Herbal healing begins long before we drink a medicinal tea. It begins before we even pick the tea. Herbal healing begins when we decide to gather our own medicine. This decision empowers us and initiates the healing process.
Once we step out into the fresh air, all our senses open, and we can find our plant. It is a hunt. To be successful, nature demands we listen to her and disregard our woes. We must follow clues, track ecosystems, venture into new places, breathe deep, and ease our spirits.
Herbal gathering provides an intimate connection with natural cycles that can never come from merely buying an herb. And by following a few simple guidelines, the quality of the herbs you gather will far exceed that of what you can buy, much the way an imported tomato from the local supermarket pales in comparison to the fresh-picked garden-grown kind.Learning to Recognize Plants
Remember a TV game show called Name That Tune? "I can name that tune in four notes, Dave!" But could you?
And get it exactly right? Not often. And ultimately no onenot the contestants, the emcee, or the viewersever got toexperience the whole songjust enough notes to drive them crazy.
Many of us approach field identification in the same way, only we play Name That Plant. We tote our field guides everywhere and attempt to correctly identify as many plants as possible. But it doesn't work! So we look for a teacher to take us on guided walks to help us identify as many plants as possible. Guess what? That doesn't work either. So what does?
Once we step out into the fresh air, all our senses open, and we can find our plant. It is a hunt. To be successful, nature demands we listen to her and disregard our woes. We must follow clues, track ecosystems, venture into new places, breathe deep, and ease our spirits.
Herbal gathering provides an intimate connection with natural cycles that can never come from merely buying an herb. And by following a few simple guidelines, the quality of the herbs you gather will far exceed that of what you can buy, much the way an imported tomato from the local supermarket pales in comparison to the fresh-picked garden-grown kind.Learning to Recognize Plants
Remember a TV game show called Name That Tune? "I can name that tune in four notes, Dave!" But could you?
And get it exactly right? Not often. And ultimately no onenot the contestants, the emcee, or the viewersever got toexperience the whole songjust enough notes to drive them crazy.
Many of us approach field identification in the same way, only we play Name That Plant. We tote our field guides everywhere and attempt to correctly identify as many plants as possible. But it doesn't work! So we look for a teacher to take us on guided walks to help us identify as many plants as possible. Guess what? That doesn't work either. So what does?
Let me tell you a story. One summer there were so many yellow jacket nests near our home it seemed that someone was getting stung nearly every day. My six-year-old daughter, Emily, took her "job" of picking a plantain remedy quite seriously. She never let anyone else chew or even bruise the leaf before she placed it on the sting. She especially enjoyed putting
the mash on her twin baby brothers' stings, because the two boys would always smile at her through their tears.
One day, when the one-year-old twins were playing, one of them got stung again, but Emily was nowhere about. So the other twin went over to the plantain patch, picked a leaf, chewed it, and placed it on the sting until the crying stopped. He didn't know the plant's namecouldn't even have said it if he had. But he didn't need a name; he knew
what to look for.
To learn a plant, you must first learn to recognize it. Don't worry about its name. Call it the "Plant I Stepped on Last
Tuesday" or the "Plant That Looks like My Cousin Fred" (just don't let Cousin Fred know). The purpose of a name
is only to communicate to another person what plant you are talking about or to help you remember the plant. It will
not teach you anything about the plant. For that, you must teach yourself!
A Beginning Exercise
Start by taking this book and a blank notebook outside with you. Find a plant you are curious about. Look at it
carefully. Now draw the plant. Don't think about your third-grade art teacher; you're not being graded. But notice
how the way that you look at the plant changes when you draw it. You examine it more closely, you notice spatial
relationships and how light and shadow play on the leaves. This is the right side of your brain taking charge, the side
in charge of creativity, instinct, and intuitive memory.
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