tonal quality of the vasculature and, whether the blood vessels are overly constricted and the blood’s being forced through a smaller vessel, or whether the vessels are overly lax and are not getting adequate blood flow there. 

Those are just a couple of ways that you can come to understand more of the differences between headache types. This is very important because different remedies that are good for headaches will have very different energetic profiles. Some are warming, some are cooling. You’ll read that Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is  very helpful for headaches. Well, yes, but specifically for cold headaches. If you have a hot-type headache, Rosemary can potentially make it worse because it’s bringing more blood flow up into the brain, which can be aggravating. 

So it’s important to differentiate those types of headaches and to make sure you’re administering remedies that will be best suited to the constitution of the person and the specific tissue states behind their symptom. 

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4 Herbs to Help Immune Response

The immune system is very complex, yet traditional peoples have manages to develop practices which modern science now confirms as powerful interventions to improve immunity. For example, in traditional cultures around the world sweat lodges were built to engage in ritual purifications amongst both sexes. Now we know that heat shock protein is released during these saunas which stimulates innate immunity.

  In modern traditional Native American cultures I've experienced a sweat with a group of men, some of which have fasted for the day. In the sweat we would speak our hearts with humility, pray, perhaps drink some herbal tea. One could write a book in great detail on all the ways science has confirmed the benefits of these acts. Brought together in unison, they are very powerful. Here, I'd like to talk about some of the herbs that can help initiate our various immune responses as well as integrate with our natural Vitalist practices which we may draw upon.

  4 Herbs to Enhance Immune Response

  Red Root (Ceanothus species)

Yerba Mansa (Anemopsis californica)

Dan Shen (Salvia miltiorrhiza)

Baical Skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis)

  Moving the lymph system is something that we can conceptualize in the modern world due to the identification of the lymphatic system just a few hundred years ago. However, I believe it's very likely that peoples previously had an awareness of this delicate system which regularly cleanses the system of wastes and transports key nutrients as well. A stagnant lymph system is often part and parcel of a chronic lingering infection, or the consequence of a poor diet, or excessive intake of medications. Even a sedentary lifestyle has clear negative impacts on the proper functioning of our lymph systems.

  Two of the herbs I often look to when needing to boost lymphatic movement are red root (Ceanothus species) and yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica). Each of these herbs work on the lymph system in unique ways but both are very useful in this regard.

  Red root may be considered more specific to the lymph system, and, frankly, it is my all-time favorite lymphatic herb. It is very useful in acute and chronic infections given the burden placed on the lymph in cleaning up from heightened immune activity. This pours over into the spleen, and can be witnessed as a sluggish feeling overall, lack of appetite, brain fog, and perhaps holding onto excess moisture, especially in the extremities. Red root also has a beneficial effect on the blood by improving its charge and thereby enhancing the flow of the blood. It is a subtle and gentle detoxifying agent and can be used daily for a long period of time by a wide range of folks without any concern for toxicity (aka, side effects).

        Taking red root on a daily basis is a wonderful way to keep the blood from getting too sticky (improving tendency to clot). Although the herb was used for its coagulating effects in the early 20th century, that was instead for topical application. Internally, it behaves quite differently on the blood and is not a coagulant. 

    Although yerba mansa has served as a virtual cure-all amongst the peoples of the American desert regions, I'm going to focus on its usefulness in moving the fluids in the body, as well as protecting the mucous membranes. The mucous membranes are our primary line of defense (aside from the skin). The mucous membranes line the respiratory tract, digestive tract, and genito-urinary tract.

      Thus, yerba mansa has so many applications in this way including bacterial, fungal, and viral infections, chronic inflammation, and accumulated toxicity in the tissue resulting in boils, etc. Its ability to promote fluid movement is similar to the effects of red root, but transcends the lymph over into blood, mucus, and even extracellular fluid (what exists between the cells). Perhaps yerba mansa even helps promote the movement of cerebrospinal fluid. 

  Look to yerba mansa for infections of the lymph, respiratory, and digestive systems, as well as the skin. Here you can use it both topically and internally. Further, yerba mansa contains endophytic fungi growing within its tissue lending more complexity to its antimicrobial qualities. 

  Yerba mansa is a classic remedy for any sinus condition and has been relied upon by many during acute respiratory infections. We feature it in our Hay Fever Formula, Anti-fungal Formula, and our Cold & Flu Formula. 

  Dan shen (Salvia miltiorrhiza) is a Chinese herb which has been used extensively for millennia for systemic illnesses with a particular focus on the heart. Today, it is applied in a modern hospital setting, for example, as a primary therapeutic for cardiac arrest, or stroke patients upon admission due to its powerful recuperative effects on the heart. It promotes blood circulation and is also a primary remedy to help prevent blood clotting. Dan shen also upregulates ACE-2 which supports cardiovascular and respiratory health. Similar to red root, above, dan shen will support lymph movement by toning the spleen. It is also neuroprotective. 

    Outcomes of respiratory viruses are improved due to dan shen's strengthening of the lungs. Dan shen is profoundly anti-inflammatory and, thus, is a profound immune regulator, and can inhibit cytokines as well. Additionally, it can reduce pathogenic priming (an effect which allows a virus to become more virulent).

  Dan shen is a powerfully healing herb with a wide array of significant applications. I feel that it is an important herb for a great many people at this for the protection it provides the nervous system, the blood, and cardiovascular system as a whole.

  Relatedly, I have found our native Salvia columbariae, chia, to be an appropriate substitution for dan shen and it is featured in our Cardiovascular Support formula and our CV3 Cell Protection Formula.

    Baical skullcap is a perennial herb naturally occurring throughout northern Asia (Mongola, Russia, China) which is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine. Amongst its many applications includes antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, and neuroprotective.

  We are in an era of rampant nervous system dysregulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, as well as blood toxicity. To an extent, Baical skullcap can address each of these through the effects of its flavonoids. In part, its beneficial effects on the liver help renew and strengthen the blood. Hepatitis, fibrosis of the liver, and fatty liver are all improved with the tea or tincture of Baical skullcap. When liver function can be normalized, the immune system function is greatly enhanced.

    Baicalein, a compound found in Baical skullcap, has been found effective at reducing reverse transcriptase in HIV-1 hinting that the herb may prove beneficial against other retroviruses. It is also great at inhibiting blood clotting as well as block attachment to ACE-2 receptors, and has various ways of protecting and repairing the tissue of the heart (eg. prevents the increase of cardiac troponin) while helping with any circulatory issues.

  In common with the above mentioned herbs, Baical skullcap tones the endothelial lining of the lymphatic system improving integrity and the flow of waste products out of the organs. Additionally, immunomodulatory effects by this herb improve the outcome of bacterial and acute viral infections.

  Importantly, Baical skullcap works against oxidative stress including reactive oxygen species (ROS) and its neuroprotective effects may be of great benefit against neurodegenerative disease. Also, consider Baical skullcap for any brain inflammation or central nervous system injuries.

  All of the above places Baical skullcap at the front of a natural protocol to enhance and recover adequate immune function in the face of today's environmental threats and communicable illnesses. Whether looking to simply boost immunity, reduce inflammation and improve tissue integrity, protect the brain, heart, and nervous system, or simply help fight an acute illness, Baical skullcap is an important herb to have on hand.

    References 

Scutellaria baicalensis, the golden herb from the garden of Chinese medicinal plants. https://ift.tt/3xVHAFx

Scutellaria baicalensis, the golden herb from the garden of Chinese medicinal plants. https://ift.tt/3xVHAFx

SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19): Herbal Protocols for the Treatment of Infection and Post-Coronavirus Syndrome.  https://ift.tt/3kLNV2i

Southwest Medicinal Plants, John Slattery. 2020. 

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Interview with Kami McBride



  I think one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves as herbalists and healers is “why do we get sick?”

This is the big question pondered by healers, physicians, medicine people, and philosophers all across the world for millennia, and their answers range everyone from genetics and pathogenic microorganisms, to karma, ancestral trauma, and our constitutional predispositions.

While some of the reasons we get sick are completely out of our direct control— such as being born with some form of genetic condition— there are many things that are. And one of the most important ones here, especially in our modern, busy, high-stress paced world, is simply put as a lack of self-care. What’s the mean? It’s as simple as setting up daily routines and healthy habits to take care of your health physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And there is no better way to show that we care for ourselves than by anointing ourselves in oil, a tradition that spans cultures across the world.

Oils provide several benefits: there’s the healing from the medicinal constituents of the herb, the affirmation that we’re taking care of ourselves, and the self-healing power of physical touch. This is reaching far beyond just using them for skincare, for aesthetics, or to take away our wrinkles (although those things are quite real too). Consider that the skin is itself one of the largest organs of absorption and elimination in the body. Thus, topical application of herbal infused oils in fact can correct things internally as well.

This week’s podcast guest is an expert in herbal oils. Kami McBride is the author of The Herbal Kitchen, and she’s taught herbal medicine at several colleges. Over more than 30 years, Kami has helped thousands of families make the highest-quality herbal remedies to prevent illness, take care of common ailments, and protect their health naturally.

One thing I love about herbalists, is that everyone has their own unique approach and specialty within the art and practice of plant medicine. Kami just happens to be a specialist in herbal self-care, particularly in the form of working with infused oils. One of the things that I found really powerful in our conversation was how she talked about creating a culture of healing within your family by having these periods of self-care, positive healthy healing touch, and herbal infused oils. We discuss a variety of topics, including:

How a small side hobby making oils turned into a 30-year career

The difference between an infused oil and an essential oil

Kami’s favorite herbs to put into infused oils

An extended discussion of the power of St. John’s wort

Why herbal oils have not yet gone mainstream … and one way they might

The reason oils are such a powerful healing modality

Why human touch — whether of ourselves or of others — is so vital

The importance of a household culture of healing

To learn more about the healing power of infused oils and how to make the highest quality ones yourself at home from someone that’s been doing for 30+ years, be sure to sign up for Kami’s free workshop series below, and enjoy learning a few new techniques that are super helpful for making potent herbal oils that won’t go bad.

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Herbal Support for ADD and ADHD

  How can herbalists use plant medicine to support children who have, in conventional medicine, been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD?

Unfortunately, there can be some detrimental effects, not only from the conventional treatments but also from the psychological and emotional experience of the label itself.

Thankfully, we have remedies that can address some of these dynamics, which not only helps us navigate our standard educational system (which isn’t always suitable to all learning types) but also help keep our children off stronger medications. In today’s post we’ll be discussing:

Problems with Conventional Treatment

Vata vs Kapha cognitive challenges

Herbal Treatments 

Looking to the Heart

Problems with Conventional Treatment

It’s unfortunate when doctors are so quick to say that a child has a disorder because they have a hard time paying attention in our linear, reductionistic, boxed-in educational system. As I’m sure most of you are aware, we are learning that there are really few children who can actually learn in this form. It’s unfortunate because society creates a box and says; “this is how you’re going to learn, and if you don’t learn it our way, then you have ADD or ADHD, and here’s some Ritalin”.

We need to recognize and understand that every child learns in different ways, some being very hands-on and tactile, some more visual, and some more auditory learners. We can’t just throw all our children into one box, and expect that they’re all going to choose the same path – it’s just not functional nor fair. 

Over many years, I watched a few close friends and family members take Ritalin. Through this experience, I witnessed how long it took them to overcome some implications that medication had caused physically, psychologically, and even emotionally! It was devastating because their “condition” didn’t seem worthy of such a treatment, and they should have had access to other learning styles.

So if it’s possible, I think that we should encourage and offer our children the opportunity to learn differently, and show them that there isn’t anything wrong with them, but get them to understand that our generic educational systems are unfortunately super limited, and hope these issues in the system will be addressed as we become more educated around these issues.

Rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis)

Vata vs Kapha cognitive challenges

Attention deficit disorder, or ADD——and attention deficit hyperactive disorder, ADHD——indicate a hard time concentrating and focusing. When I think outside of the dominion of ADD and ADHD, just thinking of cognitive difficulty in general, I tend to think of it in a couple of different categories. 

First, perhaps the person can’t concentrate because they’re just really spaced out. Their mind is in a constant state of “whoa, I can’t focus on one thing”, they get really distracted easily. They’re the butterflies chasers; “I love that color! I used to have a T-shirt that was that color, I wonder where that shirt is? I’m going to go look for it.” And the next thing you know, they’re cleaning their kitchen. This state of mind is extremely scattered, and I would describe this from the Ayurvedic perspective as the Vata cognitive challenge. 

The other type of mental state is the groggy, foggy, hazy, trying to see through cotton balls—that type of really intense brain fog that weighs over your eyes. It’s not so much distraction or spaced out like the vata cognitive challenge, but it’s more a mental sluggishness and fatigue. I would put this in the Kaphic cognitive challenge. 

Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica)

Herbal Treatments

So for the folks that are really spaced out and scattered/all over the place, they are going to benefit from gentle nervines; remedies like Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), Tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum), Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) and Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) which will calm the mind and calm the nervous system down enough that the person or child can actually have the bandwidth to focus on one thing for a short time. Obviously you don’t want to relax them too much to the point where they’re tired and can’t focus, but just enough so they can feel centered and be productive. 

For the Kapic State, we need remedies to stimulate the mind and blood flow to the brain, so here we can want to use circulatory stimulants. Rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) is excellent. Gingko (Ginkgo biloba) is excellent. It is thinning the blood. It’s not so much driving blood, but it’s thinning it. Bacopa (Bacopa monnieri) is excellent here as well. We also have Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), which is a cerebral stimulant. Valerian is bringing more blood flow up into the brain, but obviously, it’s also quite distinctly sedative, so we usually have to be cautious with Valerian. And then on the nervine side, I like the more gentle nervines, especially if we’re working with children. Here, things like lavender (Lavendula spp.) and Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis). Tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) can be really nice. Linden blossom or Tilia (Tilia spp.) is nice here as well.

Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica) is also excellent. It’s probably my favorite herb: very safe for children, mild but powerful, safe for kids but very noticeable. I like Gotu Kola because it has a gentle nervine effect and also procures clarity within the mind. Gotu Kola gently calms the nervous system down, but it also promotes an alert awareness that’s also peaceful and calm, which is the most optimal state of consciousness for any type of mental focusing, studying, thinking, but also spiritual practice—mindfulness and meditation and things like that. Gotu Kola is classically paired with Calamus root (Acorus calamus), which is great for the foggy, dull type of difficult Kapha cognition. 

Linden (Tilia spp.)

Looking to the Heart

From an energetic standpoint, working with the heart is excellent here as well because it alludes to a sign of mental overactivity, so the more that we can bring someone down into the heart, we bring them into more of a parasympathetic state. We bring them into more of a settled, singular, focused state of consciousness rather than a very stimulated, all-over-the-place state of consciousness. Linden (Tilia spp.) is excellent here. Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) can be good there and Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) again is great here. I’ve also heard Hawthorn berry and flower (Crataegus spp.) can be excellent for folks.

So those are some thoughts I would suggest around how to look at ADD and ADHD, as well as some remedies to support each state. Another aspect that I would consider is to see if there are any food intolerances that might be present. If someone’s eating an intolerant food and it’s stimulating their immune system and a systemic inflammatory response, it’s going to be stimulating cortisol secretions too, which can be stimulating. So that could be contributing to the “H” part in the ADHD. One of the main complaints of folks with food intolerance is mental fatigue: difficulty concentrating, difficulty focusing, and grounding. So that could be a contributing factor, and it’s worth looking into and screening for.

I hope this post has given you a couple of new tools to consider when working with children who have a harder time concentrating due to these hyper mental states, and helps to find another perspective using the wonderful tool of herbal medicine.

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Eating for Your Constitution

https://youtu.be/KsOweuOyGZc

  As Ayurveda has become popular, interest in eating according to your constitutional type has grown. Over the last few years we’ve seen this dynamic of eating and tailoring your diet to specifically suit your unique dosha. 

And while I think there are some great aspects to that, I also think there are a few risks in terms of how we approach food, how we approach eating, the state of our mind, how we think about our food, and how sometimes we can turn food into a stressor. 

In this post below, some of the topics you’ll discover are:

  The Origins of the Ayurvedic Diet

Qualities of the Doshas

Enjoying Our Food 

Listen to Your Body and the Seasons

A Real-Food Diet

The Origins of the Ayurvedic Diet

Every herbalist should have at least a little rudimentary knowledge around diet and nutrition incorporated into their practice of working with people. The food conversation is important and it has a lot of different dynamics. There’s a lot of ways food can taste amazing, while also being healthy and restorative, and as some would say, food is medicine. But unfortunately, the flip side is also true. Food can also be detrimental to one’s health, depending on what food is consumed and when it’s eaten. 

  As Ayurveda has become popular, interest in eating according to your constitutional type has grown. Over the last few years, we’ve seen this dynamic of eating and tailoring your diet to specifically suit your unique dosha. And while I think there are some great aspects to that, I also think there are a few risks in terms of how we approach food, how we approach eating, the state of our mind, how we think about our food, and how sometimes we can turn food into a stressor. If we’re stressed out about our food or getting too rigid with how we approach the food – this can be detrimental to our health. So I want to talk about the constitutional effects of food and where that line is—and offer a few great things to consider and offer an approach where we can avoid getting maybe even a little neurotic about it. 

  The Ayurvedic diet is where people eat according to their dosha. For those of you not familiar with this term, the doshas is rooted in a threefold pattern of energetics, based on the doshas, which are formed through particular combinations of the Elements. Air and Ether form the vata dosha, Fire and Air create the pitta dosha, and Earth and Water generate the kapha dosha. Eating according to a particular dosha seems to be more of a modern idea, from what I’ve learned from one of my mentors, Todd Caldicot. He said that traditionally Ayurveda was medicine for peasants. They didn’t live in our culture where we have lots of options to pick and choose what to eat and what not to eat. Peasants had their crops and their staple foods, and what they had was just what they ate. So this idea of eating according to your Dosha, is more of a modern phenomenon- which doesn’t make it invalid, it’s just a result of living in our abundant Western world today. 

  Qualities of the Doshas

Let’s take a look at the pitta vata constitution. If you remember the qualities of the doshas, it helps with food selection. So pitta is hot, is oily in terms of dampness, and tends to be light. Vata tends to be cold, tends to be dry, and also tends to be light. So what they both have in common are lightness and movement, and that commonality helps determine the most important attribute for balancing that kind of constitution, which is the earth element. I would define this as sweet foods—not sweet like candy but sweet like starches—as well as protein-dense foods. A lot of protein is good for pittas because they’re fiery and they tend to burn through things very quickly, so protein is great because it tends to ground these people out.

  The one thing that tends to imbalance pitta is really hot, spicy foods, and the other is oily foods. Now, oils are great, and we need to eat good-quality oils for the integrity of good health, but in this case, I’m referring to more refined oils like polyunsaturated or trans fats. Fried food is also going to aggravate pitta because it’s been submerged in boiling hot oil, which in turn will aggravate pitta. So spicy foods and fried foods are not going to be the best diet for a pitta constitution. A common example for people with a lot of pitta in their constitution who eat fried foods will tend to get acne. 

  Vata does not do well with cold or very dry foods. So things like dehydrated crackers or jerky or dried nuts and seeds tend to be aggravating to this dosha, as well as cold raw or uncooked foods. Any kind of vegetables or fruit that is cold or uncooked tends to be aggravating to vata. This is why Chinese people cringe when they see someone that has a thin, slender, vata-type constitution on a raw-food diet. It’s the worst possible diet for that constitution to be on because it’s all cold and it doesn’t provide the type of nourishment this dosha needs. Vata benefits from warming, oily foods, and more nourishing foods like soups and stews or in other words, well-cooked, easy-to-digest, grounding foods. 

  So what happens if someone has both doshas in their constitution? This where it can become confusing for a lot of practitioners. Pitta is hot and vata is cold. Pitta needs cooling foods and vata needs warming foods. So how do we figure that out? Well, it really depends on which one’s most predominant. Usually, you’ll know if you tend to be a little more pitta or a little more vata in terms of temperature, so if you tend to be more on the pitta side and you’ll be hotter, which means you’ll want to avoid the really spicy foods and eat things that will cool down the pitta, but don’t eat really cold foods as that will aggravate the vata. For example; if you tend to be colder, eat warming foods but don’t do the fire-breathing dragon hot sauce that’s going to aggravate your pitta. Do the gentle warmings spices like Cumin and maybe a little Black pepper or maybe a wee little bit of Ginger—gentle warming things that will warm up that vata but not so much that it’s going to aggravate the pitta.  

  Enjoying Our Food

One thing that I’d like to warn you about is that it’s easy for people to get really neurotic about these categories. I think sometimes people get a little too strict and stringent where they say they can’t eat something because it aggravates their pitta, or they can’t eat something else because aggravates their kapha. But then they wonder what they can eat, and become a bit paralyzed, causing themselves more stress about their diet, which in turn makes things worse, because they’re not even enjoying their food. 

  True, some foods are good for our bodies, and some foods aren’t so good for our bodies. But food is also about enjoying ourselves and eating things in moderation and also knowing when it’s okay to treat yourself once in a while. Because there is an aspect of sensory enjoyment with food and there’s an aspect of a community gathering around food and eating to uplift our spirits. It’s important to have fun around diet and cook meals together, to share the bounty of a fall harvest – or enjoy an ice cream with your kid! I want to encourage you to enjoy your meals no matter what diet you follow – even if you slip every so often, ‘cause being happy, to me, is better than stressing over something that isn’t a true detriment to our health.  

Listening to Your Body

Now, some people have allergies and severe intolerances and they shouldn’t eat certain items because their body doesn’t react to it well. But when it comes to the constitutional vantage and eating for your dosha, I think it’s good to be aware, but it’s good to also be flexible and not get too rigid and not put yourself in a box or limit yourself too much, because then it becomes more the mind imposing on the body. 

The most important thing is to listen to your body. Eat food and see how you feel when you eat it. Eat the fire-breathing dragon hot sauce, and you might say, “Oh, interesting. I just got heartburn from that. It just aggravated my pitta. Maybe I need to eat some less spicy.” Or, “Oh, I ate that raw, cold salad, and now I feel really cold and really tense and nervous. That aggravated my vata. But hold on – I really enjoy salads.” So maybe instead you can find a balance, roast a bunch of root veggies and put that on top of your salad, which would add some warmth to your meal. Maybe you love certain crackers, but you think it’s too dry, so eat them with some oily hummus or with some smoked salmon or cheese. Now you’ve got oiliness that’s going to balance that dryness. Or you could even drink a bunch of water with it to balance it out. There are ways to navigate this so that you can still enjoy your food but you’re also keeping tabs on how you are reacting and responding to the foods that may aggravate parts of you. This way it becomes an art, and not something that confines you. 

Listening to the Seasons & Tuning Your Senses

The other part of this is that there are seasonal attributes that are important to follow. In the summer you’re going to tend toward pitta imbalances because it’s hot. In the winter and fall, you’re going to be more prone to the vata/kapha imbalances. So there’s something about eating with the seasons that can help us stay balanced. Adjusting your diet to eat in a way that counteracts what’s going on seasonally, will instill a sense of equilibrium. Eating those nice, warm stews during a cold winter feels good because it’s warming your body, or eating a cool salad with cucumbers on a hot summer day will cool you down. It’s keeping you in check with your ecosystem and the environment surrounding you. 

It’s good to have a genuine sense of how foods affect your constitution, I just want to caution you not to get too rigid with this. Yes, there are all kinds of charts and diagrams that say to eat certain foods for the doshas, but you can use them as a general guideline, and a way to navigate your health -but not miss out on the celebration of life through food. 

So listen to your body and listen to your body’s wisdom. Your body is the most important communicator of all and tells you more than any book could. And ultimately enjoy your food. I’ve been learning this myself, I used to be a strict vegetarian for a long time, then went vegan, and then was a raw vegan. But now, after many years, I’ve flipped the coin again, and now I’m a carnivore. Thankfully, I’ve gotten to a place where I enjoy my food, and I enjoy organic cashew butter cups once in a while too! Sure, I’m not going to eat them every day, but I eat to make myself feel healthy and happy, and I think part of the medicine of food is simply enjoying it. 

  A Real-Food Diet

There are a lot of food ideas out there and everyone’s got the miracle diet. “This is the diet humans should eat.” “No, this is the diet humans should eat.” “No, that’s the diet humans should eat.” It just makes it confusing for everyone. I say, how about we just eat real food, like fruits and vegetables and meats and legumes and grains. And yes maybe for some people, legumes or grains don’t digest well, so don’t eat those, but just focus on eating a real-food diet. 

  Ultimately eat the food that you want to eat, and pay attention to how those foods affect your body. If you eat something that doesn’t feel good in your body, don’t eat it. Sometimes it sucks, but thats how we tune in to ourselves and listen. It’s more empowering for us as human beings to have a relationship with our food, and have some understanding of our food and our environment affects us. That, to me, is empowerment. It’s not empowering to have someone tell you what foods to eat or tell you what diet is best for you, they’re not you – so they don’t know how you feel in your body. 

  I encourage my clients and my students to figure out the food issue for themselves because that’s empowering, that’s self-knowledge and self-understanding. To me, that is self-improvement, that is personal growth and development, and that’s what spiritual growth and development are—to understand how the outside affects the inside. 

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How to Learn the Unwritten Herbs

Determining a Plant’s Properties from Scratch

When studying plants in an environment where the plants haven’t been studied from a Western model or the information isn’t readily available, can quickly become tricky. Often this issue comes up when my students live in other areas of the world, like Africa, where there are lots of local medicinal plants – but there isn’t a typical Materia Medica reference book with a Western perspective on the local medicinal plants in their area and. If this is something that you’ve faced when studying Western herbalism, I’d love to offer you a few helpful tips so you can understand your plants in terms of their medicinal actions, their energetics, their organ system affinities, and so on. 

So where do you start? How do you start to decipher the properties of a medicinal plant when you’re starting from scratch? How do you start to understand how to use those plants when you can’t look those herbs up in a book or maybe you don’t even have any teachers to turn to, or any local references.

Today I want to share a nice framework on how you can start to approach looking at a medicinal plant that you don’t know, or that you can’t look up and reference, and how you can start to build your experiential knowledge and understanding of that medicinal plant.

A Plant’s Properties and the Experience of a Plant

First, how do we determine some of the Western ways of understanding the properties of a plant, things like herbal actions, organ system affinities, and energetics? How do we determine those things in plants that haven’t been traditionally documented that way or that you can’t look up in a standard Western materia medica? How do we know how to formulate with that plant?

There are a couple of different ways of approaching this. One of the most ideal ways is if you can find a person who has any of this traditional knowledge about how those local medicinal plants are used. I would encourage trying to find someone like this if possible and ask them questions, and see what they’re willing to share. You probably can’t ask them what the herbal actions are, but most herbalists are going to be able to tell you what organ system they go to or what they’re traditionally used for.

Elecampane (Inula helenium)

For example, a certain herb is used for a cough, therefore we know it’s going to have a respiratory affinity. Then you can ask more clarifying questions like whether it’s better if the cough is really dry or very wet. Maybe it’s good for a dry cough. Well, that gives you a sense for some of the energetics—moistening. So you can infer some of these Western ways of understanding a medicinal plant just based on a conversation. Even if they’re not using the same terminology, you can quickly start translating it based on how that plant has traditionally been used. That’s valuable. Obviously, sometimes it’s not easy to find someone who practices herbal medicine based on the traditional ways of using all those local plants. But if you can, this is the best.

From there, it comes down to your own experience with the plant and starting from scratch in a way, and working with that plant in the sense of engaging with it and tasting it and ingesting it, obviously making sure that it’s a safe plant to work with first and foremost, and understanding that there are no major contraindications or side effects that you need to be concerned about. But there is great value in experiencing a plant for yourself and deciphering its medicinal virtues from there.

The Experience of a Plant: Taste

One of the best places to start is the taste. With Chinese medicine, there are five, and Ayurveda adds a sixth: bitter, pungent, sweet, salty, sour, and then the sixth that Ayurveda adds is astringent. Just by tasting those tastes, you can infer a lot.

The taste of a medicinal plant can give you a wealth of information about that plant. The taste of a plant can inform you of the organ system, tissue affinities, and energetics. The taste of a plant can inform you of its medicinal actions. You can infer a lot of those things just by an initial taste of the herb.

Here are a few examples: Bitter plants tend to have an affinity for the liver, the gallbladder, and the digestive system. Bitter plants typically have a cooling, energetic property. Bitter plants tend to be on the drying side of things. Bitter plants have the action of being a bitter tonic. Oftentimes they can be cholagogue and choleretic. Cholagogue means they increase bile secretions from the gallbladder, and choleretic means they increase bile production in the liver. These are things that can be inferred from that bitter taste. Each bitter plant is going to have its specificities and its nuances that are learned from longer-term usage of the plant, but you can, at the very least, start to infer some of these things just based on taste. 

Pungent plants—plants that have a lot of volatile oils and taste spicy or peppery—oftentimes are plants that have a carminative action. Many times volatile oil or resinous plants can also have an expectorant property (to expel mucus from the lungs) if you feel them in your lungs. More often than not they are warming energetically, and they tend to have a drying effect on the system. In terms of formulation, those pungent plants oftentimes are drivers—99% of the time drivers in herbal formulas are pungent. These plants are spicy, aromatic, warming, stimulating plants that will move the blood and circulation.

Cayenne (Capsicum annuum)

With blood flow, there are two ways to think about it. There’s the actual driving of blood—increasing blood flow through pungent plants, like Cayenne pepper (Capsicum annuum) or Ginger (Zingiber officinale). These two are well-regarded drivers, and cayenne especially is classic in traditional Western herbal medicine. 

The other aspect of blood flow is dilating blood vessels. If you open up blood vessels and make them wider, you’re going to bring more blood flow to that area. This can come from the action of antispasmodics or vasodilators and a great example in Western herbalism is Lobelia (Lobelia inflata). This is where we see Lobelia and Cayenne being a major pair used in Western herbalism because Lobelia dilates all the blood vessels and cayenne drives it, and this is how we equalize the circulation. That’s a pretty classic driver pair. 

Antispasmodics oftentimes will also have an acrid taste. Acrid plants oftentimes are antispasmodic, oftentimes are nervine (they affect the nervous system), and they have an affinity for the muscles. Some will have different specificities, for example, Wild yam (Dioscorea villosa) tends to have a little bit of a stronger affinity for the digestive system, where, Lobelia works everywhere, it does have a little bit of a stronger orientation toward the respiratory tract. Kava-kava (Piper methysticum) is another example of a pungent plant that relaxes muscles everywhere but tends to have a urinary tract affinity. 

Astringent tends to have a drying energetic on the tissues. It tends to affect the mucosa. They tend to be vulnerary, wound healing. They affect the skin, oftentimes drying out the mucosa in the GI, in the urinary tract, in the respiratory tract, and tightening and toning, so they’re typically used for a relaxed tissue state to bring more tensile strength and tone to those tissues. 

There are varying opinions among traditions about the sour taste. Some say they’re warming, and some say they’re cooling. In Western herbalism, we note that sour-tasting plants tend to have a strong effect on the cardiovascular system. They tend to be cooling and antioxidant, reducing inflammation and heat and irritation. We drink lemonade on a hot summer day or eat berries because they cool us off. Many sour plants are flavonoid-rich and sedative. That’s why, for example, hawthorn berry and elderberry are great for the heart and cardiovascular system.  

Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.)

The sweet taste tends to have a moistening energetic. It tends to build and strengthen tissues. It provides sustenance and strength. So we tend to use it for dry, atrophic-type tissue states. Sweet plants tend to be demulcent in action, and we’ll see them moisten and hydrate tissues that are dry, cracked, weak, especially in the mucosa. Astringents tend to dry the moisture in the mucosa, and sweet plants tend to bring moisture back into the mucosa. But moistening plants will have different organ affinities, for instance, some will be a moistening demulcent expectorant in the lungs, some will be moistening demulcents as a diarrhetic in the urinary tract, some will be moistening demulcents in the digestive system, and lastly, some might have a general moistening effect all over the body. 

Understanding the salty taste is a little nebulous for a lot of herbalists at first. We’re trained to think of salty as the taste of salt, but the salty taste according to Western herbalism is like a crispy mineral-rich plant. If the color green had a flavor, that would be the salty taste. The best examples are Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) and Nettles (Urtica dioica). Other sea plants like Kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera) are also salty, but Horsetail and Nettles are a good example of a more subtle, subdued salty taste. These plants oftentimes are diarrhetic, working through the kidneys and urinary tract. Oftentimes they’re mineral-rich plants that help to nourish and rebuild and sustain weakened tissues. 

Listening to your body

Those are the kinds of details that you infer from the longer-term usage of the plant. If you’re just working with a plant through your experience, you take it for a longer period, and you just start to pay attention to your body. For example, if you need to go to the bathroom more consistently, or your digestion has changed, or you feel more calm and relaxed.

There’s a dynamic of cultivating physiological and anatomical sensitivity that is an important skill for herbalists. You should develop a heightened and refined awareness of your body and how your body feels naturally, what its baseline is. Then when you start working with a medicinal plant, you can start to be aware of how that physiological baseline starts to shift. This is a really valuable skill.

I’ve been consciously working on that for a long time so that when I take a plant, I can feel in my body where that plant is going. I can feel when something’s working through my kidneys and my bladder. I can feel an herb when it’s affecting my nervous system or my lungs. Just through paying attention, just through sensitizing your body to those sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle shifts that a plant can bring when you introduce it into your body.

Effectively Using Plants

So the best place to start studying new plants is with your tastes. From those tastes, you can start to infer what types of actions, what types of organ affinities, and what types of energetics you might start to see from those plants. From there, if you work with that plant, say, every day for six weeks, that’s a really good amount of time to start to get a sense of how that herb is altering or adjusting your physiological processes. Cultivating sensitivity to how plants feel in your body and having a notebook to write down your experience can be so helpful. Just pay attention. Drink the tea of that herb and pay attention to your body and make note of what you feel like.

Coupled with any traditional knowledge that you can glean can help to start to put the pieces of the puzzle together so that you can start to decipher how that herb is going to just be used medicinally, which will then guide how you’re going to formulate with it as well. You can’t know how to formulate with an herb until you understand the core properties of that plant as it exists on its own. Start there, and then you can piece together how you might combine it with other plants to have a nice synergistic effect.

Particular characteristics that determine the qualities of an herb for a formulation, come down to knowing the actions, the affinities, and the energetics of a plant. If you’re working with a formula for the respiratory system, you want to know that the herbs going into that formula has an affinity for the lungs and maybe have an expectorant property. Then you look at the tissue state of the person you’re treating. If it’s cold and it’s damp, you’ll want more warming, drying, stimulant expectorants as opposed to moistening, demulcent expectorants – and that’s where you can get a little bit more precise.

When I’m looking at a plant, I don’t want to know just the energetics. I don’t want to know just the affinities. I don’t want to know just the actions. I need to know all three and how they come together in a pattern. And that in turn informs me how to use that plant effectively.

So I hope that gives you a little framework to work with if you find yourself in a position where you don’t have any references to look up a plant your curious to learn more about. Please post any questions below and if you found this post interesting, and you’d like to continue your studies – you may also like the following articles:

https://www.evolutionaryherbalism.com/2021/05/12/determining-interchangeable-species/

https://www.evolutionaryherbalism.com/2021/04/28/the-benefits-and-dangers-of-bitters/

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Feeding Your Inner Sun with St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)

‘De Herstellers’ by Will Worthington

Stepping into some of the warmest and longest days of the year, we’re arriving now at the Summer Solstice marking the first days of summer here in the northern hemisphere. Basking in the Suns warmth, it penetrates not only our souls but all the plants and forests around us, bringing an abundance of life, food and medicine to supply us for the coming year ahead. In old traditions, it is said that harvesting medicine on this sacred day will procure some of the strongest medicine of the year, bringing a strong igniting solar force within ourselves which will not only carry us on through physically, but also uplift our spirits for the next year ahead.

There are a few plants that are traditionally used around this time for ritual and celebration, but one delicate yet powerful little plant that distinctly bears great resemblance to the Sun is our one and only St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum). Flowering around this time of year, St. John’s Wort is a plant that corresponds quite strongly to the archetypal force of that hot beaming sphere high in the sky.

We see the signatures of the Sun in the fact that it prefers to grow in wide open spaces, southern facing slopes, and in direct sunlight- the hotter and dryer the better. The plant itself displays strong solar signatures in the bright yellow coloration of the flower, which appears to be shining out light rays from its stamens. I always think it looks like light rays- like when you are walking through the forest and see the sun shining through the trees and see the distinct rays of light.

The physical actions and properties of St. John’s Wort (both physical and spiritual) also bear strong correspondences to the Sun. First, we see that it is predominantly a warming remedy with its volatile, balsamic flavor and warming energetics. It makes sense that it would be our primary remedy for melancholy and depression, for these types of imbalances could be seen as a deficiency of the solar force (thus it makes sense that Portland and Seattle have the highest rates of depression because it’s cloudy, grey and rainy all the time!). As Matthew Becker states, “it brings a lot of the energy and warmth of the sun into your own body… it actually can warm your psyche.” That truly summarizes how this plant works!

St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) from the garden. Photo by: Elisha Storey

St. John’s Wort initiates us into the sphere of influence of the Sun, which represents the core of who we are, our gravitational center. The Sun is all about coming into direct contact with our essential self, being strong in that, and learning to shine our truth out into the world in a way that is of service and benefit to the whole.

The people that St. John’s Wort is quite specific for have lost touch with that essential part of the self. The darkness has crept into their psyche, they have lost their confidence, lost touch with their essential self, their path, their purpose- they feel alone, isolated, and disconnected from Life. A certain heaviness weighs on them and they feel “down.”

St. John’s Wort functions to help to strengthen the inner Sun, to bring the light back into someone’s life. It feeds that inner light, fans and brightens the flame of consciousness, and where that light shines the darkness dissipates. Rather than focusing on what’s wrong, what’s not working, and what is holding one back, this remedy teaches our minds to find the positive in every situation, to take our challenges and struggles and transform them into our teachings, our strength, and our power. In this way it is “above the apparition” (the meaning of the Greek word hypericon), and helps us to face our inner demons and conquer them.

I see the healing process of St. John’s Wort in a way that starts at the core of who we are, it finds the light of our consciousness and starts to feed it, to strengthen it. As that light brightens within the self, it begins to push the subconscious fears and traumas up and out so we can face them and deal with them. Progressively over time our inner light (which is simply our truth, purpose, and power) shines out from within and re-establishes the structural integrity of the astral body, healing any “punctures” to our etheric field so that we are no longer leaking our vital force out, nor are we susceptible to the malefic influences of others. We are not protected from the outside in, but rather from the inside out- we are filled with the truth of who we are so that there isn’t any more room for other people’s projections to enter.

Eventually this inner Sun radiates out into the world. We have faced our demons, overcome our traumas, healed our wounds, and transformed them into our teachings, strength, and personal power. We now have the will to act in accordance with our truth and to live our lives from the heart, to walk our true path and live out our life purpose. As this light shines out into the world we become servants to that light and truth, doing everything in our power to have a positive impact and influence upon the world, to anchor more light into this world which at times feels filled with the darkness of unconsciousness, greed, envy, war, and fear.

In this way, St. John’s Wort is a most important herbal remedy for herbalists, healers, and people striving to create positive change on this planet. For it assists us all in breaking through our own limiting thoughts and beliefs so we can get down to doing the hard work of making this world a better place by being an anchor and a vessel for the Truth and the Light that is reflected through the Sun, and little yellow flowers of St. John’s Wort.

Happy Summer Solstice from the Evolutionary Herbalism Team!

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Truly Ethical Wildcrafting: Creating Reciprocity & Relationship with Wild Plants & Places

What would happen if everyone started wildcrafting? Is it actually ethical or sustainable? 

With herbalism and foraging wild foods becoming increasingly popular these days, it’s important for us to ask these questions – especially as we see the at-risk and endangered list of plants growing every year. 

As herbalists, our lives are in service to the plants and we have a responsibility to stand for them, to protect and care for them, to ensure they have the ability to flourish so that the future generations may have access to their healing medicine. 

Many of us have been raised in the extractive culture of modernity where our imprinting is to take what we want from nature without limits or thoughts to the consequences of our taking. We’ve seen the destructive repercussions of what this has done to our world and if you’re walking the plant path, you’re likely trying to do everything you can to avoid perpetuating this.

On the other hand, there’s a strong belief amongst those of us trying to ‘save’ nature that we need to stay away from the wild and leave the land untouched in order to preserve nature. 

But is this really the best way to respect the natural world?

How do we walk as herbalists in relationship to the healing medicines that grow free and wild? And why is it critically important that we build relationships with these wild beings?

These are questions Rosalee de la Forêt and I discuss in this week’s episode of The Plant Path podcast. In this episode Rosalee breaks down some of the myths we’ve been told around wildcrafting and she sheds light into how we can cultivate reciprocity with the plants that grow freely around us. 

Click here to listen to this episode, Truly Ethical Wildcrafting: Creating Reciprocity and Relationship with Wild Plants and Places featuring Rosalee de la Foret

 Our conversation today revolves around Rosalee’s book Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine. It’s a powerful book that helps rekindle your connection with the earth by crafting your own herbal medicine. It includes dozens of recipes, illustrations, and photographs. 

Here are some of the other things we discuss: 

The myth doing the most damage to our earth today

Why we fear nature … and what love of nature actually looks like

The “wake-up” moments that led to us becoming herbalists

We ask several questions: Is wildcrafting actually ethical? With foraging wild foods and herbalism becoming more and more popular, what would happen if everyone started harvesting wild foods & medicinal plants?

Rosalee explains why she always starts her teaching about herbs with “weeds” 

How to work in harmony with the plants in your bioregion … even as they change from year to year

Why it’s important to think about how you can be of service to plants

How to think about the symbiotic relationship between plants and people

We share our deeply moving visits to our ancestral lands and meeting the plants our ancestors have had relationships with for eons 

The importance of honoring and working with the indigenous people of the land you live on and the lands you visit or wild harvest from

Rosalee is incredibly passionate about inspiring people to enjoy plants every single day, whether it’s marveling in their beauty or using their gifts as food and medicine. She makes herbal medicine easy and accessible to all kinds of people. 

Rosalee is the author of the bestselling book Alchemy of Herbs: Transform Everyday Ingredients into Foods and Remedies That Heal, and she’s the co-author of the instant bestseller Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine, which she wrote with Emily Han. 

Rosalee also recently started a podcast channel called Herbs with Rosalee, you can learn more and subscribe here. She also has a YouTube channel by the same name and you can check it out here.

Rosalee is a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and was an herbal clinician for six years before dedicating herself to herbal education. In addition to writing articles and books, she teaches many online courses about herbalism and medicine making. Rosalee lives in a log cabin in the Northeastern Cascades of Washington State.

You can find out more about Rosalee at https://www.herbalremediesadvice.org/. 

To learn more about at risk and endangered plants, please check out United Plant Savers.

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[keiithmingo]

Finding Replacements for Endangered Plants

Substitutes for Endangered Plants

I’d like to discuss a topic that feels pretty important as it often comes up in practice and I think it’s important for all herbalists to have some awareness around what herbs are ethical and what ones are not so we can be true stewards and protectors of Mother Nature, and also have an ability to replace a specific remedy with something else if needed. In practice as herbalist’s, it’s common to want to work with a specific remedy but don’t have it available, or it’s listed and has a threatened ecological status. So in this weeks post, I’m going to be talking about how we can decipher what actions are needed in a condition, and talk about what other herbs might have a similar qualities to a remedy that we really want to use, but otherwise can’t for one of the reasons listed above. I will be using Goldenseal as an example here because this is a remedy that is very well known in the herbal community, but has also been over harvested and used and is now unfortunately listed as an endangered species. I will share some some great replacement remedies for this special and unique plant. And on a higher, big picture level, also look at a process for what things you want to do when you’re looking to replace a remedy or finding a replacement remedy to work with, and what are the things to look for in order to find an ideal replacement.

Alternatives to Goldenseal

I recently got a question from a student who really wanted to work with Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) for a client. This client had what we might refer to as a relaxed tissue state in the mucosal membranes, which is the ideal situation where Goldenseal is classically used. In modern herbalism, we tend to think of it as a natural antibiotic, but traditionally it was primarily a remedy used as a mucosal membrane tonic. So what other remedy could we use instead?

In general, it is good to find an alternative to Goldenseal if we can, because it is threatened ecologically because it takes years to go, and I mean like 20 years to grow a little root. That being said, you can find ethically sourced Goldenseal where people figured out how to grow it in shady environments, but I definitely don’t buy wild Goldenseal. It’s unethical in my opinion, but ethically grown, cultivated Goldenseal is okay to use.  

There are a couple main things that I think of in regards to Goldenseal. One, is it’s a good bitter tonic for the digestive system, the liver, etc. and two, it’s very astringent, so it’s a good mucous membrane tonic. This is classically how Goldenseal was used to tone the mucus membranes. It works by drying and toning overly loose, lax, leaky mucosa—in the gut, and the upper respiratory tract (sinuses and throat). Just to clarify, a constant runny nose is what we would refer to as the damp relaxation tissue state. I’m mentioning that because the student said they have a client with dry atrophy, and a constant runny nose. So the core tissue state there would be damp relaxation, because there’s relaxed tissues, leaking fluids, fluids leaving the body—that ultimately can lead to dryness. Dryness is the more superficial expression of a deeper tissue state that’s present there. So that’s important to understand. If someone is dry because of relaxation, it doesn’t matter how much you try to hydrate them, those fluids are just leaving the body in excess.

Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis)

This is where astringents and tonics really come into play. The irony is that those are usually the opposite remedies that you would think to use for someone who’s overly dry because astringents are super drying. If someone’s really dry, why would we give them an astringent? Well, if someone’s getting dried out because fluids are leaving the body, you give them an astringent, and now their tissues can hold those fluids in better and they will actually become more moist as a result.

I know this is a bit of a tangent, but it’s something I always like to discuss in terms of the difference between local versus constitutional effect and a short-term versus a long-term effect. In the sense that an astringent may dry a local tissue by tightening and astringing and tonifying it, in the long-term, the whole constitution will eventually retain fluids, and thus have the secondary moistening effect. It’s not that the action itself is moistening, but a secondary effect is that you retain fluids and thereby are more moist. So short-term versus long-term and local versus systemic or constitutional are two important polarities to consider when looking at the effect of a medicinal plant. 

Goldenseal is a bitter, astringent tonic for the mucosa, and then of course it does have antiseptic properties. Goldenseal’s claim to fame is that it has the alkaloid berberine, which is what gives it that yellow coloration to the root. Hence the name Goldenseal—golden referring to the colour of the root; seal referring to its astringent or sealing, tightening, binding property, and it does have the antiseptic property because of the alkaloid berberine. Of course this has led to Goldenseal being primarily used in the biomedical model of herbalism as a natural antibiotic. But this is very much an allopathic approach to the use of this plant, and I believe has led to an excessive use of this gem.

Don’t Look at a Single Constituent of a Plant

To step back and look at how we perceive and understand herbal medicines, I think Goldenseal is a good example of why we can’t just look at a plant based on a single constituent and what that constituent does. We can’t pigeonhole a plant and neglect its other properties. We can’t look at Goldenseal and say, “Oh, it’s got berberine which is an antibiotic and therefore must be a natural antibiotic” , because we then forget about all of its other properties, which in turn can lead to misuse and possible abuse. With a plant with strong humoral effects, like Goldenseal, we can start to see it possibly leading to constitutional imbalances—in this case, over tonifying the mucosal membranes. As a bitter tonic, it’s quite cooling, so it can be overly cooling to the body. 

So what does this all translate to? It’s contraindicated for our Vata type constitutions—someone who’s cold, someone who’s dry, someone who’s tense, constricted, contracted, overtonified (by overtonified, I mean they’re tense), so this person may have too much tone to the tissues. They’re wound up tight. And that’s not just psychological and emotionally, it can mean that the tissues that are more prone to spasm, tension and muscle cramping. We usually want to avoid astringents in those cases because astringents just tighten things up even more. So this is where we see Goldenseal is specifically contraindicated for those types of constitutions and those energetic patterns that you notice within people. 

Who’s Goldenseal indicated for? I would say for Kapha-type constitutions, Kapha tends to be damp, stagnant, leaky, and lax. These tissues tend to be relaxed and their psyche tends to be relaxed. These people need digestive stimulation and they need to drain fluids. They need to tighten up their tissues, so Goldenseal is indicated for the Kapha type – but we have many other remedies that we could use to help with this type of presentation, and so we should look to those, instead of Goldenseal.

Goldenseal is of those plans that should ideally be used sparingly. When we’re looking at possible adjunct herbs or replacement herbs for Goldenseal, I think it’s important to look at which attributes of Goldenseal we are working with. Is it just being used as an astringent, bitter tonic? If that’s the case, then we could work with some other type of bitter tonic plant, possibly one that has astringent properties on its own or in a formula where we add another astringent to it to bring those two properties together. The one remedy that I think matches that pretty nicely is Oregon grape root (Mahonia aquifolium). I think this is the closest adjunct to this plant as It’s a bitter tonic and it has astringent properties. It also has the same antiseptic constituent, berberine. Granted, it’s not quite as strong as Goldenseal, but it definitely is there and can be utilized as a replacement – you’re still going to get a good astringent, bitter, antiseptic action from Oregon grape.

Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium)

Remedies for Chronic Sinus Problems

So to follow up with my student’s question: we’ve got a client with a constant runny nose, which is a relaxed tissue. One other herb that could be applied here is Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis), which is a good remedy for relaxed tissue state up in the sinuses. It’s a key herb for hay fever symptoms, where you get the itchy, watery eyes, a lot of sneezing, runny nose, postnasal drip, sore throat from the postnasal drip, and Eyebright, or Euphrasia, is a really great remedy to consider here.

Another great remedy here could be Sage (Salvia officinalis), which is a nice upper respiratory tract remedy. It’s for sure a little bit different from Goldenseal or Oregon grape because instead of being bitter, it’s very aromatic, as it has a lot of volatile oils. These volatile oils have antiseptic properties as well. So if the condition is due to some sort of infection, Sage is a really great option. It actually would combine well with Oregon grape or Goldenseal. You get a nice synergistic effect between these plants, where all of them have an affinity for the upper respiratory tract, all of them have astringency, and all of them have an antiseptic property. The difference here is that the Oregon grape or Goldenseal are bitter and cooling. The Salvia is aromatic, pungent, and warming. Together it makes for a nice balanced effect. So Salvia is a great option. 

Sage (Salvia officinalis)

Another excellent remedy that’s a good astringent for the upper respiratory tract is the plant Yerba mansa (Anemopsis californica). Yerba mansa is a Southwest remedy, and it is super astringent and really good for the upper respiratory tract and it has some pungent properties to it as well, but it is really good for a runny nose, especially a chronic one as it really tonifies the mucosa quite effectively and quickly. 

Those are some of the main astringents that I’m thinking about for the upper respiratory tract specifically for a runny nose, and lax mucus membranes. The main action you’re going for there is an astringent that will tighten and tonify a relaxed mucosa.

And one more consideration that I think is worth mentioning, especially for folks who have a chronic runny nose, chronic postnasal drip, chronic sinus infections, or chronic sinus stuff in general, is that oftentimes can be traced back to dairy intolerance or allergy. See what their dairy intake is like. Perhaps strongly encourage them to do a six-week elimination off dairy and see if that helps to clear things up. Okay, I hope that was a little helpful to those of you who are curious about what you need to look for when need to find substitutes for remedies you don’t have or perhaps a plant that on the endangered list. Blessings on your plant path. 

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[keiithmingo]

Using Herbs to Heal the Mind

Plant Intelligence

In this week’s post, we’re going to look at using herbs for the mind. It’s common when we’re studying plants to focus on using them for our body and common symptoms, ailments and conditions that we deal with as humans. But we also want to remember that herbal medicine can also have an amazing influence on our mind and on our psychological state. This is predominantly because a number of medicinal plants directly influence our nervous system and the state of our nervous system, as well as our endocrine system, directly impacts our state of mind. The power of plants is in their ability to change our physiology, which can then change our state of thinking.

The reverse is also true. The more that we pay close attention to the plants and become aware of the subtleties in the way in which a plant influences us, we can start to notice the way that they affect our minds. This is especially true with alchemical preparations of the plants. I’ve found over the last decade-plus of working with spagyric forms of herbal medicine, that they have the ability to influence the mind and help open us up to learning about ourselves and life, learning both from the experiences that we have within ourselves and outside of ourselves. In that way, these herbal medicines can be teachers and help us to become better people and help us to find that balance that we’re looking for in the body, in the mind, as well as within the soul, and supporting us in our own spiritual or personal development and becoming the best versions of ourself.

Herbs for Different Psychological Patterns

So let’s look at some of the main categories of herbal medicines that I consider when we’re looking at treating the mind. A student asked me the question: how can you help someone with a stuck looping mind with herbs? This is when the mind gets stuck on one thing, and it’s just looping back around, and incessantly thinking about that one thing over and over and over and over again. What is the meaning of that? What’s the constitutional pattern behind that? What are some categories of remedies and some specific remedies that you can consider for treating that type of psychological pattern?

You can absolutely support the mind in general with herbal medicine. Oftentimes when we’re thinking of treating the mind or the psychological patterns or the way we think, there are a couple of different categories of plants that come to mind. 

First, let me take a step back and share how I think through these kind of psychological patterns. Oftentimes when people have a primary complaint of something going on with their mind, more often than not it’s cognitive things like difficulty concentrating, difficulty focusing, or loosing memory etc. I think of it in two different categories. On one side you have what in Ayurveda we might refer to as a kapha mind: cold, unclear, foggy brain, can’t see through the haze, everything feels stagnant up in the brain, and it’s hard to focus. The other side of that would be what we might refer to more as a vata condition in the cognitive faculty, which is more spaced out, ungrounded, scattered, all over the place, nervous, and feelings of anxiety. 

The Foggy Brain

Fortunately for us, we have a couple categories of plants that can help us address these states of mind. For the kapha brain, the cold uclear foggy bran, we want to use things like circulatory stimulants and bitter nootropics. These are herbs that will help bring blood flow to the brain, and generally overall help to drain fluids. And there are some nootropics that have more of a bitter taste to them. Oftentimes we want to get more blood flow up into the brain to help stimulate and protect ourselves against cognitive decline – this is where things like Bacopa, also known as Brahmi (Bacopa monnieri), is really great. This little remedy supports mental performance while reducing stress and also acts as an adaptogen to the adrenals – meaning that it will promote resilience and help us respond better in stressful situations. Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) is also an excellent remedy here as it really brings circulation up to the brain which helps with clarity and alertness of the mind. Lastly – one of my favorites, is Calamus or Sweet flag (Acorus calamus) root is quite wonderful – this is a bitter-carminative remedy that increases cerebral circulation and is rejuvenating to the brain and nervous system. A Calamus person feels cloudy in their mind and it feels like a boggy, stagnant, marsh, as if they’re seeing everything through a haze. They have a sense of needing to say or express something that just outside of their ability to communicate, grasping for thoughts but never being able to get to it. Calamus will help with this haze – as will the former two I mentioned.

Bacopa (Bacopa monnieri)

Here’s a great little formula useful for a foggy brain:

Cognitive Triplet 33% Calamus (Acorus calamus) 33% Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica) 33% Bacopa (Bacopa monnieri)

This is a triplet used in Ayurvedic medicine to treat the mind, nerves, and perception. It is quite incredible how these herbs synergize… both work through the nervous system and brain, Calamus clearing stagnation and uplifting the “haze” and Gotu Kola gently calming, rejuvenating, and focusing the mind and Bacopa supports mental performance and reduces stress – something we could all use I think! While it’s commonly spoken of for cognitive deficiency, this is also incredible for neurological issues such as hysteria, fainting, dizziness, and people with an unstable psyche.

The Looping Mind

On the other side of it, we have more the vata mind, the more spaced out, ungrounded, scattered, and all over the place, mind – one that can generate feelings of anxiousness and nervousness. This mindset can really respond well to nervines. But wait, whats a nervine? Nervines are a category of plants that helps calm, settle, sedate the mind, and basically get the nervous system to settle down so that it can focus on what’s right in front of it. 

I would put a looping mind in that second category. Looping is movement. It’s moving all over the place, but coming back to the same things over and over again. It’s not a lack of thought, not having a clear thought. It’s more of too much thought, too much moving over here, over there, back over here, back over there. It’s kind of moving all around. So that’s usually where I focus on sedative nervines. 

My go-to remedy for looping thoughts is Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata). That is a specific indication for Passionflower, especially for people who can’t sleep because of looping repetitive thoughts. They just keep going around and around and around in mental circles. Passionflower is an excellent remedy for this state. You actually see the signature of that on the plant itself as Passionflower is a vine and it has these little tendrils that spiral around – a signature for the looping mind. It’s great for mental “all-over-the-placeness.” And it’s a stronger nervine, so it will help calm anxiety, nervousness and insomnia if thats a tendency.

Another remedy I like is Skullcap (Scutellaria spp.) here. I think of Skullcap more for folks who feel like the top of their head is a little open, like they’re really sensitive, whether emotionally or spiritually, and their energy moves up and out. The Skullcap person feels really ungrounded. They might be thinking about far-out-there stuff a lot. They’re not grounded in reality nor very practical. In terms of the chakra system, it would be like their crown is too open and all of their vital forces are moving up and out. The name Skullcap sounds like what it does: it helps to put a cap on it, put a lid on it, and bring that vital force down and in. It’s nice and bitter, brings things down, drains things down, sedates the mind, calms the mind, but also helps to replenish and rejuvenate a worn-out nervous system, which is quite common for people with that type of pattern, because they’re so sensitive. Their nervous system just gets on edge a lot, and they can be more prone to burnout. And adding in a little Milky oats is also ideal in the way that it will help to replenish and rejuvenate a worn-down nervous system. 

Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata)

And another formula useful for an anxious brain:

Calming the mind 20% Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) 20% Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) 20% Milky Oats (Avena sativa) 20% Holy Basil (Ocimum sanctum) 20% Ashwaghanda (Withania somnifera) There’s a number of variances I’ve made to it for specific people over the years, but this is a good general place to start. Regardless of the variances, the one constant is the lead triplet of Skullcap, Milky Oats and Passionflower as the primary nerve trophorestorative element of the formula. The supporting remedies typically include mild nervine sedatives, in this case Holy Basil, adaptogens with a tendency towards the nerves like Ashwaghanda. But, this formula can be really flexible. I usually like to make sure there’s aromatic nervines in there to help “volatilize” the formula up into the brain and nerves. So you could add something like Lavender. I also like Eleuthero quite a bit, especially for a property I learned from Matthew Becker, which is that it tends to drive other herbs deeper into the nervous system.

So, those are some of the main remedies that I would consider here to support and heal a few different states of mind. And one last note here, it’s always good to take into consideration the person’s constitution. If they’re really cold, we want to be a little careful with our colder remedies, etc. Make sure the energetics of the herb is close to being in accordance with the constitution of the person, especially if they’re going to be working with those plants for a longer period of time. It’s one reason I quite like passionflower, because it’s pretty temperature neutral. You’re not going to shift anyone. It’s slightly cool, but it’s negligible. It’s not going to make a cold person colder by any means. 

So here’s a little review on how you can help people with their mental and cognitive challenges with herbs. And as I like to say, in addition to looking up herbs in books, the best way to learn how herbs can help the mind is to learn your herbs from the plants themselves, get familiar with them, taste them, and use them! Then you really get to learn what works and what doesn’t.

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