Good Relationship and the Unfolding of Spring

I love every part of every season but I have to admit that for me at this time of year it reaches a whole other level as most of the living world reawakens from winter slumber. It begins very slowly at first, gradually accelerating into a symphony of living splendor!

One of the tragedies of our modern world is how cut off most us are from all of this. We are Nature and Nature is us. Connection to the world that we are part of is an essential human need that is not nurtured in modern society. This disconnect is the major reason why modern humanity is so out of balance in body, heart, mind and spirit. It is also why we hang on the edge of a global ecological catastrophe.

One of the fundamental characteristics of indigenous cultures is their connection to the Land where they live. They recognized that as human beings we are one strand of a web of connection and interdependence that includes the rocks, plants, animals, humans, landscape, weather and other beings that inhabit the Land where we live. This rootedness in the Land where we live is essential to who we are.

We can not erase our history. No matter who we are we all have indigenous roots. However, in the modern world very few of us live in the Land where our indigenous ancestors lived. Those who still do have often suffered the weakening or loss of their traditions under the onslaught of imperialist and modern cultures. Nevertheless, we all live somewhere. If we nourish our relationship with the Land where we live the Land and it's inhabitants will speak back to us. This is something that anyone who wishes to live a healthy, harmonious life must realize. Health is not about taking drugs or supplements or herbs. Nor is it about eating the right foods. Health is a state of being in right relationship with the World.

One of the things that traditional peoples know is that everything is interconnected. Whenever one person – human or other-than-human – or aspect of the World is out of balance it is all out of balance. Healing isn't just a personal journey.

We now live in a global society. This necessitates a global vision. It doesn't mean that we should stress out about all of the local and global challenges that we face as human beings. As individuals we can not save the world. What we can do is do our best to be in good relationship; listen to our heart; connect with our purpose; and play our part to the best of our ability. This process begins right here and now where we stand on our Earth Mother.

The Land in late winter.

One of the most important ways that we can bring our life back into balance and connect with the necessary strength and vision to play our part is by connecting with the Land where we live. Since most of us now live in urban and suburban areas this can be challenging – but it is not impossible! No matter where we live the Land is beneath our feet and the Sky above. No matter how much asphalt and concrete we lay on the Earth life comes bursting through. This journey can begin in our backyard, a local park or ravine, and whenever possible a larger park or conservation area in the surrounding rural landscape.

I live in an island of wilderness surrounded by the suburban sprawl of the Greater Toronto Area. It consists of 40 acres: 20 acres of woodland; 10 acres of open field; 10 acres of mixed transition areas. This island is surrounded by farm fields interlaced with hedgerows and here and there dotted with small woodlots. The surrounding area is itself an island that is rapidly being encroached by suburban sprawl.

I have lived here for 18+ years.  It takes many years to develop a relationship with the Land. Many years of watching, listening and being on the Land: day after day; season after season; year after year. It takes patience and diligence, but over time the Land gradually reveals more of herself. In the process my life is enriched and expanded and I come to know myself better and my place in the World.

Sasha on the Land.

Working together with the coyotes and deer we have made trails through this Land. Every day that I am not travelling I walk the Land. Some time in the mid to late afternoon when it's time to take a break from my work Sasha and I go for a 60-90 minute walk. While she roams around exploring the latest smells of the landscape I walk, look, listen, smell, feel, sit, contemplate, and make offerings of prayer and tobacco. To simply take from the Land is to be in imbalance. I must always give something back, whether it's prayers and tobacco or picking up a some garbage dragged into the woods by a raccoon that raided someone's garbage on the main road or blown in by the wind. I also sing songs and perform ceremonies to honour the Land and her cycles.

At this time of year, beginning around the time the coltsfoot (Tussilago fargara) goes into flower and the eastern phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) arrives, there is so much happening on the Land that I also take a walk in the early morning ­­– without Sasha so she doesn't scare off the birds and other animals. Initially it might only be for 30 minutes, but as spring goes into full swing it increases to 1-2 hours until late May when all of the birds have arrived, the leaf canopy has fully opened and the rate of change on the landscape starts to slow down. I do this to increase the likelihood that I'll see the various bird species when they arrive. I walk slowly a few steps at a time, stop, and scan the landscape for the movement of birds and animals in my peripheral vision. I always have a good pair of binoculars!

I also have my desk in a bay window that looks out over our yard so that I can regularly give my eyes a break from looking at a computer screen and gaze out to see what's going on. Many of my bird sightings occur from my desk. Of course, I always have my trusty binoculars close at hand!

Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii) overwinter on the Land – unfortunately for the other birds that they eat!

This photo was taken from my desk through my front window.

Nurturing and deepening my relationship with the Land is essential for my health and well-being, and for my work as an herbalist and healer. As relaxing and healing as it is this is not leisure time. It is my life and my work. It took decades for me to create a life that supports who I am and what I do. It requires living simply: no chasing after material wealth; no smartphone; no social media. Anyone can do this. It requires commitment and clear priorities: nurturing what is really important in life rather than chasing after the innumerable distractions of our consumer society. This is where healing begins.

Developing a relationship with the Land where we live requires that we create space for it in our life. By listening to our heart we will find appropriate places on the landscape to walk and relate and be. Having a place to roam is important, but having a place to sit is even more important – even if it's just sitting under that old grandmother maple tree in our backyard. This is what, to anyone who is familiar with the teachings of Jon Young, Tom Brown and other teachers of Nature awareness, we call a sit spot. It is a safe place on the landscape where we feel called to be with the Land; where we can observe the unfolding of life through the seasons. I have many sit spots on the Land where I live and throughout the region in places that I regularly visit to be with the Land and to harvest medicines. However, although it's great to have a special place or places out in the country that we can visit once in awhile, it is most important to have a sit spot very close to where we live so that we can visit it often – at least a few times per week whenever possible. Here we can begin to sink our roots deep into the loving skin of our Earth Mother. Here we can begin to get to know the plants and animals that inhabit the Land that we live in: who is present through the seasons and how their lives unfold and intertwine.

Although any time will do, early spring is the one of the best times to begin this process of connecting. There's a lot of change happening, but it begins slowly, allowing us time to become acquainted with the landscape and it's inhabitants. Also, things are much easier to observe before the leaf canopy opens.

One of the useful methods that I have learned to help facilitate connecting with the Land where I live is to record everything. This is something that I had already been doing for years with the plants that I harvest for medicines. I needed to know this information so that I could anticipate when they would be ready to harvest from year to year. However, the community that I live in includes more than just the species I use as medicines.

During the first few years that I lived here I was constantly making a mental note of what was going on. I remembered a lot of it because I observed it every day. Then in 2005 I started recording the key changes that I observed: what birds stay or migrate here in the winter; when the species that fly south leave and return; which species nest here and which just pass through; when the various species of amphibians, reptiles and mammals that hibernate became active; which of the herbaceous plant species overwinter as a rosette; when the remaining species first sprout from the ground; when the woody species begin to leaf out; when each plant species goes into flower. This is a pretty left-brain activity but it force me to be more aware and hone my powers of observation. It also forced me to continually identify new species and learn more about them. Through this process and the other ways that I engage with the Land I can say that after 18 years I am finally beginning to know the Land – at least a little bit!

This year we had two uncharacteristically warm weeks at the beginning of March followed by a roller coaster of weather changes ranging from normal to 5-10 °C (9-18 °F) above normal. Consequently, the arrival of the various bird species started earlier than usual but is a bit more spaced out. Some plants are also ahead but they are coming out in short spurts with dormant breaks in between.

Common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) overwintering rosette.

As a result of the (for the most part) unusually warm weather the snow disappeared early and the plants that overwinter beneath the snow as a rosette were revealed earlier this year. These include many members of the Rose family such as our three species of avens (Geum spp.), our two species of wild strawberry (Fragaria spp.) and sulfur cinquefoil (Potentilla recta); a few members of the Mustard family such as shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) and dame's rocket (Hesperis matronalis);  a few members of the Mint family such as motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca), ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) and heal-all (Prunella vulgaris); a few species of aster (Symphyotrichum spp.) and other members of the Aster family such as yarrow (Achillea millefolium), rough-leaved goldenrod (Solidago patula), ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) and common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale); and a variety of others such as herb Robert (Geranium robertianum), ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata), sharp-lobed hepatica (Hepatica nobilis var. acuta), shinleaf (Pyrola elliptica), common speedwell (Veronica officinalis), foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia), red clover (Trifolium pratense), common mullein (Verbascum thapsus), sweet violet (Viola odorata) and large flower hairy willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum).

Everything else has been revealing itself in it's own time. Here's an example of the kind of information I have been collecting as spring has unfolded on the Land this year:

February 15: The overwintering American goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) began singing.

March 3: We had a winter storm on March 2nd. The first lone 'scouts' of the redwing blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) arrived today while it was still cold.

March 4: The temperature began rising rapidly. The first major flocks of redwings began arriving. The overwintering robins (Turdus migratorius) and northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) started singing.

March 6: The eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus) began venturing out of their winter dens.

March 8: The honeybees (Apis mellifera) from a wild hive in a crack in an old grandmother white pine (Pinus strobus) started exploring the world. They have been flying about every day that it has been 12°C (54°F) or higher since then. I sure hope they have a lot of honey in that hive because it's going to be awhile before there is any nectar available for them to collect!

Common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) often hang out in flocks with redwing blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) at this time of year.

March 9: The first common grackles (Quiscalus quiscula) began arriving with the later flocks of redwings. The first turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) also arrived. They will sometimes overwinter during very mild winters.

March 11: The catkin buds of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) started to open.

March 14: The silver maples (Acer saccharinum) started flowering.

March 15: The overwintering song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) began singing.

March 16: Cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum) started sprouting.

March 17: Wild leek (Allium tricoccum) and the trout lily (Erythronium americanum) infertile leaves started sprouting.

March 19-20: The spring equinox occurred at 12:31 am EDT on March 20th. In the late evening of March 19th into the early part of the 20th we had a ceremony to honour the equinox; give thanks for the blessings of winter; and welcome spring.

March 26: The overwintering northern flickers (Colaptes auratus) started thumping. Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris), common comfrey (Symphytum officinale), tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), cowslip (Primula veris), valerian (Valeriana officinalis) and stinging nettle (Urtica dioca ssp. gracilis) started sprouting. The latter species actually overwinters as a tiny embryonic plant. Today they started popping out of the soil.

March 27: Purple angelica (Angelica atropurpurea), blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) and the common horsetail (Equisetum arvense) fertile stalks started sprouting. Coltsfoot began flowering.

Purple angelica (Angelica atropurpurea) sprouting.

March 28: The common horsetail vegetative stalks started sprouting.

March 29: The first eastern phoebes (Sayornis phoebe) and golden-crowned kinglets (Regulus satrapa) arrived. The latter overwinter in this region but we don't see them on this Land until the ones who migrated further south start returning. The first mourning cloak butterflies (Nymphalis antiopa) also awoke and mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) started sprouting.

March 30 (today): The first American tree sparrows (Spizella arborea) arrived. Like the golden-crowned kinglets this species also overwinters in the region but we don't see them until more of them start moving north in the spring. Trembling aspen and American elm (Ulmus americana) began flowering.

On March 28th I had the opportunity to welcome a great wind! Fortunately the local trees lost very few branches. While I was walking the Land the following day I found many branch tips from eastern cottonwood trees (Populus deltoides) heavily laden with swelling buds on the ground beneath the trees. A couple of years ago I felt called to begin working with the medicine of eastern cottonwood. At that time I made a small amount of tincture of the leaves to experiment with which I finally tried a couple of months ago. The buds of poplar trees are often used and I was wondering about the buds of eastern cottonwood. Unlike it's cousin the balsam poplar (P. balsamifera) which is a more shrubby species, the buds of eastern cottonwood are high up and out of reach. Anyone who is familiar with poplar species knows that they have a strong connection to the wind. What a blessing it was to receive this gift of both the cottonwoods and the wind! I made a couple of litres of tincture to start working with in the near future.

As you can see, there is so much to observe and experience all around us! I strongly encourage everyone to open up the space in their lives to deepen their relationship with it. It is one of the most important things that we can do on our healing journey. This summer I will be offering two different Spirit of Herbs workshops. These are my favourite workshops to teach because they are all about connecting to the plants and Nature. It is a great joy to be able to share this with those who are called to participate and even more so to be present as they are awakened to this awesome world that we live in! I used to offer these workshops in alternate years but in the last few years there have been more people yearning for this experience. I know that there are other teachers out there who are offering related teachings and similarly noticing the growing number of people who are yearning for deeper meaning and connection in their lives. Taking workshops is great and I highly recommend it, but beginning to nurture these relationships right here where we stand on the Earth is far more important – and spring is the best time to start!

The Herbs and the Herbalist

This post is partly a continuation of some of the themes discussed in the last one. Particularly concerning the challenges of obtaining the herbs that I need. There are a number of other older posts in which I've also touched upon related topics. Collectively they tell a story. I am using some examples of how the medicine moves in my life to answer some common questions that I am often asked by students, specifically relating to what herbs to use, how many, where to get them, and to what degree someone should prepare medicines themselves or obtain them from other sources. I'm putting this out there because I know that there are many other people asking the same questions. Hopefully, it will help others who are considering or already walking the path of the herbalist, or anyone who wants to deepen their relationship with plant medicines for personal use or interest, or other reasons.

Like some of my other posts, I am going to begin with broad strokes, laying somewhat of a philosophical and sometimes esoteric context in order to explain why I do things the way I do and what things you might want to consider when addressing similar choices. Then I will get a lot more practical towards the end.

Before I begin, I want to be clear that living the medicine is a very personal journey. There are many different systems of herbalism and each of them has its strengths and limitations, as do individual herbalists who practice these systems. Herbalism is very multifaceted. There are paradigms within paradigms within paradigms; based on world views, cultural differences, etc. However, I tend to view the overriding paradigms of various herbal traditions as existing somewhere within a circle consisting of two intersecting continua: holistic to reductionistic (i.e. treating people vs. treating symptoms), and material to spiritual (i.e. plants and people as a bunch of chemicals vs. plants and people as being both physical and spiritual beings). The paradigm of modern medicine, which largely evolved from herbalism, is located in the extreme lower left quadrant of this circle. In contrast, indigenous and traditional systems of healing fall somewhere in the upper right quadrant.

Herbalism Paradigms: The blue dot represents my initial orientation as an herbalist. The green line represents the evolution of the medicine

as I have gained greater experience and deepened my relationship with the herbs and the land. The green dot represents my current orientation.

The red dot represents the paradigm of modern medicine. Most, if not all, systems of herbalism will fall within the shaded portion of the circle.

The systems of herbalism that fall in the lower left quadrant tend to be those that operate from a more medical paradigm. They often define themselves as "medical herbalism". That being said, I know many herbalists whose training is in some form of medical herbalism who are very holistic in their approach, and sometimes even spiritual. Most systems of modern traditional herbalism tend to fall in the lower right quadrant. For lack of a better way to describe them, we could refer to those systems that fall in the upper right quadrant as "shamanic herbalism". I use that term because it more or less describes systems of herbalism that not only subscribe to a more spiritual or animistic philosophy, but they also incorporate ceremony and other spiritual elements into their practice. Shamanic herbalism is not the same thing as shamanism. It refers to systems of herbalism that have shamanic elements. However, in the context of indigenous systems of healing, the line between what constitutes shamanic herbalism and shamanism is pretty blurry.

I have to admit that I am not completely comfortable using the terms "shamanism" and "shamanic" because they have been considerably abused in the last couple of decades. Also, many indigenous healers are not comfortable with these terms because it comes from a particular tradition in northeastern and north central Asia. Although there are common elements in indigenous healing traditions from around the world, there are many differences as well. So, using a single term to refer to them has considerable limitations.

Regardless of where a particular system of herbalism fits within this circle, there will always be variations on every theme. A good student will learn a system as best they can, and then through continued learning, experience and (hopefully) intuition, make it there own. As with any skill or profession, there will always be those people who don't feel it in their heart and just go through the motions. It's like reciting a prayer with no feeling or expanded awareness. It becomes just words. However, there are many people who truly live the medicine and it would not be inaccurate to say that there are as many systems of herbalism as there are herbalists who live the medicine.

Traditional cultures are rooted in the land. So is their medicine.

For every herbalist, the medicine expresses itself differently. It is informed by the personal and ancestral history of the herbalist, the traditions of their teachers, and the culture and any subcultures that they are part of. These are the personal elements. It is also informed by the herbs that they use. However, traditional cultures experience the world in a different way. They know that everything is related, interconnected, and that our sense of individual identity is largely an illusion. Traditional medicine is informed by the land where the people live: the plants and animals; the plains, hills and mountains; the rivers, lakes and oceans; the grasslands, forests and deserts; and the living and ancestral spirits of the land.

In the mixed up world that we live in we have largely disengaged from this experience ­­- but it doesn't have to be that way. Instead, we can follow our heart and find that place where the land calls to us and stay there. When we approach the land in silence with humility, reverence, love and awe, it will speak to us if we learn how to listen. It takes time. A long time! We need to demonstrate our commitment; walk the land; get to know its different moods through the seasons, year after year. We also need to get to know the inhabitants of the land: the plants, animals and other beings that live there. If we want to go deeper, then we need to offer more than just our time, awareness and love. Through prayer, sacred offerings and ceremony we can open up to the land in ways that transcend the limitations of our logical mind and physical senses. Eventually, every step we take on the land becomes a prayer, a ceremony.

The medicine that I practice is not my own, although I am a part of it. It is my work, my path and my life. As I experience it, each expression of the medicine is unique in time and place. It includes the Earth, the Sun, the spirit of the land in a particular region, the ancestors of that land, the herbs, the practitioner, and those people who seek healing. It encompasses all of these and more. As a practitioner, I am both a part of the medicine and a conduit through which it is made accessible. As my relationship to the plants and the land deepens, so the manifestation of the medicine deepens as well.

Yellow gentian (Gentiana lutea) is a European species that won't grow where I live. I must obtain the dried root for making the tincture
because the North American species that grow in the region where I live are not plentiful enough to harvest.

When I first started practicing, I worked with about 120 herbs. Like most Western herbalists at that time, the largest portion of the materia medica that I learned consisted of European herbs, probably about 60%. Of the 60%, about 30% were plants that have naturalized in Ontario where I live, 20% plants that could be grown here, and 10% plants that won't grow in our climate. About 25% of the remaining herbs that I was using consisted of North American herbs, 15% which grow in the region where I live and 10% from other parts of the continent. The remaining 15% was an eclectic selection of herbs from South America, Africa and Asia, most of which can not be grown where I live.

I always had a deep connection with Nature and I felt it was important that I have a similar connection with the medicines that I use. Although the nature awareness and spiritual elements were not part of my original training as an herbalist, I was developing these aspects of my life in parallel and learning how to integrate them with my work. This process was one of the most challenging aspects of my work. It took years of deepening my relationship with the medicine and patiently listening to what the herbs and the land were teaching me. It would have been easy to impose my own ideas and I had to constantly guard against that. However, when I did slip up, the results very quickly made that apparent. I've had to learn not to push the energy, but to allow it to unfold in its own way in its own time.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) can't be grown in a temperate climate, but the organically grown fresh rhizome is available from commercial sources.

When I started practicing back in the 80s, I was ordering dried herbs and making my own tinctures. I also took the tincture of every herb that I made for a couple of weeks to get a deeper experiential connection with the medicines. At the same time I began a process of connecting with the plants in the region where I live. I would go out in the woods with a backpack full of plant identification books and manuals, walk into the fields or woods and try to identify every plant I didn't know. Sometimes it would take me hours just to walk a few metres. I recorded the botanical name of every plant that I was able to positively identify. When I got home, I would research each plant and record any information that I could find from about 200 herbals and technical reference books that I had. In this way I began to develop a data base of information on the plants that grow in the region where I live.

At the same time I continued to develop my relationship with the plants, the animals and the land. I spent lots of time wandering and sitting on the landscape. I attended and performed ceremonies and made offerings in accordance with the rhythms of the world around me: the solstices and equinoxes, the lunar cycles, and to honour powerful beings on the landscape such as rivers, waterfalls, lakes, cliffs, caves and ancient grandmother and grandfather trees. I sat with them, spoke to them, sang to them, prayed to them, meditated with them, made tobacco and other offerings. The plants, the land and the ancestral spirits became my chief teachers. I was skeptical at first. Not because I doubted the possibility of such communication. I had enough experience and had the opportunity to learn from a number of elders who were more adept in this realm. My doubts were about my own capacity to accurately receive and interpret these teachings from the plant realm. However, I very quickly learned to trust these communications because whenever I listened, the healing results were greatly expanded.

Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus senticosus) is a native of northeastern Asia but can be grown in temperate North America.

In this way the medicine gradually unfolded. One of the first things I learned was that I needed to work with fresh plants as much as possible as their healing capacity is much deeper. I was also instructed that I must gradually introduce more herbs that grow or are grown in the region where I live and replace most of the exotic herbs in my materia medica, and to wild harvest most of them. This is not an intellectual process. It's not about what I think or want. I must wait for the plants to offer to be part of the medicine. Neverthess, this relationship can be challenging at times. For example, one of the herbs that I know I must work with is blue vervain (Verbena hastata) and I have written about this herb in the Making Medicine series of blog posts. There aren't a lot of places that I know where this herb is plentiful. It is one of the herbs that I mostly obtain by "water walking", meaning I walk upstream or downstream through a creek or river so that I can harvest herbs that grow along the banks. Blue vervain tends to grow in little clumps here and there close to the shore. I usually have to go water walking several times, each time obtaining enough to make a couple of litres. About 10 years ago I was really concerned about being able to continue to use this herb. I started doing research on white verain (V. urticifolia), which is more common in this region, to see if it is similar enough to either combine them or use it as an alternative. However, I still needed to honour my relationship with blue vervain. That year I had particular difficulty making enough tincture. I visited this herb near the end of the season and offered prayers and tobacco and explained my need and asked for guidance about how to proceed. The next year when I went out harvesting the amount of blue vervain that was growing in the areas where I harvest it increased by two to three times! I also discovered a decent patch a bit off the beaten track in an area where I regularly wild harvest. When we work with the medicines in this way they listen and help. They are part of the medicine too, and they take their responsibility seriously. As long as we do our work, they will support us. Blue vervain used to be one of the medicines that I used in moderate quantities. Now it is one of the herbs I use the most. By the way, it did turn out that the properties of white vervain are almost identical to those of blue vervain.

Ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) is a Eurasian herb that has naturalized in eastern North America.

Gradually, as I was called to use more local herbs, it became apparent which ones I need to stop using as well. Today the profile of the herbs that I use is very different than it was when I started. When I recently did an inventory of the tinctures that I have on hand, there were 102 (45%) native herbs, 81 (35%) that are naturalized, 28 (12%) that are grown locally, and 19 (8%) that are not available locally. 182 (80%) of my tinctures are wild harvested and 46 (20%) are organically grown. 202 (89%) of the tinctures are made from fresh herbs, 19 (8%) from dried, and 7 (3%) from both. The latter group are herbs that are available locally but not in sufficient quantity to meet my needs. In these cases I will usually make some dried herb tincture as well and press them together so that the tincture I use is a mixture. I try as much as possible to do that in a 2:1 ratio (fresh:dried) but sometimes have to do 1:1 or even 1:2.

Of the various tinctures that I have on hand, I only use 150 of them in my practice. Of these, 88 (58%) I use in a relatively low quantity (0.5-1.0 litre per year), 43 (29%) medium (2-4 litres per year), and 19 (13%) high (5-8 litres per year). The remaining 78 I only have a small quantity of (usually 250 ml) for research purposes. Some of them will eventually become part of the medicine. My relationship with the ones I don't end up using is different. They want me to make information available about them so that other people will start using them again, as this is part of their purpose.

Heal-all (Prunella vulgaris) is a circumboreal herb that is native to the temperate regions throughout the northern hemisphere.

Notice that the largest proportion of herbs that I work with I use in relatively low quantities. Some of these are herbs that I feel are indispensable in my practice but I can't harvest them in sufficient quantities, either because large populations aren't very common in this area, or because they are difficult to harvest in quantity. A good example of the latter is heal-all (Prunella vulgaris). This herb is very common, but it's a small herb and the portion that we harvest is very small as well (the flower spike and first pair of leaves) which makes it difficult to harvest in quantity. Like many herbs from the mint family, it is also fairly low density due to lots of air spaces in its tissues. This makes the harvested portion even lighter than a similar amount of some other herbs. I know that it is important for me to have this herb available, so I keep it on hand and use it sparingly. The other herbs in the low quantity group tend to be specialized herbs that are used for very specific applications. I really need them when I need them, but not very often. They add a significant level of versatility to my practice.

The 62 herbs that I use in moderate to large quantities are the herbs that I use more than 90% of the time. Theoretically, I could base my whole practice on these herbs. Most herbalists have a small group of herbs that they use the most. I recommend to my graduating students that they begin their practice using about 50-60 herbs that they feel most drawn to and then branch out from there as they gain more experience. It means that they need to know their herbs very well so that they can treat virtually any person that comes their way. Fortunately, herbs are not as limited as you might think from the general herbal literature. They tend to be very versatile, having dozens of properties and hundreds of applications.

Common purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) is a native of central North America. I have established a wild population on the land where I live.

Because I make all of the medicines myself and harvest almost all of them as well, I have to devote a considerable amount of time to this part of my work. Their is usually a fairly narrow window when an herb is ready to be harvested, typically a few days to a couple of weeks. During that time I have to harvest whatever amount of each herb that I will need to prepare enough tincture to last me at least a year, which is when I will next be able to harvest it (actually enough for 15 months because I allow at least 3 months for a tincture to macerate before pressing it). With roots and rhizomes there's more flexibility. They can be harvested any time from when their aerial parts have almost completely died back until the ground freezes. Also, whereas the aerial parts of herbs need to be macerated withing a couple of hours of being harvested (for some herbs less), roots and rhizomes can be stored in a cool place for a couple of days as long as they remain moist and they aren't washed until we are ready to process them. This is great because they are a lot more work to harvest! They need to be dug up, washed and allowed to dry before we can use them to make a tincture. Being able to spread the work out over a couple of days makes it a bit easier. I can spend one day travelling and digging up several herbs and the next couple of days processing them.

I schedule clinics on Thursdays. Typically, I see 5-7 clients per day. However, when I am travelling a lot I need to schedule the odd Wednesday clinic in and my client load goes up to 7-8 people per day. Until last June, I also had a student clinic scheduled every second Saturday. In order to be able to prepare enough tinctures to meet my needs, I spend about one day per week harvesting the medicines from mid April to mid May; two days per week from mid May to mid June; three days per week from mid June to the end of July; two days per week in August; one day per week in September and October; and then it's back up to two days per week in November. All of this needs to be coordinated with the weather and the rest of my life! Among other things, in recent years my work has required me to travel a lot during the time of year when I am doing all of my harvesting. That means that I have to harvest even more days during the weeks that I'm not travelling. To be able to accomplish this, during harvesting season I have to minimize the amount of days that I have a fixed schedule, such as clinic days and scheduled classes and workshops. During the peak harvesting season when I am not travelling I do my best to allow four to five days per week when I have nothing in particular scheduled so that I can head out on a moments notice whenever the herbs and the weather align! Fortunately, a lot of the work that I do is flexible and can be scheduled around my harvesting days. Also, the advanced students who are completing the clinical part of their program are required to harvest and prepare some tinctures for their student clinic. It only amounts to a small percentage of what they use, but it does reduce my work load a bit. Now that the clinical portion of the program is organized differently, no tinctures are required for the student clinic until the new version of the student clinic begins in a couple of years. This will reduce my load for awhile as well, but it also means that I am making them all myself.

Wood nettle (Laportea canadensis) is a native of eastern North America.

This year I was not able to harvest as many herbs and prepare as many tinctures as I had intended. This was due to my intense travelling schedule and the unusually cool, wet weather that we had in this area. I managed to make 90 litres of tincture from herbs that I wild harvested; 7 litres from fresh herbs that were organically grown locally [rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) and cayenne (Capsicum annuum)]; 17 litres from organically grown fresh herbs that I had to purchase [turmeric (Curcuma longa), ginger (Zingiber officinale), American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) and sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum)]; and 21 litres from organically grown dried herbs. The proportion of dried herb tinctures is normally nowhere near this high, but I harvested a lot less herbs than usual this year, and last year I allowed much of my dried herb tincture stock go down to almost nothing.

I will have to cut back my use of some herbs this year. There is also a good chance that I will run out of a few of them before I am able to harvest them again or before some of the tinctures that I prepare next year are finished macerating. I am going to have to use other herbs as substitutes, which means that I will need to use a litre or two more than usual of some of the tinctures of which I have a bit of surplus stock. Fortunately, I do have a bit of surplus stock of some of them. It is still going to be a very intense harvesting season next year!

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) is one of the more specialized herbs that I rarely use due to its very high potency and potential toxicity.

However, sometimes it is indispensable. I use it for very deep conditions of the liver and spleen, and for a number of types of cancer.

In addition to all of the harvesting and macerating tinctures, I also have to spend about 4-5 hours, 3-4 days per month pressing and filtering tinctures. The time commitment to make all of these medicines is very high even though I'm only seeing an average of 6-8 clients per week. I figure, making medicines the way I do, if my work consisted solely of seeing clients it would not be possible for me to see more than double the number of clients that I am currently seeing. In my case a lot of my work involves teaching, but if someone were called to practice full time making medicines this way, it is definitely possible to make a living seeing 12-16 clients per week, and they'd (hopefully) be doing what they love. I think that's worth it! Nevertheless, spending this much time making medicines is challenging. This is why many herbalists make a lot of their tinctures from dried herbs, or purchase bulk fresh or dried herb tinctures from commercial sources. Ultimately, it is up to each herbalist to find the path that works for them.

Notice that I specifically did not say "choose" the path that works for them. To "choose" our path would require following our head instead of our heart. It is my experience that the path of the herbalist, or any path for that matter, is a calling not a choice. I have experienced this in my life and witness it on a daily basis in the people around me. In Western society we are taught to think our way through life and make many important life decisions based on fear rather than following our heart. It is one of the major reasons why there are so many unhappy people in the world today and one of the major causes of chronic illness. We live our life like an island at our peril. The consequences of this way of living are all around us.

Resinous polypore (Ischnoderma resinosum) is a fungus that has been calling me for several years. This fall I finally

got the call to harvest it and make some tincture. There isn't much information available on its medicinal properties.

It will probably be a year or two before I am familiar enough with it to start integrating it into my practice.

For anyone who is called to deepen their relationship with the plant people, or to follow the path of the herbalist, the most important advice I can give them is to quiet their mind, listen to their heart, deepen their relationship with the land and the plant medicines, and allow the medicine to unfold through them. In this and other posts I have given examples of how the mystery of the medicine manifests in my life. That isn't to say that this is how it will manifest for everyone. We are all unique and the medicine manifests through each of us in unique ways. There is no "right" way for everyone. For some people wild harvesting might not be appropriate or even an option. Maybe the only way they are able to offer their healing gifts is by using tinctures or teas made from dried herbs. That's OK. There are ways of working with herbs in any form, or even without form, that allow their healing to come through in a deep and meaningful way. The most important thing is that we develop our own relationship with the medicines. They will teach us how the medicine can best manifest through us.

The themes that I discuss in many of these posts are interwoven like a complex tapestry. Together they tell a story of herbs, healing and the interrelatedness of things. Many of my previous posts address some of the themes that I have discussed here in different contexts and from different angles. If you find yourself drawn into this world I encourage you to go back and check out some of the archived posts. Happy solstice and happy reading!

Good Relationship

For those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere, today is the first full day of spring! For me, the solstices and equinoxes are the closest thing to a "religious" holiday. I always take these days off as times for ceremony and reflection, both on my own and with the members of my community. They are important transition points in the yearly cycle of the seasons, and excellent times to honor our relationship with the world that we are part of.

Spring may be officially here, but spring weather will probably be later than usual this year!

This morning when I was out at my prayer circle offering my morning prayers, beginning for the first time this year in the eastern direction of this new season, twice I heard the call note of a male red-winged blackbird as one flew overhead. In this region red-wings are the first birds to arrive from wintering in the south. Hearing them for the first time on this first day of spring was a good omen that, in spite of the lingering below normal temperatures, spring is arriving. There are other signs as well. Among the birds that overwinter here, the cardinals and black-capped chickadees started singing their spring songs a couple of weeks ago. The robins started whinnying around the same time, but I only heard the first one singing this afternoon when I was walking my dogs in the woods. The song sparrows haven't started yet, but they will soon. The dark-eyed juncos are still here. They won't be heading back up north for some time yet.

The increasing intensity and amount of daylight as the sun climbs higher in the sky each day is another sign that is very noticeable. The greatest amount of change per day of the amount daylight occurs at the time of the equinoxes - three minutes per day at the latitude where I live. During the last couple of decades the red-wings have usually arrived much sooner than the equinox. After this years longer and colder winter their call is a welcome sound.

The trembling aspens (Populus tremuloides) are getting impatient!

In contemporary Western society we tend to live cut off from the natural rhythms and cycles of nature, both within us and around us. We do so at our own peril! Not only has it had an overwhelming negative impact on our physical, psychological, spiritual and social well-being, it has similarly affected the well-being of our Earth Mother and all of the other beings that we share our lives with. Our life is only as healthy and fulfilling as the quality of our relationships.

As an herbalist, it is essential that I am in a good relationship with the medicines that I use and the land where they live. My role is as a mediator between the medicines and Nature, and human society - both as a healer and as an educator. It would be awesome if we lived in a society where we are as time-rich as our ancestors, the traditional peoples of the world, once were. I could take people out and acquaint them with the medicines that they need so that they could be in a deeper relationship with those medicines. The healing would be so much more powerful! Sadly, this is not possible any longer.

That being said, for people who wish to live a life of greater health and well-being, and who also have an interest in herbs, getting to know some of the plant medicines even on a casual basis can be a powerful way to enrich our lives and enhance our healing process. It allows us an opportunity not only to create a deeper relationship with some of the plant people, but with all of Nature as well. Whether we are atheists or agnostics, or believe that the natural world is connected to or an expression of a deeper spiritual reality, we must acknowledge that all healing comes from Nature. Connecting with plant medicines and Nature are essentially two sides of the same coin when it comes to the healing process.

Some plants overwinter as a rosette. This European sweet violet (Viola odorata) is taking advantage of full sun

(in the winter only) and a slightly south facing slope.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s when I first started teaching, the Herbal Field Studies workshops (which were then called 'Herbs of Ontario') were the first courses that I offered. Teaching people how to identify local herbs during the various stages of their life cycle, harvest them and use them was a big part of what these workshops were and are about. However, my primary objective was to use the participants' interest in herbs as a means of getting them out into Nature. This is an essential part of the healing process because it is our disconnection from Nature that is directly and indirectly the main reason why people and society are unhealthy to begin with.

Eventually I knew I needed take it deeper and after experimenting with different content and formats The Spirit of Herbs workshops were born: first as a weekend, then six days, then eventually (in response to where I knew the Medicine needed to go and requests from students for more) I added two more workshops to the series. I consider these workshops to be the most important courses that I teach. For any herbalist, having a wealth of knowledge of herbs and a good system for applying that knowledge is essential - as is plenty of experience. Together they can produce profound healing. However, what separates the good herbalists from the great herbalists is the depth of their relationship with the medicines. This is not only true for herbalists, but for anyone who uses herbs personally or professionally. The deeper our relationship with the herbs and Nature, the deeper the healing we are able to receive or facilitate when we need to use them.

The Spirit of Herbs workshops are also my favorite courses to teach because they always stretch me. To teach the Medicine I have to be able to live it. It is always a powerful learning and transformative process for me having to hold the space for the benefit of the participants and offering the Medicine at a much deeper level. It is also a profoundly humbling and fulfilling experience for me to witness the transformations that the participants go through as they develop a greater capacity to connect more deeply with themselves, the plant medicines and Nature.

Grandmother white pine (Pinus strobus) is happy to enjoy some early spring sunshine!

I spend some time sitting with her every day when I walk my dogs.

In summary, I can not over-emphasize the importance of being in and connecting with Nature. It is essential to who we are because we are Nature and Nature is us. This is not only the experience and wisdom of traditional peoples worldwide, for those who need "proof" there is a growing body of research that is beginning to demonstrate it as well (for example, see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100502080414.htm; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130422101303.htm; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140107093323.htm). What's amazing is that the benefits that are being demonstrated in these studies are the result of relatively simple things like more trees in urban areas, or spending a little time exercising or doing activities in more natural settings. Most people are still pretty distracted when they are in "greener" spaces: by their thoughts and by their technological gadgets. Add a certain level of quiet of our mind and deeper connection and the benefits increase exponentially!

The workshops that I offer provide an opportunity for participants to deepen their connection with Nature through their interest in medicinal plants. However, there are other teachers out there that offer similar experiences through other connections. For instance, in his recent book What the Robin Knows, Jon Young provides guidance about how we can foster a deeper connection with Nature through learning the language of birds. Whether it's birds or other animals, general nature awareness, or wilderness survival, there are teachers and mentors who truly walk their talk and from that place of experience and knowing are able to help others to more deeply connect with themselves and Nature by developing these skills in a way that fosters greater awareness and good relationships. Developing these personal interests is an excellent way to more deeply connect with Nature and live healthier, more fulfilling lives.

One of the most important tools for achieving this, which is explained in detail in Jon's book, is what we call the sit spot. It is simply a place in as natural a setting as possible where we intuitively feel good and can spend time sitting quietly and observing the world around us through the seasons. Although it's great for those of us who live in rural areas or on the edge of parks or other natural areas to find a sit spot that is in a more wild, natural environment, the most important characteristic of a good sit spot is its accessibility. The more effort we need to put into getting there, the less often we will use it. It's much better to find a nice spot under some trees in our backyard than some place that we need to walk or drive 20 minutes to visit, because the more often we use our spot, the deeper the results. Nature is everywhere! All we have to do is quiet our mind and be fully present with all of our senses. When we do this in the same spot on a regular basis, it provides a framework from which we can really get to know a place through its various cycles and changes. It is best if we can spend some time there at least several times per week. The more we make this a priority in our life, the greater the benefits. This season is a great time to start!

On that note, I would like to wish everyone a great spring (or great autumn to my sisters and brothers in the Southern Hemisphere)!

Happy Solstice ... And Other Stories!

Last Saturday was the winter solstice. Once more we acknowledged this sacred time in ceremony. For those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere, it is not only the shortest day of the year, the end of fall and the beginning of winter, it is also the end of the natural year and the beginning of the new. It is such an incredible privilege to have been able to live in this awesome, mysterious world through another fall and another year, and to be able to greet the arrival of winter and the new year.

Normally I would post this on the day of the solstice, but this year the wisdom and mystery of this time brought a different teaching in the region where I live and I wasn't able to get online until yesterday. During the last few minutes of our ceremony it started to rain ... and it didn't stop until early Monday morning. Aside from the fact that rain is somewhat unusual in these parts at this time of year (although the winters have been getting warmer and rain more common in the last couple of decades), what was also different was that the temperature stayed steady around the freezing point. For two days the ice accumulated. Starting on Saturday evening, whenever I went outside I would hear a sharp crack and a huge branch would come crashing down about every 30-60 seconds . Every 5-10 minutes a tree would come down as well. I have never seen anything like it. By the end of it even tiny little blades of grass had 2-3 cm (about an inch) of ice on them!

The view from our front door Friday afternoon.

Although they are calling it an "ice storm", it wasn't very stormy. Just very calm with a gentle, steady rain. But by the end of it the devastation was incredible. It is with great sadness that I witness the harm that has come to the tree people where I live and in the surrounding region. The repercussions for our society in the area affected have also been profound. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power and, as I write this a week later, tens of thousands still are - including us!

The area a bit to the left of the previous photo.

I live in a rural area. Our driveway winds 300 metres through woods before you get to our house. Our power went out Saturday night when one of the falling trees snapped the power line. The power went out on the street where I live a short time later. The power on our street wasn't restored until Friday afternoon, but we won't get ours until at least the end of next week because that is how long it is going to take to get crews in here to trim the trees and fix the power lines. We had no electricity, heat or water (as we have a well) initially, but luckily my son Sean, who is an electrician apprentice, was able to find us a generator online (they are completely sold out or rented out within a couple of hours drive of the areas affected). The generator that we were able to get isn't a very powerful one. All we have hooked up is the furnace and the lights and plugs in two rooms. Just in time too! By the time he got it hooked up on Wednesday morning it was a couple of degrees above freezing in our house. The whole situation was exacerbated by the fact that on Tuesday we went into a deep freeze while about half of the people affected still didn't have their electricity restored.

The view behind our home. As a reference point, the large white pines in the background are about 20-25 metres tall.

In spite of the destruction, when we walked through the fields after the storm everything looked so magical coated in thick ice and glistening in the sunshine. I couldn't take any photos at that time because the batteries were dead in both of my cameras. I wasn't able to charge them until Thursday. The photos I have provided were taken Friday afternoon. By that time some of the ice had melted and everything was covered by a fresh blanket of snow that fell on Thursday.

As devastating as these natural disasters are, they are part of the natural cycle of things. They provide a means of transformation and renewal. Traditional peoples understood this. However, in our modern society we are over-populated and we attempt to build permanent homes and infrastructure. We have created a situation where we are usually at odds with natural rhythms and cycles in order to maintain our lifestyle. We also tend to think too short-term and don't have very much resilience or adaptability built into how we do things. We tend to put most of our eggs in one basket (like petroleum).

A Canada goldenrod stalk (Solidago canadensis) reinforcing a significantly larger column of ice.

Living through this has provided me with some very powerful teachings. We currently live in a home that I rent in a rural area just north of Toronto. It's a moderate size home by today's standards (probably about 3,000 square feet). My kids each have a bedroom plus I run classes and clinics out of our home. One room is a designated classroom and I also have a consultation room and my working office. Nevertheless, I feel the weight of having to have so much space and stuff. A short distance south of me there are endless new subdivisions where even the townhouses are 1,500-2,000 square feet. Semis are 2,000-2,500 and detached homes can be anywhere from 3-6,000 square feet. Then there are the luxury "communities" which are completely over the top. There is even one subdivision a short distance west of me where the "homes" are 8-15,000 square feet. Personally I think that this is insane! I grew up in an older suburb of Toronto where most families did just fine in 1,000-1,500 square feet bungalows which only took up a small portion of their lots. There was lots of green space, kids played outside most of the time, and everyone knew their neighbors. This storm was rough for me, but I can't imagine what it would be like in one of those monster homes without electricity. I hope that they learned something from this too!

I look forward to a time in the next year or two when I will move further out into the country to a smaller place that is more manageable along with some close friends. We are part of an intentional community that has been developing over the last few years. We still haven't found the right land, but hope to soon. Although I'm going to be roughing it for a bit longer, I'm extremely grateful for the lessons that I've learned from my current circumstances about important ways to build more flexibility and resilience into my home, and for the importance of community. I would not have been able to manage without the help of family and friends.

As always, as I walk the land I am always observing what's going on. I'm paying careful attention to how the land responds to these conditions. I've learned a lot about the ability of the many species of trees that live on the land where I live to be able to withstand an ice storm. Some species were only affected in a minor way. Others were devastated. Since we are expected to experience more of these kinds of weather events in the coming years, this is important information in terms of what trees we decide to plant in the future. I haven't had the opportunity to explore every corner of the land due to falling branches and ice, but this is what I've found so far starting with the species that are the most resilient and working down to those that were the most damaged: Norway spruce (Picea abies) > white spruce (Picea glauca) > eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) > balsam fir (Abies balsamea) > tamarack (Larix laricina) > red pine (Pinus resinosa) > white pine (Pinus strobus) > black walnut (Juglans nigra) > sugar maple (Acer saccharum) > rock elm (Ulmus thomasii) > white cedar (Thuja occidentalis) > ironwood (Ostrya virginiana) > pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica) > chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) > high-bush cranberry (Viburnum opulus) > common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) > red oak (Quercus rubra) > white ash (Fraxinus americana) > red maple (Acer rubrum) > hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) > American beech (Fagus grandifolia) > American elm (Ulmus americana) > Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) > silver maple (Acer saccharinum) > white willow (Salix alba) > paper birch (Betula papyrifera) > trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) > blue beech (Carpinus caroliniana) > yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) > American basswood (Tilia americana) > black cherry (Prunus serotina) > peachleaf willow (Salix amygdaloides) > Manitoba maple (Acer negundo) > Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila). Of course, this is only the result from one storm with no wind, and many of the trees around me are relatively young to medium age. Other storms might produce slightly different results, but this is still very useful information.

Here we have motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) similarly encased in ice.

There is also the much bigger picture. Due to global warming, the area where I live is expected to get more ice storms, more violent thunder storms, more tornadoes, and more extremes of weather in other ways such as years of drought and years of excessive rain (last year Toronto experienced its heaviest rainfall and worst flooding on record). This is going to be the new norm, not just here, but pretty much everywhere. As much as we may empathize with other people when we hear about various natural disasters in the news, it's not the same as when it happens in our own backyard. By now most of us have experienced natural disasters first hand, or at least have family or friends that have. It is my hope that this and other similar occurrences will help us all to wake up and realize that the way we are living is unsustainable. If we don't act on a major scale very soon, the world that our children and grandchildren inherit is going to be a very different and challenging place.

Getting back to the solstice, I would like to send out prayers of healing at this sacred time to all of the people of the world. I hope that this will be a year of greater healing and wisdom; that we will begin to open our hearts more fully and tread the long and difficult path necessary to help create a more balanced, harmonious and sustainable future.

Happy Solstice!

Welcome winter!

The winter solstice has come and gone and the world hasn't ended yet! There were a lot of doomsday predictions floating around out there concerning the ending of the cycle of the fifth sun according to the Mayan calendar. Fortunately, most of that information was based on misinterpretations of the teachings of the Mayan prophesies.

Although much of the popular information about this time was inaccurate, there have been some positive outcomes resulting from all of the hype. There were probably more people gathered with their families, friends and communities around sacred fires around the globe honouring this sacred time than has occurred for centuries. One of primary reasons that we face global ecological, social and spiritual crisis at this time is because the dominant paradigm of our society sets us apart from the world that we live in. We live in a dangerous illusion that we are separate from the world and have lost touch with our interconnectedness with the life of our Earth Mother and all of the plant, animal and other beings that we share our lives with - including our fellow humans! Honouring the sacred cycles, places, medicines, and all of the gifts of this life through prayer and ceremony is an important and necessary prerequisite if we are to bring about the potential global shift in consciousness of the new cycle of the sixth sun. Even if we don't believe in the Mayan prophecies, a significant consciousness shift is essential if we are to avert global disaster, including possibly even our survival as a species.

How long do we have? Who knows! It's a big, awesome, mysterious world that we live in and it is ignorant and arrogant to think that we've got it all figured out. But the signs are all around us and it's time that we get our individual and collective heads out of the sand and heed the warnings. The way we live is unsustainable. Period. Whether we put our faith in reason, science and technology, or believe that we are going to be saved by aliens or some kind of divine intervention, we are only fooling ourselves. We can not heal ourselves if we are not in a healthy, harmonious relationship with the world. The changes that need to occur must come from us as individuals, as communities, and our society as a whole. It is all about who we are and how we interact with the world. It is all about relationship. Contemplating at this time of the winter solstice, the beginning of the natural new year, the shift from fall into winter (or spring into summer in the Southern Hemisphere), provides us with a beautiful reminder of this. However misguided, all of the hype about the end of the world has brought a lot more people to that place of contemplation. The truth is, the world as we know it has to end, for the sake of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and all of the other beautiful beings that we share this life with. It's time to reconsider our priorities; to get in touch with what is really important in life.

Honouring the medicine: Queen Ann's lace (Daucus carota) in winter.

In our community we honoured this sacred time of the winter solstice in ceremony. We offered thanks for the blessings of the fall and the year that has passed, and offered our prayers for the winter and year that is beginning. Our ceremonies will continue for the next couple of days. I am so grateful to be given the precious gift to live to see the beginning of another winter and another year. I offer my prayers of healing to all of the people of this world, both the human people and the other than human people. May it be a year of greater love, peace, healing and harmony!

The End of an Era!

Wednesday was a typical day for me in many ways. I spent the better part of the day teaching a class like I have thousands of times before. But what was different about this past Wednesday was it wasn't just any weekly class. It was the last one!

This past January we began the process of converting most of the content that I used to teach in a weekly class format into online courses. On Wednesday I taught the last class of the last course for the last group of students who are going through our program in the weekly class format. Afterwards I did what I do at some point almost every afternoon: I took my dogs for a walk through the fields and forest on the land where I live. As always, I sat down in one of my favourite spots and spent some time just being. While I sat there I also contemplated how much things have changed since I started teaching.

I taught my first course back in the spring of 1987. During the last few years of the 80s I taught sporadically; mostly one off lectures and weekend workshops. In the first half of the 90s I taught much more regularly, but still primarily limited to weekend workshops. Then in August of 1995 I got this idea that maybe there were people who were interested in taking a course run as a series of weekly evening lectures. Thus Healing With Herbs was born. It has gone through a few changes over the years but it is still the primary introductory level course that I teach. I should say it was ... until it went online this past January.

I had wanted to start Healing With Herbs in early September and I was only able to find one lecture room available on such short notice. It was a small room that only held 18 people, but I figured that would be enough. I only had a few weeks to promote the course and this was an experiment anyway. Well, 28 people applied to take the course and I had to turn 10 of them away! I ended up running it again in January and then in April with about 25-30 students in each session. Many of the students asked me to create additional courses, so the following school year I ran Healing With Herbs three times again, but each term I added a new course as well on a different night of the week. This was the beginning of teaching weekly classes for me; the beginning of a phase that ended this past Wednesday.

Here I am teaching a field workshop at

Mono Cliffs Provincial Park in the mid 90s.

By June 1997 some of my students were asking if I would create a complete herbalist program. I contemplated that over the summer and by the fall decided that it was in alignment with what I needed to do. Over the next 12 months I continued to introduce new courses while working on the curriculum for the entire program. After a couple of false starts, Living Earth and the Traditional Herbalist program were finally born in September 1998.

Initially we ran classes on weekday evenings and weekends. By 2000 students started asking for weekly daytime courses and we ran these as well. Within a couple of years enrolment in the evening and weekend courses started to drop and I switched exclusively to weekday courses.

The gradual change in the preferred class schedule of most of my students was interesting. It seems that in the 90s most of my students were working regular full-time jobs. They tended to be older people who were either taking courses for personal interest, or those who weren't happy with their work and were considering changing to a new career that better reflected where they were at in their lives. In the 2000s that started shifting. I was getting some younger students fresh out of high school or university who were still living with their parents. For the first time young people were considering herbalism as a first career! Many of the other students either weren't working full-time, had jobs with flexible hours, or were self-employed.

There were other interesting changes to the demographics of my students over the years. For instance, when I started teaching the age of my students ranged from mid 20s to late 60s with the majority of them being in their mid 30s to late 40s. There was also a 50/50 split between men and women. Over the years the lower age limit dropped as I started getting some students in their late teens and early 20s, and the overall average age dropped as well. In addition, the percentage of women increased. So now the vast majority of my students are women in their early 20s to early 30s. Although I still get a few men in some of my general interest courses, in the last few years I haven't had any commit to the full herbalist program. Since we began putting our courses online in January things have changed yet again. For one thing, there has been a higher percentage of men enrolling. We'll see how many of them end up committing to the herbalist program. I'm sure there are a lot a factors that have led to these changes over the years. I don't claim to understand them all, but I am glad that younger people are being drawn to this path because they are the future!

So now I have come to another major shift. I'm older and most of my students are a lot younger. They have grown up in a very different world than me; a digital world. It's a world of iPhones, text messages, Facebook, Twitter ... and, yes ... blogs! This world means nothing to me, but it's not something I can completely ignore. A big part of my path is to bring the medicine to the people and that means I have to be able to bring it to where the people are. Still, I have no interest in spending endless hours talking or texting on a cellphone, or checking out Facebook. I spend way more time on a computer than I would like to just doing my day-to-day work. I would much rather be out in the woods.

It seems that these days it is becoming increasingly more difficult for the majority of the people who want to learn about herbalism to commit to the more rigid structure of weekly classes. Online courses are becoming more practical and more appealing to people, and they are workable for people with a great diversity of life situations. We also now have the technology to make the experience of doing online courses as close as possible to being in class, with a few added advantages as well (like being able to listen to parts of a lecture over again if you miss anything). Yet I've never been a fan of distance learning courses, not only because there is so much experiential content that can't be done in that format, but because the medicine is a living thing. It can't be learned from a bunch of words. We need to plant our feet firmly on the Earth and be in it!

This eastern gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor) is demonstrating

how to immerse ourselves in the medicine!

Traditionally, herbalism and other healing traditions were learned by apprenticing with an elder. That is by far the best way to learn, but for many reasons it doesn't work well in our modern Western world. I've always tried to compensate for the limitations of teaching in a classroom framework as best I can. In particular, I've done my best to incorporate as much experiential content in my courses as possible. During this transition to providing a lot of online courses I will have to develop new ways to accomplish this. Of course, there are still workshops that can't be done online and will run as before. In addition, the remainder of the experiential and clinical content will be incorporated into week long intensive workshops. I actually prefer the longer intensive format to weekly classes. But the most important thing that I wish to convey to all students and herb enthusiasts of the digital world, just as I've had to convey this message in the past, is that to truly get herbalism it is essential that we develop a living relationship with the medicines that we are learning about and using. That means learning where they grow; how to identify them; talking to them; meditating with them; harvesting them; and making various preparations from them. Anything we can do to expand and deepen our relationship with them is beneficial and necessary. Healing comes from our Earth Mother and our interconnectedness with all of the living beings that we share this life with. It doesn't come from books or the Internet! Taking good quality courses with knowledgeable and experienced herbalists is essential for anyone who is serious about this, but connecting with the medicines is just as, if not more important. They are two sides of the same coin.

Welcome to the medicine!