Up close photo of Heracleum maximum, Cow Parsnip. A plant in the carrot family that is easily misidentified with some very poisonous brothers and sisters, and sometimes confused with other medicinal’s!
This is a huge discussion, so this may end up as a series over time, as differing issues come up, and things occur as I watch myself in practice, and others in practice. This is too large a subject to tackle all at once! This is a common discussion that I’ve had with many Herbalists over the years. The Authentic Practicing Herbalists that I know and work in tandem with, value a core set of Ethics to their practice. Those who do not embody a core ethical practice are not Herbalists or Healers I will work with. If I am not popular for such decisions, I’m just fine with that. Community Herbalist Healers that I respect and admire and practice with, generally feel the same way about the ethics of our craft.
I firmly believe that Herbalism is OUR medicine, a people’s medicine. Always has been, always will be. There are, however, some guidelines that one may wish to contemplate if a student would like to eventually become a Community Herbalist or work in some capacity with people as a Healer. Some of the skill sets required may be applicable to other branches of healing, some spoken about will apply to Herbalism in its own right.
In my own experience with many teachers, some of the highest healing codes sit with Herbalists. We are life loving, life supporting bunch, with a penchant for caring for plants, people, animals, and the earth, and not necessarily in that order! We believe that the natural world contains our medicine. We’re happy to augment other forms of medicine and medical strategies, or simply to nourish, tone, stimulate the bodies own repair mechanisms as a solo strategy. Most of us believe all medicine, and all strategies are tailored to the individual.
I love my role as teacher, to light, and fan the flame of herb and plant curiosity with my students. I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for it! It is an ARM of my own Community Herbal Healing Practice of over a decade. However, it’s always important to mind our excitement (we’re not talking lessening here) and move it in ways that mutually support our own health, our families, and our communities, in ways that do not harm ourselves or others, and provide for the deepening experience necessary if we want to eventually practice in the wider community.
The light in student’s eyes, new vistas of knowledge opening up and visions of great health are extremely fun to participate with! A student takes these home and works with them! Homework involves working on oneself, one’s health, one’s life(style) and love. Learn about plants, learn about oneself! This is not a stage to be looking up “answers” in books and passing out protocols from second hand sources and second hand strangers problems not based on experience or hands on knowledge with verification. If the Herbal World is opening up for you, allow it to OPEN for you! As a student learns things, and can check these with experience, that is a beautiful opening, a field to start tending and planting. Don’t rush this stage, it is beautiful and full of enthusiasm, full of love. A great ground to grow from! Prepare the ground, so you may first Do No Harm, and have a great foundation.
Take these things learned, in healthy, preventative ways, and work with them with others, for FREE. Yes, if anyone thought they were going to get rich being an Ethical Herbalist, the truth is, putting time in, and real time in is necessary. Most practicing Ethical Herbalists involved in Community Healing have thousands of hours of volunteer clinical time behind them, and lots of shaping in apprenticeships. For example, one learns how to work with a diaper rash effectively, repeatedly, and then goes out into the world working with more, and different kinds of rashes. This is a great learning method. One learns skill first, then moves out in ones household in greater waves. That takes time, effort. That is not profitable. Often, considerable self sacrifice in time and energy, many times there is no acknowledgement, yet the reward is in watching people heal, lifting a bit of misery, guiding someone to the next step.
An Herbalist builds small, but if the aim is to be a Healer, one does end up working on anatomy, biology, botany, psychology, Allopathic Medicine, Holistic Medicine, Spiritual Aspects. When one becomes serious about a way of study, one looks for teachers. After learning basics, one looks to apprenticeship. Apprenticeship is olde. A very olde way of learning from a teacher at a deeper, experiential level. It is not the same relationship as a teacher/student in class, it goes beyond. Apprenticeship is the equivalent of what colleges deem as internship. Thinking about that a minute here, the very idea of internship came from the practice of apprenticeship!
Staying humble, as one comes to learn, there is no such thing as learning it all, or being an expert on every possible healing way. No matter how many decades we have behind us, we are always learning. Herbalists love learning. Respect and support your teachers, you might just find you’re working with them one day! They may point out something about your approach you wish they had not, and that can be humbling too, but it is these experiences that allow growth to occur, and truth and honesty to always prevail!
Connection with Nature…we become responsible for our relationships with Nature, the health of stands, and learn not only about plants, but about their community and their sisters and brothers. As one of my wonderful Teachers, Gradey Proctor has taught me, he says “if you’re wanting to identify plants for a hike, it’s all great to generally identify plants” but “if you’re identifying plants for food and medicine, you need to chuck your ego”. It means, you take the time to learn, and learn properly. You do not harvest and prepare medicine you are not 100% sure about, and if you do not know the plant community, the brothers and sisters, you many not be 100%. Wild harvesting for food and medicine, especially medicine, is contingent on many factors of ecosystem health, something one learns from those experienced. Heck of a lot of it isn’t in books, or field guides, its passed on by apprenticed craft. And for sure, if you’re harvesting medicine without knowing the community you’re taking it from, you might be creating great harm.
Think about the next generation of plants, the next generation of animals, the next generation of people. Are you removing something that keeps another plant family contained? Are you impacting generations of seed development? What are you going to do when you become AWARE of this relationship?
When we take, we give back. Pure and simple, otherwise, plant communities are not sustained. Here is a blog entry I made a little bit ago about “The Myth of the Brutal Savage”. Herbalists work for and with, and out of abundance, period. https://serendipityherbals.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/dismissing-the-myth-of-the-brutal-savage/
If you do not know the plant ways of abundance in wild places, you will need to take the time to learn them! Farming like Natives, Harming NO Natives. Get it? That just rolled out of my fingertips like honey dripping from a piece of comb. Sometimes all we need to do is listen to our Heart Spirit for direction!
Being an Herbalist Healer, or even an Herbalist Grower, we do not deal in commodities. Health is not a commodity. We learn processes of life, of biology. It’s not a production/profit mindset, we have plenty of supplement companies that are over-harvesting life beings to extinction with fancy labels indicating something extra special to blindside the greed. If I’ve offended anyone by now, good. You’re not in it for the healing of self/others, you are going to need to look at that within yourself, contemplate, investigate your motives and what you feel called to do.
Be Honest about ones skill level, ALWAYS. An example, if you haven’t worked in a certain area, or with a specific organ before, or illness/disease process, it is your duty to tell the truth about the level of ones skill. We only work from our skill level, but with each new skill learned, experienced in relationship, we expand outwards with our healing abilities.
Each Herbalist, like myself, has a myriad of special training and learning behind them. There is no one preferred mix, each Ethical Herbalist practices with their own unique gifts and experience, and many of us have made specific choices to work in the branch we work in for many reasons. In my own history, I was not only born into a family healing legacy, I studied in Allopathic Medicine, Biology and Psychology for many years, coming back home to marry that with Traditional Shamanic Herbalism and real life experiences or working through family healing. I’ve been training in Herbal Medicine for 23 years (and still training, always and forever!) and longer than that in Allopathic Medicine (little fact about me, I was studying to be a Forensic Scientist!) To each his or her own, as long we bring a set of Ethics with us to navigate the path we’re working on, and our relationship to healing, a knowledge of our skill level, talents and weaknesses, and a way to move forward, together, in relationship with healing people, animals, plants and the earth. If you find you’re of best service this way, take a moment to consider some of the above!
I’m thinking this is a very good topic to write on periodically, as it is something that is very important in my work, this work. I have now created a new category on this blog called “Ethics of Community Herbalists” to continue in this vein! There is too much to talk about in single writings!!!
A beautiful Scrophularia californica, Figwort. She is part of a protocol for treating Tuberculosis and reducing inflammation in Arthritis.
(c) 2013, 2014, 2015 Summer Farkas Takács-Michaelson, CH
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