Herbs for Highly Sensitive People: Daily Herbal Practices for Wellbeing

After a few years of working on and off with clients in-between teaching and running my small remedy shop, I started to notice a pattern with the types of folks who were drawn to my practice and the ones that I felt most capable of serving. A lot of them were herbalists or in similar fields. Most of them were activists and organizers. There were folks who were neither, many who were both, but all had similar issues with burnout, some variation of emotional fatigue, and generally what you end up with when you make sure everyone else at the table is fed but you don't always remember to feed or be fed yourself.

At first I thought that this was just how herbalists and activists are, but I've met enough of both to know that not all had a deeper sensitivity to life when compared to their peers like so many of my clients and students. It was a pattern I saw in myself but didn't have a name for until a few years ago when a wise therapist I was working with suggested I look up what  a "highly sensitive person" was.

I balked. I wasn't sensitive and especially not highly sensitive. I was a force to be reckoned with, indefatigable, and I had long disproven the critics of my childhood who called me "too sensitive" by pushing myself beyond my limits again and again. I thought the idea of a highly sensitive person sounded like pseudoscience and even if it wasn't I was trying to overcome or at least tame my sensitivity, not embrace it. But I also trusted my therapist, read some books, and was relieved to realize that what I read was surely what everyone experienced, right? Right?

Not really. Of course, everyone has moments of intense sensitivity but some folks live in a heightened state of sensitivity to their environment as their everyday baseline.¹ As I began to explore my own high sensitivity, I started to slowly realize that the pattern I was spotting among those I served and many of my students was high sensitivity. While it took a few more years to unlearn lessons of false dichotomies of sensitivity versus toughness and begin to embrace the way I feel my way through life, eventually I learned to love sensitivity as a gift. Sensitivity has served well as an herbalist drawn to working with sensitive folk as well as helping everyone I serve reconnect to the rich wisdom of their sensory worlds.

Being highly sensitive can be overwhelming when we live in a multitude of noisy worlds whether you live in a car-centric noisy city to all of our increasingly unavoidable digital spaces. There is a stigma with sensitivity within cultures that rely on productivity as a sign of strength and worth, as sensitivity points out ways that many of the systems we set up serve few of us well, and modern definitions of high sensitivity don’t always take into account the intersectionality of identity and experience when helping someone navigate sensitivity.²

Honoring and connecting with our sensitivity allows us to explore the experience of "something doesn't feel right" which can lead to all sorts of transformative rabble-rousing within our lives and communities. Sensitivity is an essential part of changing culture, but as individuals within those culture-changing communities, we need to find ways of supporting our sensitive needs.

image via @anniespratt

Through the Herbs for Highly Sensitive People series we'll be exploring ways of creating these little zones of peace throughout our days, weeks, and months, making space for us to reconnect with our sensitivity in ways that feel empowering. Herbalism is a sensory rich healing tradition, full of sights, scents, tastes, and sensations, that draws us back into the collective wisdom pooled in our body and pulled up by our plant allies. Working with plants is one way that we, as sensitive folks, can honor the sensitive ways of our body by strengthening a resilience that reconnects while alleviating the symptoms of overstimulation. 

When I write of the body, I am referring to the body in its most expansive form including the physical, emotional, mental, and mythological body. I'm not trying to describe the emotional body as a separate part from the physical body, but rather that our bodies have emotional experiences intertwined with physical experiences intertwined with mental and mythological  experiences. Part of the practice of highly sensitive people is to explore through our bodies what we have been asked or forced to separate rather than create a healthy boundary. Being called "too sensitive" over and over again, for example, asks us to separate from our very real lived experience instead of creating healthy boundaries that help us feel less overwhelmed by our depth of feeling.

And for those who might balk at the term "highly sensitive" but find yourself reflected in a lot of the descriptions of high sensitivity - I feel that - and you might want to check out my first post in this series exploring some of the limitations of the "highly sensitive" moniker and how folks like Chris D. Hooten has proposed more culturally expansive and inclusive terms like highly responsive to your environment or HREs. I really like the term HRE and I highly encourage you to give Hooten's article a read. I'm all about expanding on language to invite more folks to the table.

I hope that these simple practices will fit in alongside any mental health services, community support groups, and the general network of good company in your friends and family. Plant medicine thrives as a stress-reducing, nervous system reparative, and preventative modality while helping us to return to a more earth-centered and affirming way of being in the world - a great path for any highly sensitive person to be on. 

Daily Herbal Practices for Highly Sensitive People

image via @meguminachev

Drink Your Tea

The combination of hot water, healing plants, and a sturdy vessel to hold it in, makes herbal teas one of the loveliest healing practices to partake in daily. I love tea for its familiarity and ease of making as well as how it physically acts in the body - drinking warm water is one of the ways we can help calm our nervous system and adding in healing plants make the experience that much more useful. Teas are relatively inexpensive, easy to find pre-made, and if you grow your own little patch or windowsill of herbs, a great way to bring fresh herbs into your routine. Your daily tea can just be a tea that you love to drink and that feels good in your body and doesn't need to be specifically geared towards a healing need or full of nervines.

Making tea is also a simple way to participate in the process of creating remedies and being an empowered participant in answering your healing needs. Whether a pre-made blend, something you've put together or combining herbs each day as you need them, making tea helps us answer the question "What is it that my body needs?" with a practical curiosity. 

Practice Recommendations

Choose the same time each day to prepare and enjoy your herbal tea. A rhythm of calming practice is one of the ways that we invite our nervous system to settle. Of course, if it makes sense for you to have two or three tea-making times a day, go for it! A morning brew can help us create calm first thing in the morning, whereas tea at the end of the school or work day can help us ground and center after being out in the world (whether physically or mentally if you work or study from home), and evening tea helps prepare our body for rest.

Make your ability to access healing practices as easy as possible. For me, this means making a quart jar worth of herbal tea first thing in the morning that is ready for me whenever I need it for the rest of the day. You can also make a tea concentrate to keep in your fridge, adding it to hot water whenever you need it (a tea concentrate will keep for about 3 - 4 days in the fridge).

Needing extra emotional support or just want to add to the feeling of making magickal potions? Add a few drops of whatever flower essences (see below) you're working with. When you're dealing with overwhelm and dysregulation, trying to figure out what is happening, how to feel better, and the all the feelings that can accompany the process can feel serious, complicated, and daunting. Adding play and light-heartedness into our practices can not only help us experience moments of relief, but helps cultivate hope and the ability to spot pathways of possibility where they exist.

Tea Plant Allies for Highly Sensitive People

🌿 Milky Oat (Avena sativa): If I could only stock a handful of herbs in my apothecary, Milky Oat would be at the top of my list. Milky Oat is my favorite nervous system herb and as stress is an underlying factor for most of the illnesses and symptoms that I see in my practice, and gets in the way of folks being able to sit with and explore their experiences, it is a vital and beloved plant ally of mine. Milky Oat is a nervous system ​​trophorestorative making it an ideal plant ally to work with for most any nervous system needs.

🌿 Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis): An herb of joy, Lemon Balm is the ideal companion for those who are dealing with issues of energetic overextension. Indications for Lemon Balm include signs of brain fog connected to social burnout or bring on the precipice of social burnout (including social media driven fear of missing out), nervous anxiety and worry that results in insomnia and/or digestive issues (i.e. a nervous stomach).

🌿 Chamomile (Matricaria recutita): A gentle and calming nervine, a key indicator that Chamomile may be useful is digestive issues. A classic remedy for those sensitive folks with sensitive stomachs where they feel emotional upset in their gut.

🌿 Rose (Rosa damascena): Beautiful, amazing, unfolding Rose! Rose has gentle nervine qualities with the extra magick of thorn medicine. Rose is an ancient herbal ancestor and they’ve been a guide of healing wisdom through the ages - who better to turn to when life feels too big and overwhelming than to one who has seen it all and thrived? One of my favorite herbs for sensitive folks and empaths alike.

🌿 Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora): Skullcap is great for folks with lots of anxiety, especially when experiencing a lot of hurried and worried thoughts that leads to disrupted sleep. Indications for Skullcap include nervousness, fear of overwhelm, overwork, difficulty resting or focusing because of constant mental chatter, insomnia, and general hyperactivity.

Standard dosage for tea is 1 heaping teaspoon of dried herb per 1 cup of water, steeped for 15 to 20 minutes. If you’re looking for tea blend recommendations, my Bliss Blend recipe is one that I recommend often to highly sensitive folks. You might also like one or more of my Tea for the Tired blends.

image via @ornellabinni

Play With Flower Essences

I love flower essences and their subtle healing ways. They seem to operate somewhere within the world of psychoneuroimmunology and are an interesting way of connecting to the emotional wisdom of the body to help with healing. They are very easy to make and I find them a wonderful way to get to know local flora through the essences that local practitioners will create (it is here that I encourage you to start up a flower essence exchange with your fellow plant folk friends).

There are plenty of ways to choose what flower essences to work with, but I like the traditional approach of reading statements of challenge (i.e. the difficult emotional state that you're currently in) and affirmation (i.e. the emotional state you want to be in) and observing the somatic responses of the body to those statements to discern the right flower essence. I have found again and again that highly sensitive folks thrive with this sort of feelings-based method of working with plants. And, sense flower essences are a form of vibrational remedy and contain no actual plant material within them, it's also a safe way to work with plants without having to know all of their physiological uses.

Practice Recommendations

While you can find my full guide to using flower essences over here, in general, you use flower essences by adding a few drops to your drinking water or tea each day. They can also be used directly under the tongue or massaged into the skin.

Flower essences are great to keep right by the door so that when you walk back in the house after being out and about you can take a few drops to help you settle back into your body. They can also be added to a spray bottle and used like an aura spray for the same results.

Flower Essences for Sensitive Folks

Below you'll find a list of some of my favorite flower essences with their corresponding emotional statements. I recommend reading them aloud and if you have a sensory response to one of them, you might consider working with it on a daily basis. 

🌿 Water Violet (Hottonia palustris)
Challenging Emotional State: I hide my sensitivity with extreme independence which creates a barrier between me and other people.
Affirmation: I use my sensitivity as a point of connection in my relationships.

🌿 Oak (Quecus robur)
Challenging Emotional State: I push myself even when exhausted.
Affirmation: I have healthy boundaries and know when to stop and rest.

🌿 Elm (Ulmus procera)
Challenging Emotional State: I consistently take on too much which leads to fatigue.
Affirmation: I know and respect my limits.

🌿 Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus)
Challenging Emotional State: Energy moves erratically throughout my body and I feel little control.
Affirmation: Energy moves through my body efficiently and effectively so I may use it wisely.

🌿 Larch (Larix decidua)
Challenging Emotional State: I lack confidence in my abilities.
Affirmation: I am confident in who I am and what I am capable of.

You can find my complete list of flower essences (and plant ally) recommendations for highly sensitive folks over here.

image via @pladdermf

Nourish Your Nervous System with Tonics

A tonic is a type of herbal remedy that is restorative to our vitality and can be taken over an extended period of time to reestablish harmonious function in the body. Whether a tea, tincture or other form of remedy, having a rotation of nervous system tonics that you can take on a daily basis will help develop agility in your response to stimuli and ability to access healthy emotional responses while protecting against stress. 

While a daily tea practice is as much about the process and experience of drinking tea as it is about working with herbs, a nervous system tonic is a focused approach to specific healing needs. A nervous system tonic might be something you use throughout the day as acute needs arise and/or simply use alongside other practices like a daily tea. A tonic might also feature herbs that don't make it into your tea practice because of their taste but you can still bring them into your rotation in tonic form.

I like to have a few prepared blends or simple (i.e. single herb tinctures) on hand that I can choose from day-to-day based on my needs. Various nervines bolster the health of different body systems which means, for example, that we can work with a plant like Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica) when we're looking for mental clarity in addition to nervous system support or California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) if we need help relaxing deeply for sleep. 

Practice Recommendations

I think nervous system tonics shine as tinctures and glycerites, where they can be easily carried in a bag or pocket as you go about your day. Of course, they are excellent in tea or capsule form - I always have a few pre-made nervous system tea blends made up and ready to go so that I don't have to spend too much time or energy preparing a mix when I'm feeling out-of-sorts.

Add keywords to your labels, whether you've purchased or made your nervous system tonics, so that you can easily figure out which remedy is for which need. Adding "sleep aid" to your tincture bottle of California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) or "brain fog buster" to your Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica) capsule container goes a long way in helping you figure out what herb is the best for your current needs. Welcome in playfulness and pleasing aesthetics (you can put stickers on your containers, have fun!) to help make the process of working with herbs that much more enchanting.

Nervous System Plant Allies for High Sensitivity

All of the plant allies recommended in the tea section as well as:

🌿 Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica): The brain-shaped leaves of Gotu Kola speak to its affinity for mental health and brain vitality. As a brain tonic (i.e. nootropic) it supports general cerebral health as well as alleviating conditions such as brain fog and mental fatigue. Indications include mental fatigue that can occur alongside sensitivity, hyperactivity, mental and emotional exhaustion, and recovering from illness.

🌿 Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca): Motherwort is like a hug in a tea cup and is an herb that shifts energy for the better faster than most other herbs I have encountered. A great ally for times of intense change where you feel like you've lost your energetic balance. The herb works on the sympathetic nervous system, bringing calm and soothing energy. Indications include heart palpitations due to stress, indigestion, nervousness, insomnia, depression, restlessness, and general anxiety. 

🌿 Eleuthero (Eleutherococcus senticosus): If you're dealing with issues of fatigue, but find caffeine too stimulating, a gentle adaptogen like Eleuthero might be a good plant to consider. The herb helps to regulate the endocrine system, including the adrenals, which in turn reduces fatigue and helps to protect against the damaging effects of stress. Indications include brain fog, fatigue, and sensitive folks who are affected by environmental pollutants, social noise, and the stress of living in busy urban areas.  

🌿 Linden (Tilia x europaea): Linden is a wonderful plant to work with where excess states of tension has led to feeling stuck and low. A good plant ally when it feels like you're struggling to settle back into oneself. Indications for Linden include difficulty sleeping, signs of excess heat like irritability, impatience, high blood pressure, heart palpitations caused by stress, and a general state of agitation.

Vervain (Verbena spp.): Vervain is a great ally for those sensitive folks who struggle with excess tension and a feeling (whether literal or metaphorical) that they can't even turn their head for another perspective because they have so much to hold together to just get through the day. Indications include stiff neck and shoulders, tension headaches, low moods, and general irritability.

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If you take away anything from this guide, I hope it is to begin a daily tea-drinking practice as a way to invite in the wisdom that all of us deserve to be cared for on a daily basis.

For those of you looking for a more in-depth approach to herbalism and high sensitivity or if you work with a highly sensitive client base (including family members), I invite you to join me in Solace: Herbs & Essences for Highly Sensitive People.

And for those of you just coming to know the joyful possibilities that exist because of your high sensitivity, welcome! I hope that you find comfort and inspiration in knowing that you’re in good company and that there is a world full of plants and people here to help welcome you back home.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

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Footnotes

1. High sensitivity is, of course, not limited to highly sensitive people, but is a common trait in many neurodiversities including autism and ADHD.

2. I highly recommend this essay by Neurodivergent, Intersex, and Gender-expansive writer Chris D. Hooten - I would have loved to have had an article like this to read when I was first learning about high sensitivity nearly a decade ago.

Finding Harmony: Licorice Plant Profile

Before I began my formal herbal studies, I thought that all herbal tea (i.e. the prepackaged stuff you could only find at specialty health food stores when I was a kid) had a distinct and similar herbal taste. That herbal taste was, in fact, Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra), a herb whose flavor remains a popular choice for herbal teas since it can mask less pleasant bitter notes in everything from digestive blends to cold care brews.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of the Licorice taste as a kid, it’s now become a nostalgic flavor for me, remind me of my early days of trying to get to know plants as a yet-to-be herbalist. Even better, Licorice is become a reliable plant ally in my apothecary, it’s easy sweetness offering all kinds of healing gifts.

So, friends, let’s explore the lovely path of Licorice, it’s abilities to harmonize any herbal blend it is added to, and the many ways it uses its gift of sweetness to bring about healing.

image via daderot

Licorice
(Glycyrrhiza glabra)

Common + Folk Names : Liquorice, black sugar, grandfather herb, honeygrass, lacers, sweet root, sweetwood, orozuz, ragaliz, lycorys

Element : Water, Earth

Zodiac Signs : Carries the energy of Taurus, Gemini, and Virgo. A remedy for Capricorn.

Planets : Mercury, Venus, Jupiter

Moon Phase : All Moon Phases

Tarot Cards :  The Magician, the Hermit, Two Cards, the Suit of Cups, the Suit of Pentacles (learn more about the connections between the tarot and herbs)

Parts used : Roots

Habitat: Native in South and North America, Australia, and Eurasia. 

Growing conditions : Sun to partial shade with salty, alkaline soil and moderate watering.

Collection : Harvest the two year old roots in the fall.

Flavor : Sweet

Temperature : Neutral to cooling

Moisture : Moist

Tissue States : Dry/Atrophy primarily, but all tissues states generally

Constituents : B-complex vitamins, choline, phosphorous, potassium, glycosides, saponins, phytoestrogens, flavonoids, amines, essential oils.

Actions : Adrenal tonic, alterative, antacid, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiseptic, antispasmodic, antitumor, antitussive, antiviral, aperient, aphrodisiac, demulcent, emollient, expectorant, febrifuge, galactogogue, hepatoprotective, immunomodulator, nutritive, pectoral, phytoestrogenic, sedative, tonic.

Main Uses : Before I met Licorice as a medicinal plant, I knew them as an overpowering flavor of candy that mostly the older people in my life seemed to like. Later on it became a flavor that I associated with vaguely hippy types in the northeast who seemed to love prepackaged herbal teas with Licorice as a primary ingredient (and I loved that I was invited over for tea). When I began my herbal studies in earnest, Licorice was introduced to me as a harmonizing herb that could pull together all the other herbs in a blend into a powerful and effective remedy.

A predominant herb in Traditional Chinese Medicine for its harmonizing gifts and inherent sweetness, Licorice also shows up in Ayurvedic tradition prizes as a rasayana or restorative herb that improves overall mental and physical health Within traditional western herbalism, Licorice is considered an adaptogenic herb with resonance to the immune and digestive system. Licorice has been used within the traditional western herbalism materia medica with Hildegard von Bingen noting the herb is good not only for improving digestion and eyesight, but helps to calm and focus the mind.¹

image source

Licorice is a fantastic ally when dealing with adrenal fatigue and its accompanying symptoms. Look for signs of fatigue, craving for sweets with elevated blood sugar levels, and a poor immune response. As an immunomodulator Licorice has a wonderful way of adapting to the needs of our immune system, helping to stimulate an under-responsive immune system or calming an overactive immune response. As a lung tonic, Licorice helps create a productive cough and clear out the airways with specific indications for dry coughs, wheezing, laryngitis, and bronchitis. The sweetness of Licorice helps make more bitter lung herbs like Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) or Elecampane (Inula helenium) more palatable in a respiratory tea. Cough drops with actual Licorice in them are great for helping with hoarseness, cough, and wheezing and are an old form of traditional western herbal remedy.

Licorice helps with a variety of indigestion symptoms (especially when the digestion is dry - look for signs of constipation and dry stools), including gas and constipation, as well as chronic conditions such as IBS, leaky gut, and Crohn’s disease. Carry bags of Licorice tea with you when you travel to help keep your digestion regular. 

The herb is also a useful endocrine tonic, helping with cases of adrenal fatigue and general states of stagnation and lack of tone from muscular weakness to hypo- conditions like hypotension and hypoglycemia. When there seems to be overall weakness throughout multiple body systems, endocrine tonic herbs like Licorice might be helpful, as well as during times of hormonal change including menopause.

Licorice is antiviral and useful in cases of chronic viruses such as herpes and HIV as well as acute conditions like the ‘flu. Use Licorice to protect the liver from stress, viruses or damage by medication. As a restorative and adaptogenic herb, Licorice helps to bring us back into balance by building up our resiliency to stress, clearing out brain fog, and releasing tension brought on by an overactive mind. The flower essence of Licorice helps us to connect with the sweetness of life. Use with Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) flower essence to overcome the defensive habit to say that “everything’s fine” when it’s not.

Topically, Licorice can be used to create an eyewash for conjunctivitis. Use Licorice topically as a hair rinse for scalp health as well as to prevent hair loss. It makes a great mouthwash for gingivitis and canker sores. Add it to baths for rashes and itchy skin. 

image source

Magickal Uses : Licorice is an herb of love. Add it to charms and rituals meant to draw love to you and from within you. Create a wand from the stalk to use in rituals regarding love and fidelity. Chew on the root to bring about sweet words. Use in funerary rites to help the spirit of the dead pass swiftly and easily to the worlds beyond.

The Licorice Personality : Everyone at some point will lose the sense of sweetness in life which is why we’re lucky to have plant allies like Licorice around. It’s not a plant necessarily for deep depression (think about Sinapis arvensis instead) or the individual with the tortured smile (consider Agrimonia eupatoria), though it would be useful for both of those conditions. The primary gift of Licorice is sweetness and helping us feel like we are in harmony with life around us. For Licorice folk not only has sweetness felt hard to come by, but the feeling that they are part of life's sweetness has them starting to feel resentful or bitter. There can be a feeling of mild dissociation with life around them and their craving for sweetness might lead them to chasing or overindulging in superficial or short-lived sweetness in ways they don't like over something more sustainable. Licorice is a sweetness illuminator, helping folks to understand that the sweetness in life that is so multifaceted and so infused within and around them that even though our ability to feel connected to it might wax and wane, it is never fully gone. The gifts of Licorice folk, once they feel steady enough in their connection to life within and around them, is their ability to create sweet experiences and connections almost as if by magick.

Contraindications : Avoid during pregnancy and hypertension.

Drug interactions : Avoid with diuretics, laxatives, digoxin, anti-hypertensives, anti-coagulants, corticosteroids,, prednisolone, MAOIs, SSRIs. Use with caution with insulin and hypoglycemic medication.

Dosage : Standard dosage.

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If you enjoyed the Licorice plant profile and would like to explore more, be sure to check out my Plant Allies Archive. You can also find my complete collection of plant profiles from all of my courses in The Plant Ally Library.

Whether it is through the sweetness of Licorice or another plant ally that speaks to your heart, I hope you find the harmony you’re seeking through the magick of connecting with our green kin.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

📚

Footnotes

1. Hildegard Von Bingen and Priscilla Throop, translator, Hildegard von Bingen's Physica: The Complete English Translation of Her Classic Work on Health and Healing (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions/Bear Publishing, 1998), 24.

2. Nicholas Culpeper, and J. J. Pursell, Culpeper's Complete Herbal: A Compendium of Herbs and Their Uses, Annotated for Modern Herbalists, Healers, and Witches (Portland, OR: Microcosm Publishing, 2022), 171.

A Might-Do List for Herbal Students

Whether you're enrolled in an herbal school, working as an herbal apprentice or pursuing self-study, there are so many ways to be an herbal student on the path to becoming a practicing herbalist. 

The life of an herbal student can feel exciting - I'm answering my call to be an herbalist! I love plants and people!

It can also be overwhelming - Woah! There are so many plants and people!

And at times confusing - There are so many plants and people and creatures and philosophies and techniques, oh no!

There are endless educational options for aspiring students as well as more and more culturally-informed herbal texts for all kinds of plant-hearted people to find their home within the shared garden of green wisdom.¹ It's exciting and it's a lot!

While I don't have the time and resources to match every herbal student to their ideal learning program (though, this does sound like a dream job to me), with over 15 years of practice I can offer what it is I wish I started doing as an herbal student and the practices I encourage in my own learning community that helps students to thrive in their studies. 

So what follows is my might-do list for herbal students, full of suggestions that you might (or might-not) do as part of your studies. As with all my might-do lists, this is meant to be a low-pressure, full of inspiration sort of guide, that you can easily adapt to your unique needs as a student whether for herbalism or any of the meaning healing paths out there. Enjoy!

image via @todddiemer

Get Down Low

While there are many ways to practice herbalism, our ability to practice our craft and work with plants as allies is only possible through this place we call home: our beloved planet earth. I encourage everyone who wants to work with plants to practice an earth-centered form of herbalism aligned with sustainable, land-aware, and kinship-attuned practices. It all starts with having a relationship with the land you live with, seeking out plants as they grow in wild or cultivated spaces, and slowing down and getting low with our original teachers of herbalism, the plants themselves.

One of the easiest ways to begin centering your practice and studies with the land we all live with is to observe plant life around you. Start by noticing the plants growing up between sidewalk cracks as you walk to work or what might be growing in your local park. After observation, noticing colors, textures, and scents, can come identification and then, if the plant is medicinal, learning how to work with it in your practice. In-between the spaces of observation, identification, and practice is building a relationship with our plant neighbors, introducing yourself, and noticing what other creatures are also in kinship with this plant.

For many modern herbalists who work with a wide range of plants that we don’t all grow or harvest ourselves, it’s important to create connection between the plants we are able to be with in-person to remind us that we are in deep interdependence with the herbs that are in our backyards as well as sitting in jars on our apothecary shelves. An earth-centered practice is a sustainable practice that helps us create sacred relationships with those we serve and the land we live with.

Name Yourself & Honor the Land

I'm a real fan of naming rites and rituals, where we take up (and sometimes let go of) names given and created to shape who we are in the world. Sometimes these namings happen after a big transition and sometimes during or just before one, like in the time of being a student, before we've gone on to do something with our studies. I encourage you to take a moment and write down your name as an aspiring herbalist, listing out what brought you to this path, and where you hope to go with your studies. It's ok for this naming practice to be as serious or as silly as you like! Here are a few naming examples:

I am Zinnia of Sweet Mountain,
Child of the Backwoods, 
Brought up in Oak Groves,
Descendant of Scotland and Mexico, 
Carrying a fire for change in my heart,
With arms full of plants,
I walk the green path of wisdom

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I am Devon
Son of Marcus and John
Wild heart, star brow
Made of obsidian and quartz
Kitchen witch, game maker
Rescuer of strays
Plant friend, hex breaker
All of this and more
I am becoming

This naming practice can include naming your ancestors, your cultural and spiritual inheritances, gifts and skills you carry, and dreams of who you are becoming. No one ever has to see this poem or maybe it is something you do with your fellow herb students - the point is to spend some time naming yourself as a way to know who is pursuing this path of study and why you're doing it. It can be fun, at the formal end of your studies, to revisit this name poem and see if there is anything you would change about it or if it is great as is, perhaps with new meaning attached to what you'd written.

Following the naming of yourself, it can be powerful to write a personal acknowledgement of the land you live with, a love letter to the place that you are learning how to be an herbalist. You can read my land acknowledgement for inspiration, but your statement doesn’t need to be so formal and can reflect your relationship with the land, the forms and shapes that it takes (from rivers to mountains to oceans and valleys), and how it is that you are being present with the land instead of over it.

image via @tinymountain

Get To Know What an Herbalist Is

Considering that you want to be an herbalist, it might seem odd to spend time figuring out what an herbalist is if it is already something you know you want to be. But there are many ways to be an herbalist in the world and it can be helpful during your studies to explore all the many ways herbalists practice in the world. There are so many ways to practice as an herbalist including as a remedy-maker and manufacturer, clinician (whether at a community clinic or private practice), researcher, farmer and grower, teacher, apothecary owner, and all the ways that herbal work can be used alongside other modalities (like massage therapy, birthwork, etc.). 

Early on in my studies, I was drawn to making herbal remedies and that was what my first few years of practice focused on - making and selling remedies. I did this to the point where it was no longer sustainable for one person to do and I had to make a choice about whether I was going to transition my business to a more formal manufacturer or something else entirely. Having some familiarity with the many ways one could be an herbalist in the world meant that the transition was still challenging at times but it felt like I had options. I could now teach other people how to make the remedies that I was so passionate about making myself.

While you might start your herbal studies with one vision of your practice in your heart, it's important to keep exploring what it means to be an herbalist throughout your studies (and especially in the early years of your practice) so that you're able to pause and pivot, ebb and flow with the changes that'll happen in your life. It can also help you identify missing pieces of plant knowledge in your community by learning about all the ways herbalists can be in the world, and you might be led to fill those gaps once you're done with your studies (such as learning about the diverse ways a local apothecary can look like and developing your own to meet the needs of your neighborhood). Get inspired by others as you're developing your own vision!

Set One Small Goal

Having small and attainable study and practice goals, especially at the beginning of your students, will not only be a source of encouragement throughout your student days, but help you get through the more challenging aspects of your studies. No matter what form of learning you choose, there will be challenges from getting homework done, managing your other non-study responsibilities, and the huge amount of energy training as an herbalist asks of us. It can be tempting to write a long to-do list and write down all of your biggest dreams as a student and try to do it all. While making lists and dreaming big are important, I've often found that students (myself included) set themselves up to do far too much in way too little of time.

Instead, I encourage students (again, myself included), while having space to write down big dreams and set those aside, to focus on one small achievable goal at a time. It can be anything from, learning the growing conditions of Thyme (Thymus vulgaris). That's a small task, easily accomplished and one that leads on to other goals - perhaps you'll go to find a Thyme plant or seeds to purchase, learn about Thyme's medicinal uses, drink a cup of Thyme tea everyday for a week, and write your own Thyme plant profile. But you start small with the first step of learning how Thyme grows and then go from there. As a teacher I would much rather a student have worked slowly and steadily with one plant, getting to know them on a deep, relational level, than feel like they need to rush through learning about fifty plants in the same time period. Of course, different traditions of herbalism have different approaches, but I have found a lot of wisdom in working with a few plants deeply instead of trying to learn all the plants.

image via @zuleyhasarieyuboglu

Practice Simple Daily Care

If you want a long-lived and sustainable practice as an herbalist, and not find yourself burnt out early on in your work, adopting simple daily care routines can help cultivate such longevity. Taking your herbs on a daily basis, doing a five minute body scan to check in with how you're feeling, a breathwork or movement practice, a shared tea time with loved ones or whatever sort of care speaks to you, start practicing it now as a student. While I'm focused on daily care, you can of course add on weekly and monthly care practices from therapy sessions, bodywork, date nights, and more, but those small, simple daily care practices are essential for anyone in a service-based healing field.

As an herbalist you'll be recommending all sorts of daily protocols to your clients, why not begin practicing your own daily protocols now? Not only will it be helpful to your overall wellbeing, but you'll be able to spot the ways that your idealized recommendations may be too much or challenging to adhere to. These daily care routines can also help us learn about and experiment with herbal techniques that we find useful and can model to our clients and communities later on. 

Join (or Create) a Student Group

While some of you might have a student group built into your learning program, for anyone taking a more self-guided approach to herbal learning it can be harder to feel connected to community. Herbalism is not a solo endeavor, but a generations deep cultural inheritance, and our experience of the herbal community should be part of our student journey. Seeking out real-time community spaces, whether in-person or offline, can not only provide great spaces for practicing skills with fellow students, resource sharing, and the camaraderie that can only be formed through common pursuits. If there is not a student group that meets your needs that you can find, start one! It doesn't need to be anything more ambitious than having a regular meet-up time, maybe a topic of discussion, and some snacks.

image via @davidclode

Find In-Person Learning Experiences

My herbal education and now my practice has taken place both online and in-person - myself and my peers were the first generation in which this hybrid model was made available. While online learning spaces are a meaningful and legitimate way to become an herbalist (and especially ones that include a community component if you are just starting your studies), I believe strongly in the importance of in-person experiences as part of your training. Whether a clinic rotation, an herbal festival with lots of hands-on learning experiences, volunteering at a community garden or a weekend workshop, in-person experiences hold a special sort of energy that can't quite be replicated online. And I say this as someone who does a lot of teaching and learning online - you deserve to have at least one, and ideally multiple, in-person learning experiences as an herbal student. The energy of exchange, atmosphere, and opportunities for kinship that happen when gathered in-person are invaluable not only for herbal students,but all plant folks.

There are so many conferences, classes, workshops, community gardens, festivals, and gatherings of plant folk with a range of intersecting identities and specialties from mutual aid skillshares to culture-specific herbal camps to super casual study groups. While you should always do some research about the individuals and organizations behind a gathering and trust your gut if something feels off or ask a trusted friend or loved one to help you make an informed choice, there is a place of lovely folks out there who would love to have you join them on a plant-centered adventure.

Start Organizing Now

I'm actually making two suggestions here: the first is to organize the resources you're creating as a student and will continue to use and create as a practitioner and the second is to participate in organizing and activism work with your fellow plant folk. Both of these types of organizing support each other and let's start with organizing resources. There hasn't been a moment that I've regretted taking a moment to organize my notes, add all the information onto a label that needs to be there, or spending a few hours setting up a digital index that'll save me far more hours of work in the future.

The type of organization that you need as a student will be unique to you, but all keepers of knowledge meant to be passed on and shared with others need to practice some form of organization that allows for an easier transmission of wisdom. I include recitation practices for oral traditions, the inner organizing that occurs with meditative practices, and the organizing of social relationships and exchanges. If you're looking for more inspiration for organizing things like your materia medica, come this way.

The latter part of my suggestion is about organizing as an herbalist with other activists, plant folk, and community members. Whether it is participating in seed banks or community gardens, helping to organize a street clinic training, creating a student union or alumnae organization at your herbal school or any of the many, many ways you can help to create systems of kinship within your communities, do it! Not only will it provide countless opportunities to practice and develop your skills as an herbalist, but you'll be participating in the sort of community models that we all need to feel well and held and hopeful in our lives. If you come to any of this work with your own personal library of resources, organized and easy to distribute, even better.

image via @anniespratt

Follow the Desire Lines

A desire line is a path shaped by the footfall of people and creatures, unplanned and emerging with the need of those walking it. They often work as short cuts to get from one place to another quicker than by the formal established pathways, but they are also formed by creatures who follow a path that for whatever reason are drawn to walk it again and again. Even though herbalism is an ancient form of healing used by humans and other mammals, depending on where you are in the world, it acts more like an informal desire line rather than a formal path. Desire lines can be a source of irritation to city, campus, and park planners, but they can also go on to inspire creative answers to community needs. 

None of us have come to the path of herbalism without following the path of those herbalists who have gone before us. While some of us might be walking on a more formal, paved, and approved path supported by the society that surrounds us, many of us are walking along well-grooved desire lines, etched across neighborhoods by deep community needs and often by marginalized peoples. I know that my path of herbalism was only made possible by the countless generations of women and gender-nonconforming folk who saw how women's health was dismissed or made illegal over and over again and so decided to teach each other how to take care of themselves, find aligned medical practitioners, and demand social and legal change. Exploring the history of community health clinics and street medics, the struggles of herbalists before you in your cultural lineage or the history of herbalism in the lands you live with are all powerful ways of understanding how these desire lines that carry you have carried others.

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Whether or not you’re currently an herbal student, thinking about becoming one or a long-time practitioner starting out on a new path of study, I hope you found the might-do list helpful in imagining what it is you might (or might-not) want to do during your student days. If you’re looking for more student-focused inspiration you might like my seasonal apothecary series and my herbal student tarot spread for that extra bit of intuitive guidance.

May your student days be inspiring, your teachers kind, and your path bright with possibility!

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

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1. This links to my ever-growing curated collection of herbal texts and purchasing any of these books through my bookshop supports my work. You can also find many of these books at your local library or request that your favorite local bookstore orders them for you.

Tea for the Tired

How're you doing, friends?

It's been a long season of strain, of collective grief, and it makes sense to be tired when we're all under so much senseless strain. During these challenging times, I've been overcome with the beauty of life and community, but I've also been feeling weary and I know, after lots of experience, that this weariness is a waymarker on the path, letting me know that I can make choices on which direction I head next.

So as I was thinking of the ways I'll be tending to my weariness, I wanted to put together a few simple recipes to support your practice if you're feeling tired and worn down, too. In addition to recipes, I've also offered some practical ideas to support your path of rest. 

Do herbs replace good mental health services? No, so make sure you're reaching out to your support network if your weariness is transforming into something more pernicious. You can find a number of mental health resources at the end of this post if you're looking for a place to start.

How to Prepare Your Tea

In general, standard dosage guidelines for herbal tea is 1 heaping teaspoon of dried herbs per 8 ounces or 1 cup of water.

All of these teas can be taken throughout the day up to 3 to 4 cups within a 24 hour period. If you like, you can take a moment to enjoy the sensory experience of tea from the sound of water being poured over tea leaves to the aromatic scent of the steam rising from your brew to the warmth of the cup in your hands. Sensory beauty is one of the ways that we can help transform weariness into restorative rest. 

While I had tea in mind when creating these recipes, as tea is the type of remedy I love the most when I'm exhausted, they can all be easily adapted into the type of remedy that works best for your needs, including herbal baths, extracts, steams, and herbal oils. 

image via @justindocanto

Gentle Buzz

For those struggling with social burnout, a tea to help settle the nervous system and help us feel connection without overwhelm.

• 2 parts Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)

• 1 part Milky Oat (Avena sativa)

• ½ part Chamomile (Matricaria recutita)

The practical: Get offline and get together in-person. Get yourself to third spaces, whether libraries or coffee houses, parks or club meet-ups. It doesn't have to be a big event or anything fancy or expensive, but there is healing in meeting up and existing in the same place with one another. 

image via @j_harris_391

Lush Cloud

For those needing a soft place to land and looking to restore their sleep cycles after a period of stress. 

• 1 part Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora)

• 2 parts Spearmint (Mentha spicata)

• ½ part Rose (Rosa spp.)

The practical: Reconnect with your places of rest and your places of sleep. Let your bed be a screen free zone and make sure your favorite place to sit and get cozy is free of whatever keeps you from sitting there (laundry, too many pillows, general mess, etc. but if it is a cat, maybe get another chair?). Drink plenty of water during the day, get outside and in the fresh air, and in-between cups of tea, practice some gentle movement. 

image via @babettelandmesser

Wellspring

For those whose creativity feels dulled by chronic stress, a tea blend to help refill the well of inspiration. 

• 4 parts Sacred Basil (Ocimum sanctum)

• 1 part Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)

• ½ part Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

The practical: If you've been chasing inspiration, try letting inspiration come to you instead. Choose a time and everyday show up in the same place, with your tools of creativity with you, and invite inspiration in (say it out loud if you like, light a candle, create an atmosphere to draw inspiration in - I like to set out a bowl of water to represent a well full of inspiration). Stay put for five minutes, then leave, telling inspiration you'll be back again the next day. This time is not for creating or trying to come up with ideas, but for letting inspiration know where you're at, showing up there, and letting inspiration arrive (and inspiration will eventually do just that).

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I hope you found a tea or plant ally to connect with, friend. If you’re looking for more inspiration, you might like my post all about the hope-cultivating plant that is Linden (Tilia x europaea). For something of a more magickal persuasion, a few years back I wrote about gentle magick for when you feel lost and even a love letter if you’re more in the mood for poetry.

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎

The Soft Season: Tarot for Clarity & Inspiration

January is a slow month for me, soft around the edges after the solstice's bright sparkle. Having already celebrated the new year at Samhain, January is less of a starting place as it is a slowing place. But, truthfully, January hasn't always been like this for me - I arrived here after spending a lot of time connecting with the seasonal rhythms of the land and my own internal seasons.

Which is all just a poetic way of saying that a few years ago I burnt out so hard that finding space for radical slowness in my life was the only (slow, soft, steady) way home again.

During this period of burnout, I found myself lying on my back in the brambles of the untended hedges of my personal boundaries, watching the seasons pass by. Getting out of that tangle took time and a lot of listening to where it was the slowness that I needed lived in the cycles of my year. The pace that I was used to moving at was no longer an option and, as the dense speed of the year rushed past me, January stuck out with its calm. It was during this month between sabbats that I started to rebuild my energy using the unfamiliar-to-me tools of softness and ease. In the process, January has become my soft season, my Quiet Moon, and the time of year where I linger between rest and reconnecting with my community practice.

Even though it was an uncomfortable and strange land to be moving through, I have come to treasure softness as the soil where the seeds of inspiration and clarity are planted. As an herbalist, tension is one of the energetic states I see most often in the clients I work with, not least of which because we are living in demanding times of ever increasing stress, and many of us are taught to overly rely on tension to prove our productiveness or as a "reasonable" way of getting by. But it is from softness, letting go of tight and narrow thinking, that possibility arises, and we can feel where it is that inspiration is calling us to.

While my soft season is the time between Midwinter and Imbolc, your soft season might appear to you at any time of the year. I encourage you to find your season of softness and I hope the following tarot spread helps you call in the energy of softness for clarity and inspiration in your life whenever you need it most. 

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Tarot for Clarity & Inspiration

The following tarot spread is all about slowing down and softening your gaze so that you might dissolve the edges of whatever it is that is blocking your vision to better spot where inspiration is trying to guide you.

Witch tip! I recommend calling in the physical qualities of softness before casting this spread, whether it is lighting candles or soft lamps, changing into soft and comfortable clothing or perhaps building an altar to softness, gentleness, and ease.

✨ Card 1. The Querent

A card representing you (or the querent if you're reading for someone else) and your current state of being. You can see this card as something like a personal energetic snapshot or simple emotional weather report.

✨ Card 2. Less Of

A card showing you what you need less of in your life. This card might reference experiences in your past.

✨ Card 3. More Of

A card showing you what you need more of in your life. This card might refer to new habits, beliefs, and/or activities you're trying to incorporate into your life to draw you towards future goals.

✨ Card 4. Inspiration Calling

An inspirational idea, concept, and/or practice that is calling to you that would benefit from your attention.

✨ Card 5. The Cradle

Something (an idea, proposal, practice) which needs more time being sheltered, resting, and growing before being shared with the world beyond yourself. A card that helps us to invite clarity in, instead of trying to figure everything out all at once.

✨ Card 6. The Coracle

Coracles aren't the steadiest form of water craft, and represent how we might ride the current of inspiration whether or not it is a fully formed or stable idea just yet. This card is about letting yourself ride the current of inspiration and points toward the place to jump in and follow your flow.

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While you can peruse through my complete archive of tarot spreads, you might be interested in my annual review tarot spread or how to incorporate tarot into your healing practice if you're journeying your way through burnout or similar experience. If you’re looking for more herbal inspiration for the season of softness, come this way.

May your journey ahead be full of inspiration, ever nourished by a wellspring of clarity!

This post was made possible through patron support.
❤︎ Thanks, friends. ❤︎