In this blog, I have been writing about individual herbs and the ways they help the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual body heal. There are several different ways that I learn about individual plants and their healing properties. One of the first things I do is I read all I can find from as many different sources and as many different perspectives so I can learn more about how a western herbalist, Chinese herbalist, homeopath, a practitioner of flower essences uses it and prepares it. I also want to find out how the different traditions classify it, what part of the plant is used, how the medicinal constituents of the plant are best extracted.
Other things such as how to harvest it, where it grows, what plants it combines well with, what it looks during the different seasons, are all things you can learn about through others’ writings and pictures, but these are also things I want to experience firsthand. How does the plant behave in its natural habitat? I want to know how it tastes, in which parts of my body do I feel its actions, how do I feel when I take the herb myself. Of course, when you engage with a plant (as in any good relationship) you are always discovering all kinds of things about that plant that are not recorded in books, that may be unique to your interactions with these magnificent beings. Above all I want to simply sit and be with the plant, experiencing its unique presence with all my senses, both my physical senses, as well as the finer intuitive, tuning of my energy body and how it resonates with individual plants. Simply sitting with a plant and attuning them with all of your senses offers an exciting opportunity to establish a deeper line of communication and level of awareness of it.
There is also a concept known as the doctrine of signatures, which simply is the idea that plants growing in the wild will offer clues and information as to how to use them, either through their taste, their smell, their texture or appearance. Matthew Wood offers a beautifully written article about the history of the doctrine of signatures – http://www.naturasophia.com/Signatures.html. Here are some examples of connections that can be made using the doctrine of signatures. Some plants tend to resemble the body part or organ that they have an affinity for. Like the walnut, for example, is good brain food that contains a lot of omega 3s. The fine hairs on a mullein leaf (verbascum thaspus) are reminiscent of the lungs and the fine hairs that remove waste during respiration. Other clues may appear in the plant’s habitat and how they interact with their environment and climatic conditions. For example, calamus, or sweet flag, grows near the water and it is a great diuretic herb that is used to clear excess water or dampness from the system. Or eleutherococcus senticosus or Siberian ginseng grows in cold and damp climates is used to increase stamina and strengthen the immune system. Some offer clues by their color such as those that have bright red stalks, indicating the need for caution and respect, such as poke root.
I have found that learning about a plant through its unique doctrine of signatures can be an ever-evolving process that deepens as learn and spend more time with a plant. That is because as you get to know the plant itself, where and how it lives and grows, as well what it looks like at different times of the year, you begin to appreciate the many different ways that plants reveal themselves to you in the wild, as complex as the plants themselves. The more time you spend observing and attuning to a plant, the deeper your understanding of it’s purpose and of the ways it wants to be of use in the world. My experience of getting to know plants better has instilled a deep reverence and appreciation of the sheer and profound wisdom of nature and how my experience of nature is healing in and of itself. In my descriptions of individual plants, I hope to communicate the elegant and artful way that the plants heal and they way that they mirror our complex emotional, physical and spiritual makeup back to us.
For any good herbalist, there is as much wisdom as there is joy to be found in learning about individual plants. The individual plants themselves are the foundation of a good practice. As I have built my herbal apothecary over the years, I have found that it is populated with dear and precious plant friends. I used to joke that my co-workers are plants, and how lucky I am to have the opportunity to be around them throughout my day.
In most traditional systems of herbal medicine (ie Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese medicine, etc.), herbs are used in formulations, meaning that multiple herbs are combined for a specific therapeutic effect. This allows an herbalist to balance out a potential side effect of an herb with others in the formula, as well as achieve complex results only possible through plant teamwork. Learning how to create effective formulas is an art. I have always thought of a formula as orchestra of finely tuned instruments singing together in harmony. Chinese medicine offers many traditional formulas to address a wide range of health issues from premenstrual pain, insomnia, anxiety, digestive complaints to name a small few. Many of these formulas come with a history of thousands of years of use and experience. Equally, there are many formulas created in more recent history that have been fine tuned to address some of the complex health issues seen in today’s world like Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), hypertension, stress-related disorders and symptoms, or Hepatitis C.
My hope, through this blog, is to communicate more about the art, the science, and the love that goes into working with plants, as a wildcrafter, gardener, medicine maker, or in my case, as a clinical herbalist. I also hope to give others a chance to get to know more about, not only the beauty, but the abundant healing available to all of us in the plants that populate our natural world.
