An Herbal Medicine – Making Primer

Description

MY MEDICINE CHEST IS A COUNCIL of bioregions, with
representatives gathered together as I make my way around the world
west of the Rocky Mountains. The Coptis root was picked out of the
churned-up scar left by an excavator, at the retreating edge of the
Idaho wilderness. The tiny amount of Pipsissewa leaves came from an
ancient grove above the Klamath River just feet away from where the
District Ranger sat on a stump talking about his plans to cut it all
down. I am drying Nettles from the California creek where salmon
die in the silt left after a century of industrial logging.
Every jar holds a story (often a ghost story of dying ecosystems and
places gone forever). I am honored to have known the plants in their
home places and to have studied their uses as medicine. But for
people not lucky enough to roam throughout the wilds, purchased
herbal preparations such as tinctures may be the link back to this sort
of healing.
Like so much in this consumerist society, it is easy to ignore the
connections between a bottle on a shelf in some store and a living,
growing plant out in the world somewhere. It can be hard to know if
the plant grows a mile away or on another continent. There is much to
be said for reconnecting, for educating ourselves about the herbs we
use and gathering our own medicine when we can. That’s how we will
be able to build a whole new system of healing, one that can support
our movement away from the corporate power structure that the
practice of medicine has become…………