Earth-Centered Practices for Aspiring Herbalists
We need more herbalists in the world.
More scruffy punk kids who aspire to work all day with Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and the broken-hearted, more bespeckled biology nerds who want to make complex concoctions to help their friends and family feel better, and more drag kings who are running mini clinics between performances in the backrooms of queer clubs. More farm boys with a love for the wild weedy edges of the land, carrying around plant ID guides, more elders who've decided to return to the ways of their elders after a life lived tangled up in corporate chutes and ladders, and more tenderhearted types ready to open up community tea-rooms to help others get to know their own profound softness.
My own path started when I was called to be an herbalist before I knew that was something you could be, but thank goodness for all those hours spent up in trees and hiding in-between urban hedgerows because when a friend handed me a copy of a practicing herbalist's catalogue, I could recognize it for the invitation that it was. The older I've gotten the more I recognize (and love and adore and am grateful for) the fact that it is the land that calls us, through the song of our beloved plant allies, to the path of the herbalist. And so whoever you might be and wherever you might come from, I believe we should keep the earth centered in our herbal practices as a common heart of our varied traditions as we grow and learn and serve as plant folk.
The social world is overly busy, our relationships complex, and the challenges we face as a collective are immense. And yet, the calling to the path of the herbalist continues shifting and changing with the needs of our times. If you are one of those plant people, I hope to offer you some grounding, centering, and empowering inspiration for creating a practice that is earth-centered, sustainable, and enduring. During a time of collective grief and disconnection where burnout feels more common than ever, I believe that an earth-centered practice is what can help us cultivate hope, (re)connection with the land and each other, and finding our longevity as herbalists and plant folk wherever our path might take us.
Whatever ways you have come to herbalism to be earth-centerd in your practice isn’t always a default but it is always a choice. The path of the herbalist is varied, with some learning communities valuing the folkloric, Indigenous, and magickal roots of herbalism alongside modern medical understanding of plants, and other trainings focusing primarily on clinical settings, medical language, and little time spent in communion with plants. Many of us studying western herbalism (whether traditional, modern or a combination) will have found ourselves in a mix of settings, especially if your training has taken place in a country where herbalism is unregulated. Regardless of your path of study, I hope that you'll find the following list - from a Pagan and herbalist who teaches and practices from an earth-centered perspective - full of useful things to ponder and wander with as you develop as an herbalist.
image via @fumirin
While I'm writing this for all aspiring herbalists who are interested in creating an earth-centered practice (and even those with years of practice under their belt looking to shift or renew perspectives), my heart especially goes out to those kids who, like me, felt stuck in-between and in a state of perpetual un-belonging but always found a sense of kinship in the quiet moments with plants and trees where boundaries that keep us apart seem to fade. To those young herbalists who worry that they're too urban, who can't walk through a wood and identify dozens of plants with ease (and who may very well be afraid of walking about in rural places), and haven't quite found their herbal kin, you’re needed as much as the sixth generation herbalist who grew up knowing the names of plants before the names of their aunts.
Focusing on creating an earth-centered practice that honors that all of us are of the land - and that by being of the land there is no other - I hope to invite you into the beautiful wisdom that each of us have always belonged. An earth-centered practice helps us understand our points of interconnectedness with the plants, the people and creatures we serve, and the changing wisdom of our inner landscape.
Slowly but surely what may currently feel like something that sets us apart can be transformed into the sacred knot that binds us together and your unique strengths as an herbalist.
So, with all that said, let’s explore some of the ways that you can begin to create an earth-centered practice as an herbalist.
image via @tototosia
By Wind, by River, by Flame, by Stone: Understanding Your Herbalist Energy
How we express our energy as an herbalist matters not only in the way that we work with our clients but in how we connect to the land.
I was in high school when I was radicalized by two prepositions and a noun, forever changing the way I understood the dynamics of energy. Sitting in the back of a class that I wasn't paying particularly good attention to, I was reading a twenty year old book called Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics by Starhawk. I'd picked it up from the used book shelf of my local metaphysical shop and found myself immersed in the world of political organizing and magickal activism in a way that spoke to my Pagan heart.
In Dreaming the Dark Starhawk explores power dynamics within groups, between individuals, and by corporate entities and state systems. She wrote of the difference between power-over, where people, governments, and organizations dominate the energy of others and adhere to a patriarchal worldview, versus power-with where folks worked together as equals while acknowledging differing access to cultural, social, political, and personal power. The concept of power-over versus power-with felt clarifying and exhilarating - it rang like a magickal spell throughout my being and became a tool of discernment I would continue use throughout my studies and training in activism and organizing over the next few years. Alongside power-over versus power-with there is power-under which describes the way that traumatized and oppressed people can undermine one another through undermining personal and collective efforts of liberation.² I would add power-through to make space for what has been and describe the ways that collective strength and wisdom flows through generations (such as cultural and spiritual inheritances) as well as between human and non-human kin, allowing space for the intangible tides of change that we can’t always spot or name.
These dynamics of power are present everywhere including in all the places we practice as herbalists. As aspiring and practicing herbalist it's important to investigate why we feel called to the work of sitting with folks in their vulnerability and why it is we think we should be there. In other words, what are the systems of power we are working with and how does that shape our energy as an herbalist. Do we think that we hold exclusive knowledge on how to heal someone? Or do we believe we "good enough" or "clean enough" or someone special enough to be an herbalist? Are we trying to make collective wisdom about medicinal plants exclusive? Are we trying to prove something or be approved of by our peers by becoming an herbalist? Where do we seek feedback and affirmation from? How are we trying to get those we sit with to conform to our expectations? Where are we most expansive in our ability to listen and be changed? How does our intersections of oppression and privilege shape how we practice as an herbalist?
As I continue to explore the way that I express, seek out, share, and receive power in my life, I turn to elemental language grounded in traditions of my herbal ancestors to help me honor my inherent instincts while learning how to adapt, grow, and change. Since herbalism developed before sophisticated diagnostic tools were available, practitioners had to rely on physical observation and client testimonies to understand what was going on in a person's body. From these observations, elemental language developed to describe and understand the physiological state of bodies, the healing qualities of herbs, and the actions and symptoms of illnesses. These energetic systems and elemental language are still used today by many modern herbalists from a variety of traditions. As a traditional western herbalist, I primarily work with the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water along with spirit (sometimes described as pneuma) as an accessible form of storytelling, a way of relaying information to clients, and offering language for clients to use to understand their experiences in a way that honors their complexity.
image via @alksndra
So what does this all look like in practice?
Let's pretend that Angelica is an herbal student who has fiery and fast energy, always excited to work at her school's busy community clinic, ready to connect with clients and solve problems swiftly. She's learning to recognize the strengths and shortcomings of her inherent energetic instincts including her impatience when answers don't come quickly or when stories take a long time to tell, and frustration when clients aren't keeping up with the pace she expects of them. Angelica is often prone to burning her energetic candle at both ends, but feels anxious about approaching her studies (and life) at a slower pace. Taking an elemental approach, Angelica begins to recognize that she needs to draw on more grounding earth energy (such as adjusting her pace with clients instead of expecting them to keep up) and even some steadying air energy so that she learns to draw on her evidence-based studies alongside her intuitive connections. Finally, she's working with a favorite teacher to develop post-clinic and classroom practices that are soft and watery in nature, that don't feel too slow for her wondrous fiery self, but also help her to cool off and settle so she feels more refreshed the next day.
Angelica’s story is a short and succinct summary of what can be a long and circuitous path to understanding our inherent energetic constitution and the remediation practices we can call into our life to keep ourselves steady and inspired in our work as herbalists. As we explore our energetic landscape we’re likely to encounter forgotten homelands, borderlands and boundaries, fragile dreams and familial obligations, and the inheritance of social and cultural expectation. Hopefully, in our explorations of our energy we’ll encounter the thrum of wild earth wisdom and hum of collective resonance that draws us back home to our bodies and the communities that we thrive in.
We can use the language of the land to guide us, learning how to ground like mountains, flow like rivers, change like the wind, find renewal through sun and flame. Centering the land in our practice not only as the source of our healing remedies but our collective wisdom as a species, helps us to keep grounded in the present moment, connect with the enduring legacy of intergenerational connection (beyond the latest digital distraction or social phase), and find ourselves part of the dream of a land that thrives with the stories we strived to live.
Sacred Inquiry for Understanding Your Energy
How would I describe my energy using elemental language?
What are my elemental strengths? What are my elemental shortcomings?
What clients do I think will be attracted to my practice as an herbalist?
How would I describe my ideal client? What do I expect of my clients? What does that say about my approach as an herbalist?
What boundaries do I have as an herbalist (these boundaries can be social, emotional, physical, financial, and so on)?
What do I want my energy to feel like for my clients? What is the energetic landscape I am creating in my consultation space and/or with my offerings?
image via @lauraadaiphoto
The Year's Turning: Finding Your Seasonal Rhythms
Seasons of the year, seasons of life, generational seasons, seasons of practice and becoming, every one mingled with memory and expectation, trials and challenges, heartbreak and renewal.
As herbalists we are constantly traveling through the seasons of the lives of those who come to us for aid: walking with someone through a winter of their sorrow, helping little ones in the spring of their new life, sitting for a while in the limitations of a person's autumn as they recover from illness, and showing up for endless summer celebrations of guiding someone along the path of vitality.
To keep a sense of where we are in our own life and practice, to experience the shelter of earth's healing guidance, we need to have a steady sense the seasons within our own inner landscape and the land that we live with. There's also the practical need for our seasonality as herbalists - we need to know when herbs are ready to harvest, when certain illnesses are more likely to arise at one point of the year, and adjusting our recommendations for folks based on the weather and what the weather brings.³
Finding our inner turning and changing in the land (and the land finding its changes within us) is one of the ways that we can remember that our practice is only possible because of the land, the plants who have offered their gifts to us, and the people who have listened long enough to find and form the words needed to tell the healing stories we pass around like so many cups of tea (including watching our beyond-human kin and the ways they use plants). And, as a Pagan, I believe in the importance of seasonal celebrations to anchor us in kinship to the land and one another.
image via @midwestiscool
Finding the seasonal rhythm of your practice can look like reviving cultural traditions of your childhood that have fallen to the wayside in your adulthood but that still speak to you. Or making a commitment to show up for the seasonal festivals that resonate with your practice. But it can also just be a commitment to observing the land for a full turning of the year as you continue your herbal studies and start your practice as an herbalist.
When I moved to the place I'm living now I kept a simple garden journal where I wrote down when the Orange tree blossomed, when the Redwood tree grew new buds, when the grass became golden, and so on, creating a super local calendar of micro seasons to build upon. I now know that when the Cleavers (Aparine galium) start to go to seed that the first hot days of the year are close, that there will be a second blooming of the Calendula (Calendula officinalis) as the veil begins to thin at Samhain which reminds me to keep some of the summer's light in my winter remedies. I also have observed my inner seasons long enough to know that there are points of the year that I find hard and when I need to make lots of space for quiet downtime, and other points of the year where I'm ready to be out and about. I adjust my work as an herbalist to reflect these inner and outer seasons, to help me show up better to my practice.
I want to emphasize that this seasonal practice takes time to develop - it can't be rushed or achieved within a few hours. A seasonal practice needs to be lived over the years because it's a slow and profound sort of magick that unfolds at its own time and pace. And it's absolutely worth it.
If we are to sit with the land of others, those who come to visit us and tell us what healing they are seeking to make their inner landscape thrive, we need to be able to recognize the rhythms of the land around and within us. Not only is the land around us one of the greatest teachers we have as herbalists (And the land is always with you! You're reading this while being held by the land!), but having a relationship with our inner landscape helps us be more compassionate about our short-fallings and gifts, helping us to avoid the pitfalls of burnout, of overstepping the limitations of our abilities, and knowing when our land is speaking too loudly for us to be able to effectively listen to the land of others.
Sacred Inquiry for Seasonal Rhythms
What are ways that I celebrate the changing seasons of the year? How do I want to celebrate the changing year?
What are hard times of the year for me? What are my favorite times of year?
What does spring look like within me? Summer? Autumn? Winter?
How do I currently or want to work with my inner landscape on a regular basis?
image via @anniespratt
Webs of Kinship: Honoring the Land
While I love that herbalism can take many varied forms, for me, the practice remains a land-honoring path. In my practice, to speak of the land is to speak of bodies both vast and communal - bodies of earth, bodies of water, bodies of sky, bodies of community - alongside the small and individual bodies of land that form each of us. If I am going to work with someone, whether to help them relieve a lingering cough, rebuild their immunity or restore their sleep cycle, I must begin by honoring the body of land that produced the remedies we'll be using and from which all of us emerge from, the land-body and inner landscape of the person I am serving, and the way that the boundaries and pathways exist between the our lands as practitioner and client.
There are practical ways I honor the land in my work, from sustainable practices in the garden to supporting climate justice initiatives and rematriation, and honoring the spirits of the land as part of my Pagan worldview. There are also all the ways that I bring in land-honoring practices within consultations and classrooms from using elemental language to honoring ancestors of land and place as part of my time together with clients and students. If I were still selling physical remedies I would be considering all of the ways I could be producing in a sustainable and zero waste fashion. But whatever I'm choosing to do in my practice, I try to choose from a place that is as land-honoring and earth-centered as I can feasibly achieve as an individual, letting go of expectations of perfectionism (a wholly un-grounded approach to anything) and seeking out joyful alternatives wherever I can.
As herbalists with busy lives and practices, it can be easy to become unmoored from the ways of being that help us feel centered and able to do the work that we are called to do. Creating an earth-centered focus as a student will serve you in the long run as a practitioner, helping you to travel the highs and lows of being an herbalist with greater ease with the land as a grounding foundation for your work.
Sacred Inquiry for Exploring Land-Honoring Practices
What am I in service to?
What are ways that I honor the plants in my practice?
What are ways that I currently honor the land in my practice?
What are ways that I want to honor the land in my practice? What are land-honoring practices that I feel inspired by?
How to I honor my non-human kin in my practice?
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As a land-honoring, earth-centering practice, herbalism is a practice of kinship and reciprocity that calls us into a place of belonging.
Modalities like herbalism, when practiced with care and alongside other inclusive healing services, can be places where our inherent complexity is honored all while bringing much needed enchantment back into our lives to help call ourselves back home to our selves, our community, and the land.
For those looking for additional resuorces,if you're looking for inspiration for seasonal practice from a Pagan perspective, I've written a whole series on the wheel of the year. You might also like my "might-do lists" for each of the Sabbats and lunar phases. I also have a few resources for students and aspiring herbalists including a guide to starting your own herbal study group, a might-do list for your studies, and even a tarot spread made for students. If you’re looking for a deeper exploration into the gifts you carry as an herbalist and how to know and name them, come visit The Lunar Apothecary.
I also wrote a book about the land, seasonal herbalism, and how we might honor our the land within, around, and between us as a practice of belonging. It’s called The Apothecary of Belonging: Seasonal Rituals & Practical Herbalism and I hope you’ll check it out.
I hope that you found something useful in this exploration of earth-centered practices and that you’re feeling inspired to ground your practice in ways that’ll help you thrive as an herbalist. Because we need you and all of our plant-hearted kin!
This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎
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Footnotes
1. The booklet was Traditional Uses of Herbal Formulations: An Herbalist's Guide for Natural Home Health Care by Deb Soule of Avena Botanicals. It was a free, pink, and smelled of Roses and full of incredible remedies alongside herbal advice - you can now access the digital version for free. These sort of generous free resources by herbal elders like Soule shaped my early understanding of how an herbalist should be a resource of knowledge and work to preserve and add to the free and open living library of our herbal traditions.
2. The earliest that I know of power-under being defined is in the 2003 book Power-Under: Trauma and Nonviolent Social Change by activist Steven Wineman.
3. For example, a hot and dry autumn is more likely to aggravate certain conditions more than a cool and damp autumn. With the growing unpredictability of the seasons, learning how to adapt to seasonal changes that can be vastly different year on year is an important skill to grow as an herbalist.
