A plant perspective on the herbalist work

In my dream last night, I was walking with an old friend. We were making our way through overgrown meadows, along a stream that drained a big pond. A thicket of small trees and sumac came up on the left, and my friend walked in, all of a sudden very excited. He called to me to follow. He was looking for a plant he'd seen there, one he wanted to show me, one he was thrilled to have found. In that state of semi-lucidity so often encountered in dreams, I though to myself "ooh, a plant dream. This is going to be good." I got a little excited too. He pulled some brush aside, and there, in moist rich soil a few feet from the stream, was a tiny burdock plant. I remember looking at him like "you've got to be kidding me."
He proceeded to tell me all about how he'd been waiting so long for burdock to return to this land, how wonderful and special a plant it is, how it digs deep magic out of the hardest places, how it brings just the right kind of moisture to the skin. I wasn't too impressed, but I indulged him - after all, he was an old friend I hadn't seen in a long, long time, and he was apparently talking about an old friend of his that he hadn't seen in a long, long time either...

Old skills and gratitude

In the hills north of Montpelier, Vermont a small group of folks (some of them are herbalists too, studying at our school) are teaching skills humans have possessed for a long, long time. The Roots School instructors have been mastering tracking, tool-making, weapon-crafting, fire-summoning, fiber-spinning, hide-tanning and more...

Many people are interested in these traditional approaches to meet the basic needs of life. Why is this? Does learning this stuff have any inherent value?

Excerpts from Carmina Gadelica

Around the turn of the 20th century, Alexander Carmichael collected poems, hymns and incantations from the Scottish highlands into a six-volume compendium that includes both (extensive) Christian and Pagan verses. The digitized edition of Volume II includes a number of gems, with facing text in the original Gaelic. Here are some excerpts:

Kevin Spelman - molecular bio of immunomodulators

From the AHG symposium

Kevin Spelman

Immunomodulators: botanical medicines that through the dynamical regulation of informational molecules alter the activity of the immune systems.

Cytokines and the cytokine theory of disease (Czura, CJ 2005): overproduction of cytokines can cause the clinical manifestations of disease. But it can begin on an emotional level (anger/shame as opposed to medidative states) - then as cytokines levels increase, disease manifests: first depression, pain, anorexia. Then, psoriasis, colitis. Then, tissue damage and arthritis. Finally, shock and organ failure.

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and other cytokines like Epidermal Growth Factor stimulate a series of intracellular changes that ultimately have effects in the nucleus - on genetic expression. When, in researching botanicals, we look at                                           the  nucleus, we're getting somewhere.

Lisa Ganora - synergy in botanical medicines

From the AHG Symposium

Lisa Ganora - synergy in botanical medicines

The scientific research process makes it difficult to research more than a small handful of chemicals at a time. Considering that, by some estimates, botanicals contain up to 10,000 active constituents, scientific research runs up against a limit very quickly. Fortunately, we have a practical use history to turn to: we've been eating these plants for a long time with no harm.

Polymolecular approaches, which rely on synergy, have a unique ability to interface with the complex biological system of the human being. Plants provide this. Huge difference compared to pharmaceutical agents. Additionally, pharmaceuticals are very new on the scene. And most aren't cheap (whereas plants...)

The need for long-term thinking in medicine: Cinnamon as a case study

Here in Vermont, we are approaching the first anniversary of a storm that, over less than a day, poured an incredible amount of rain over the mountains, down the streams, and into narrow river valleys. The hill towns were quickly overwhelmed and literally swept away on huge torrents of water. These types of events are outliers, “hundred-year” floods. We tend not to think about them until they happen. If a river floods one spring, and washes away our garden, we could just build a retaining wall and be fine for years. But in Vermont, it seems that sort of thought process may have contributed to the severity of last summer’s event: narrower valleys, more constrained riverbeds, actually increased the torrent’s force and destructive power. As we rebuild, civil engineers are taking this into account.

Urban Moonshine herbal conference report

The recent week of warmth and humidity has taken a turn towards cooler weather today, and the south winds are freshening up and blowing in across the lake from the northwest now. But the full height of Summer’s glory was on display this Saturday, when over one hundred people from across Vermont and beyond attended Urban Moonshine’s first annual herb conference and the evening festivities that followed. I had an amazing time.

Aromatic plants – cultivating the scented garden within

It is legend that, some twenty-five hundred years ago, a ruler of  Babylon (or was it Niniveh?) commissioned a wondrous garden, terraced up from the flat plains between the rivers of the Fertile Crescent. Its levels were built of huge slabs of stone, elaborately carved and supported by high vaulted colonnades. Huge amounts of soil were transported to create hills and fields in this garden many, many feet above street level. Sundry species of trees, shrubs, flowers and herbs were brought in to plant its winding paths. Using giant corkscrew pumps, thousands of gallons of water were moved against gravity on a daily basis to keep the garden lush and green. The ancient historians named it one of the seven wonders of the world, and marveled at this oasis, high above the incessant bustle of the city, smoothed with endless marble and steeped in a deep, seductive fragrance from the constant bloom of aromatic plants.

The Natural Products Industry that Isn’t

                A few evenings ago I was sitting on a rough cedar deck, watching sunlight orange across the tops of the poplar and maple canopy, and thinking how nice it was to be visiting my friend’s house in the forest: the nestled feeling, the total privacy, the familiar smells. He confessed  that, sometimes, he too liked to imagine his house from the perspective of a guest, walking through his gardens, up the wooden steps, and into the kitchen with the eye of an outsider, taking the time to appreciate it without the preconceptions and perceptual habits that develop after living in a place for an extended period of time. Perhaps it was the effects of the mixture of Schisandra kombucha, gin, and tonic water we were drinking, but this short exercise in mindfulness seemed to me as both a useful habit to practice and also a profoundly important skill for the modern human. We are so entrenched in our politics, our communities, our niches and worldviews that, without occasionally looking at life from outside the fences, we might run the risk of missing out on an important and useful perspective.

A brief and practical introduction to pulse and tongue assessment

Any assessment or diagnostic technique that seeks to make sense of what’s happening inside the human system is inherently pretty complex – be it a modern tool such as a CT scanner, or a traditional device such as the stethoscope. Interpretation is tricky, and the background knowledge required can often be intimidating. While using the tongue and pulse to get a glimpse inside the human body is not an exception, one can nevertheless glean really useful, actionable information with even a basic understanding of the technique. This basic understanding can become richer and deeper with ongoing practice. The complexity evidenced in traditional texts on the subject should not be a reason to keep you from experimenting!