Herbalist, Heal Thyself...

Information is the source of power. It’s an old idiom, but not untrue. I study, I read, I talk to professionals. I take classes (sigh, yes still). I try to read the physiology journals, even a few of the psychiatry journals and manage to keep up with any really big changes in thought in the cellular molecular fields. I have a pretty good background in chemistry and pharmacy. And I’m on several herb lists to see how other people are using their herbs (at least anecdotally), to glean new information about contraindications, applications, methods, etc.

And recently I’m seeing a trend which disturbs me.

The modern Herbalist’s biggest problem isn’t the giant pharmaceutical companies. It’s not Doctors or Western Medicine.

The modern Herbalists biggest problem is themselves.

Please know that I’m not talking about the housewife that brews up a tincture of Echinacea to fight off a winter cold. Or the Mom that doses her kids with her grandmother’s recipe for elderberry elixir. These women truly are the ‘medicine women’ of our time. Armed with a little knowledge, they march off to war every day, keeping their families healthy, asking questions, and looking for healthy alternatives. These are the people that look to the experts for advice, for help, for a path.

I am talking about those among of us that consider themselves things like ‘Master Herbalist’, ‘Expert’ and ‘Professional’.

They are attending schools (and paying darn good money, I might add) to learn. The programs vary from 6 weeks to several years. The goal should be at the very least, to gather a good solid foundation for what you will need to build a lifetime of study on. You should leave school overwhelmed and frightened at how much you still don’t know but need to learn to become a ‘good’ Herbalist. Because right now, it seems that many of you are in that ‘a little bit of information is dangerous’ stage. What you have been given is the basics. Not unlike the MD that has gone through his course work and now must do a residency. However, the MD is under closely watched supervision. His diagnoses are checked by an older, more experienced Doctor. Most modern Herbalists don’t have that resource. It is a very lucky person that gets to act as an apprentice to an older, wiser healer. However, most (I hope) are at least being given the tools that they need to master the problems that they will find in their patients.

Once they leave their classes, do they understand how to discern what the compounds actually are in the plants that make them effective for job? Do they know how those compounds actually react once they are in the body? Do they understand blood, the different types of anemia and the actual immune response itself?

Do Herbalists know that compounds formed in the digestive track that work to signal other pathways to begin? Or that a hormone may not just start off as the primary hormone, that there are a series of changes it must for through to become…say, estrogen? Do they have any idea of how a cell actually works? The chemical responses, the gates, the channels, the endothelial barriers?

And you might say, ‘Well, the old medicine woman didn’t need to know all that.’ Yes, you are correct. Her knowledge was passed down from generations of women before her. (Most of which has been lost btw). We work off old myths, trial and error and hearsay. There are very few legitimate, unbiased studies with herbs going on. Yes, yes, a few. But honestly, from a scientific point of view an awful lot of them are junk.

This is the 21st century. We need to catch up. Some of you barely know how food is actually digested. Here’s an example: Most folk know the hazards of eating too much fat and it’s effects and on your blood, but do you understand what it does to the endocrine system?

So Herbalists. You have a good start. You have the foundation, the tools and now the world should be your oyster. Don’t screw it up by thinking you know it all. Have a little humility. You don’t know it all, in fact there are people that never went to an ‘herb school’ that know far more about healing than you do. Give some respect to that old grandmother that uses alcohol instead of the ‘trendy’ tea tree oil to cure that toenail fungus. Ask questions. Ask questions. Ask questions. Ask questions about the patient‘s history. Ask questions about their emotional history. Don’t just start throwing remedies out there. Ask questions of those more experienced than you. Ask pharmacists questions. But don’t stop there. Research those answers. Then build off that information.

You may think I’m being silly. You may think that I’m over-reacting. But here are just a few things that ‘Master Herbalists’ have said to me in the last week. Seriously.

-‘What’s a beta-blocker?’ This same herbalist suggested that a person use Ginkgo and Hawthorne to lower blood pressure without asking if they were on any sort of blood pressure medication.

-‘I have no idea why chickweed works, it just does’. Um, excuse me? OK, even if you weren’t taught this in school, you should have left with the tools to be able to understand why it works, research and come back with something other than ‘I don‘t know‘. You are supposed to be an expert.

-“Wait a minute’; let me see what my books say.’ Michael Moore stressed strongly (and I’m paraphrasing here): ‘Know 15 herbs that are in your area…really well’. That statement is as elegant as any mathematical equation.

-“A couple of the books in my library suggest using an alcohol/water solution instead of pure alcohol, but do not give a ratio. I've only read of using water with the alcohol as it was not included in class nor do any of the other herbalists I know use it.”`-Seriously? I’m not suggesting that anyone who is making their own tinctures for their family actually go to the trouble of figuring out the calculations, but I am expecting that someone who calls them self an ‘expert’ should at least understand WHY it is or was, done.

-‘I’m not really good with those botanical names‘- I really can’t even address this one.

'Wikepedia says...'-Oh, please.

Another peeve? In several weeks of chatting with these experts not a single one has mentioned a tonic. Not a single one has addressed incorporating medicinal herbs as part of a healthy diet and as a preventative to illness. No one speaks of exercise. No one talks about the whole plant, simply the tincture. Has this gone out fashion? Is preventative health any less important to an herbalist than it is for any other health professional? Is it the romance of reaching onto a dark and dusty shelf and pulling out a bottle of ‘magic’ tincture that appeals to them? I would suggest a change of course to pharmacy school in that case, with the added benefit of making tons more money than you ever will as an Herbalist.

I’m not suggesting that the herbalist need eight years of intensive schooling (although why should they be any different than a ‘traditional Doctor’? Lives still depend on them…).

Learning physiology, cellular biology, endocrinology doesn’t mean whole semesters in the classroom. Many of the body's systems use ‘similar patterns of behavior’. I’m not seeing that these students leave their studies with any sort of a grasp of holistic healing. What they are learning, is how to put out fires. We need to understand the process of balance, equilibrium, and homeostasis in order to understand both illness and wellness.

One modern Herbalist that I see doing this well, is Kiva Rose Harden. She ‘understands’ the medicine and the plant and the body systems. And she understands the most elusive parts as well. People. Indeed, her intuitiveness is eerie sometimes. I enjoy reading of her work understanding and working with old plants in new ways. She makes sense to the ’medical and common sense’ part of me. I suggest you take a look at her blogs to see how a brilliant, grounded and exceptionally gifted healer and herbalist works. She doesn’t know that I am writing about her or that I’m plugging her work. Indeed, I get the impression she would probably blush if she did. She is modest, humble and perhaps one of the greatest healers in America today.

Visit her at:

http://bearmedicineherbals.com/