Amazing Art By Jesse Wolf Hardin! Updates

Notice the beautiful new header! Thank you so much Wolf for the awesome portrait of me, my daughter Ella; Strong, Fiery, Deliberate, Wild pony! and my son Wyatt; Gentle, Smart, Happy, Spunky cub!

Now would also be the perfect time to mention that Anima is offering some great new correspondence courses- check out their offerings here!

In other news, look for more blog posts, updates on the herbal list, and a new course especially for Moms after the first of the year! The new course I am working on will be all about mothering; balance in the home, self care, inner work and setting the example (and herbal remedies!).

In the meantime Ella's 3rd Birthday is coming up on the 21st! We will be having a small celebration at our home. I have been working on needle felting some handmade gifts of some of Ella's favorite animals, and Tony is working on a wood handmade play kitchen and play stand!

Then the holidays are right around the corner!

Blessings everyone!

Kids and Herbs a naturally simple class for parents

Kids and Herbs is Live!

This is what I have been working on for the past few months! This is why the blog has been so slow! Only so much time with 2 little ones!
There is tons of info and over 7 hours of instruction!

This was so much fun!


Kids and Herbs- a naturally simple course for parents herbalist Angie Goodloe



The coolest part of this is for one week only, Kimberly and John Gallagher the creators of Wildcraft are giving away a FREE Wildcraft game with the course! The launch is at 9 am PST this morning!

We had so much fun creating this course. I have to thank John Gallagher, L.Ac., CCH from herbmentor and learning herbs for all of the work he put into this, as well as putting up with my TOTAL ignorance when it comes to technology!

If you are not a member of the learning herbs email list, and you have not heard about this course, you can check out the details HERE (plus learn how to make Elderberry syrup just in time for flu season!). If you love herbs you should definitely sign up for the learning herbs list, the offer free recepies and videos, all about herbs and health- it is an awesome resource!

ACHS 4th Annual Herb Day Celebration

I want to invite you to the ACHS 4th Annual Herb Day Celebration this Friday, October 9. Come join us from 11 am to 3 pm to learn more about using herbs with children, antioxidants and herbs for the immune system, and an introduction to traditional Chinese medicine.

To RSVP, please call 503-244-0726

The ACHS Campus is located in John's Landing at:5940 SW Hood AvenuePortland, OR 97239

You'll hear from Master Herbalist Angela Goodloe, Herbalist and Aromatherapist Amanda Lattin, and ACHS & Acupuncturist Scott Stuart.

Schedule for the day: 11:00-12:00: Introduction & Welcome and Overview of ACHS Holistic Health Programs with ACHS Dean of Admissions Tracey Miller and Senior Admissions Advisor Chris Fierro.

12:00-1:00: Herbs and Children with Angela Goodloe, MH Angie will be discussing creative ways for parents to incorporate herbal remedies into their everyday lives at home. Examples of safe and effective herbal remedies to include in your home apothecary, how to prepare them, and their uses will be discussed. Fun and creative ways to include your child in the process as well as approaches to holistic healing in the home will also be discussed.

1:00-2:00: Basic Concepts in Traditional Chinese Medicine:

Qi, Yin & Yang and the Five Elements with ACHS Instructor Scott Stuart, L.Ac.Scott will provide an overview of basic concepts in traditional Chinese medicine as well as present information about a few herbs from the traditional Chinese medicine perspective.

2:00-3:00: Herbs and Antioxidants with Herbalist and Amanda Lattin, BA, MA, Dip.Aroma, MH

Herbs and antioxidants - what are antioxidants and what do they do for and against the body. This lecture will include herbal sources of antioxidants and how their actions can help aid the immune system. Amanda will also discuss why these herbs are important at this time of the year.

Meet Angie Goodloe at the ACHS Health Fair August 29th!

Come join me at the ACHS Health Fair! At the ACHS campus in Portland Oregon I will be speaking at 1 pm on Saturday August 29th!

Paul Bergner Vit D cold and flu, vitamins and herbs

Wanted to share these great videos from Paul as well...

How to Become a Master Herbalist in Thirty Years or More -- Part II.

Here is the continuations of Paul Bergner's article- 
If you missed it here is part 1
Please feel free to comment!

How to become a master herbalist in Thirty Years or more part 2


Mastery of any topic is attained after years to decades of becoming
fully engaged not only in the field, but being constantly engaged with
a level of rigor and practice that steadily expands and also deepens
understanding of the facts and principles of that field or topic. The
master brings the subject completely alive in their own being and
experience. Ultimately their career is characterized by various
“threshhold events” of understanding and insight which contribute new
understanding for the current generation and a legacy for future
generations. Those thresholds are made possible by an intuitive
synthesis of many facts and observations during the career leading up
to them. This process among the teachers and leaders and innovators in
a field is how that field stays current and alive throughout
generations.

The 10,000 hour rule

A study of classical musicians at a Berlin academy of classical music
investigated students in three tracks in the school: The Star track,
headed for world fame in classical music; the middle track, headed for
the St Louis Philharmonic; and the teacher track, less skilled and
headed to teach music in high school. Researchers asked the simple
question: How much weekly practice time have you put in year by year
since your started playing your instrument? The results: star track
musicians had put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. The middle
track had put in 8,000 hours but none had put in 10,000 hours; and the
teacher track had put in 4,000 hours, but none had put in 8,000 hours.
This is now being called The Ten Thousand Hour Rule in popular
culture, and people are claiming mastery for having showed up for work
for 10,000 hours (about 20 hours a week for ten years.) There is a big
problem with this kind of thinking, however. Musicians put in practice
time with rigor such as scales, mastering all keys,  and chords within
them, as well as developing progressively more difficult techniques
and progressively more sophisticated pieces for performance, while at
the same time keeping well practiced in the basics. They don't just
play what they already know, they grow constantly, in addition to
constantly honing the basics. Just punching the clock is not enough. I
am sure the a Rotor Rooter Man can claim 10,000 hours of snaking
toilets, but this is not progressive development of ability and
insight. Or to put it another way, one stand-up comic criticized a
rival saying: “He says he's been doing stand-up for twenty years; I
say he only did it for 1 year and then repeated that year nineteen
times.” In the herbal field, we have herbalists lecturing at
conferences who are giving essentially the same lectures they were 20
years ago; herbalist-physicians practicing by rote administration of
set formulas; herbalists writing books full of information they read
in other books and which they have never demonstrated to be true in
their own experience. So our questions for mastering herbalism are:

1) What kinds of activities or study count toward the 10,000 hours and
progressively develop skill and insight in the practitioner?

2) How can we avoid becoming comedians who repeat their same jokes for
twenty years without growing or developing new repertoire.

In this series of articles, I am not calling for standards for
licensing or approval by any regulatory body or accrediting agency.  I
am an educator, with 36 years of clinical experience, 20 years
teaching, and 15 years running a teaching clinic, supervising
thousands of cases over that time in addition to my own clients.  I'm
now in my elder years, eligible for social security, and at this stage
I could care a fig whether the government or anyone else approves of
me. And I am very much focused on how to train a younger generation of
herbalists in the routines and practices and attitudes that will lead
to mastery instead of decades of bad jokes. I believe the future of
Western herbalism will depend on this kind of work to a much greater
extent than reframing what and who we are for the sake of acceptance
by authority, however necessary or valuable that may seem in the short
term.

I've thought about the above questions deeply, and will give my
thoughts in the third and final part of this article. Meanwhile I
thought I would put this out on the lists for discussion. Every
herbalist, and especially every master of herbalism is not on the same
track, in fact mastery implies to some extent uniqueness and being
out-of-the-box. So there is not one answer to the above. A master of
wildcrafting and medicine making is on a different track that a master
of clinical herbalism, a clinical herbalist practicing in the
physician-model will have a different set of “scales” to practice than
a clinical herbalist practicing in the hygienist/nutritionist model.
Teachers will have routines of practice and preparation that are
unique to teachers. True mastery of botany is essential for a master
of wildcrafting, it is not for a clinical herbalist, and so on.

So I put the question for discussion: What are some of the routines,
practices, disciplines, and attitudes that can lead to progressive
development of an herbal career and lead to mastery in the field?

Please feel free to reprint or circulate this article freely.
--
Paul Bergner
North American Institute of Medical Herbalism http://naimh.com
Medical Herbalism Journal http://medherb.com

Devil's Club, Mountain Berries, Baneberry and a chipmonk

Top 3- Pic 1 Thimble berry (rubus sp) 2 Red Huckleberry Vaccinium parvifolium (today they were a bit tart, but I like this flavor) they are at their peek of ripeness right now. The leaves are alternate along the stem (pic 3), snow berry is white and the leaves of that plant and the bush itself look similar but they are opposite (across from each other) along the stem, keep this in mind when you are trying to ID the plant if there are no berries on it (clearly if they are white berries they are snowberry).

Next 3 are Devil's Club I wrote about this a few years back here
The leaves are huge! The pic does not do it justice, there are even spines under the leaves (so I found when I went to look under one to snap the shot of the stem) Really amazing plant! You really have to be in it's presence to know what I mean, it literally stopped me in my tracks as I was walking by (and it did not reach out to grab me with those thorns either), very powerful, and if you break a stem, the smell is very penetrating as well, it made me sneeze and my eyes water a bit. See how by the picture the leaves sort of resemble the thimble berry? But, if you are mindful and really look at plants as you are walking this stands out because the leaves are just huge in the full grown plant, they do kind of cover the whole plant (as you can see in the photo) , so I did not immediately see the spiny stems- they are hidden under those leaves. I was done for the day and heading back to the car, so this was the last plant I got to see before my drive home.

Next Baneberry (with the red berry cluster) Actacea rubra - sometimes confused with sweetroot, an edible member of the umbel family (I saw some of these near by as well, the do not have the red cluster on top) In herbalism Tilford from Edible and medicinal plants of the west states it should be handled with extreme care, that it is useful as a strong antispasmodic. I have not used this plant, this is the only one I found in the local area where I was walking today. I am sure there are more if I keep my eyes peeled:)

Creeping Raspberry rubus
I also enjoyed these wild raspberries on my walk, and noticed the salal arn't quite ripe yet, but I found so many I will be checking back.



I think the chipmunk was hoping for me to toss him some food (I was pretty close to camp sites) unfortunately, I had none with me. He hung out for quite a while on that rock, until of course I tried to zoom in for a closer shot.

Hanging out with the bees and other plant musings

The bees just love this oregano! I was marveling at how many bees were actually on the plant when suddenly one flies literally about 5 inches from my face and stayed there in mid air... as if to say 'what the heck are you doing here?' I was grateful that after he got a good look at me he flew away- then they all seemed OK with me hanging out... I was able to get this pic of the bee that said 'hello'.

The lemon balm seems to be doing pretty well to spite the heat...

Further up the mountain there are plenty of shady spots to get a little break from the heat... beneath this tree is a nice place to sit...

Simple, Easy, Effective- Getting started as a home herbalist

When I was in my Taekwondo class in college (1991)- I will never forget Grandmaster Tae Hong Choi saying "simple, easy, effective". He said this several times throughout class. He would heatedly remind us of this when we tried to make the simple complicated. When everyone first enters class their thoughts are Taekwondo must be fancy and magical- or it takes someone with special powers or abilities to have 'the gift'. They have all seen the movies with the fancy moves that look almost magical- they believe the hype. The first instinct is to try and copy these advanced 'moves' without learning the basics first (this could get you kicked in the face, is what a lot of students learned very quickly in class) Really it is starting out with, and mastering the basic 'moves' that leads to what looks to be very complex forms of fighting when it comes to advancing in competition - but you get there by practicing the simple basic moves FIRST. *I should add here that the magical part is connecting with the energy, this comes with patience and long term practice... this could be compared to plants too, but this is for another post:).

Master Choi was a champion, he was famous at my college for the picture of him breaking several concrete slabs with his head (far from the thought of simple, easy, effective- kinda intimidating as a new student thumbing through your class book before class begins) So everyone was quite shocked to know that there were about 10 'moves' that we practiced over and over again for the entire term. No 'magic' moves- no big secret. He assured us that these were the core of the class- and would get us far. All it took was commitment, knowledge and practice- he himself was over 60 years old and there were plenty of other students who were older there as well- he assured us anything was possilbe. There were students of all shapes, ages and skill levels, and we all learned something.

And you know what, Master Choi was right! By the end of the year, I was able to break a board with my fist, compete in competition, recieve my colored belt, and to this day I still feel confident that I have the basic tools for self defence. What does this have to do with herbs (you may ask?)

Being an herbalist is not reserved for the 'gifted healer' you can be your own herbalist for yourself and your family!

It reminds me of the common mindset that there is some kind of complicated secret to practicing with herbs, that someone else has to do it for us, that it is extremely dangerous or complicated.
I was at the store the other day looking at some herbal teas. I turned over the box to marvel at the 15 plus ingredients- "no wonder people are intimidated", I thought to myself!
There is a reason why chamomile and green tea are the top selling teas- that's right, simple, easy, effective!

I am not a 'healer', rather, I try to empower others to learn about herbs so they can use them to benefit their own health and well-being. Really, my goal is not so much to have someone depend on me forever, I would rather have them learn the 'magic' of working with herbs themselves! SHOCKING, I know.... and not a very good sales pitch, but it is the truth. Admitting that someone will eventually not 'need' me... huh- and I have no special powers- dang!

Don't get me wrong, I am not against herbal formulas (a very enjoyable process ) - but when you have 15 or 20 herbs in one tea bag or on the back of a pill bottle, I have to ask myself, is this just making a lot of herbal 'noise' in the body? This just adds to the 'placebo' theory of herbs, and adds to the skeptics saying 'herbs don't work'.
Really, can you explain how 20 herbs in one little tea bag are synergistic with one another and necessary for a stomach ache? Do you really need that specific 'blend' or will other herbs that are easily accessible (and less expensive I might add) do the trick?

I would rather see someone experiment with chamomile for example (has many uses for this 1 herb, nervousness, stomach ache, anti inflammatory just to name a few) If you had this ONE herb in your house, grew it yourself, made some tinctures, dried some for tea, used some in an herbal bath, made an oil, now you would be on your way to learning about how to take care of yourself and your family with herbal medicine!

OK, just to add- I am in no way bad-mouthing the big time corporations making the 20 ingredient teas. I am sure they may be great for some, for whatever reason.

But consider when you get started with herbs the "simple, easy, effective" mindset. Really get to know one plant and then move on to others. Get to know the spices in your drawer in a new way, is that ginger good for other things besides cooking- or how do you feel when you eat it? How about adding some to tea or making your first fresh plant tincture? How strong is it? What kind of sensations do you feel?

You see, taking charge of you and your family's health is as close as your kitchen cupboard or backyard- not necissarily some far away land or exotic miricle blend. Simple, easy, effective....

Grandmaster Choi passed on March 8, 2009.... his lifes work and teaching changed my life (this is not to be stated lightly, I don't think I would be the person I am today without the lessons I learned during class for those 2 years) and the life of many others, he will be missed.

Growing plants that attract wildlife

Check out my article in the July issue of American College Of Health Science newsletter!

Find it on page 4 How to help children discover the wonders of nature: Growing plants that attract wildlife

Recent photos~ growing like weeds!

Herbal Medicine Chest for busy moms- Happy Mother's day!

Check out my post over at the American College Of Herbal Studies!
It was a pleasure being a guest blogger! Enjoy Herbal Medicine Chest for Busy Moms

Rabbits like catnip~ Happy 2 yr anniversary to The Herbalist's Path!!!

Above: Catnip before Rabbit got to it.

On Easter we noticed a rabbit was living under our deck (ahhh, how cute look at the Easter Bunny!). He has now made himself right at home, the kids and I watch him in the morning- we tap on the window and he just looks at us gingerly. I was just out in my yard this morning and noticed my Catnip plant is chewed to a nub. Bummer! I was looking forward to tincturing some soon!
I am kinda surprised he doesn't touch the lemon balm (right next to the catnip) He does also enjoy red clover.
If he lets me snap a picture of him I will add it to the blog (of course when I go to get the camera he is gone).
Our dog Koa has made friends with the rabbit (who I will now affectionately call Catnip), kinda funny he picks and chooses his friends, he chases away the blue jay that gets so territorial (he has dive bombed me a few times).
I guess I will be out to get some more Catnip, and this time it will be in a pot near the house.

More posts on Catnip, here, here, and here.

By the way, Happy 2 yr anniversary to The Herbalist's Path -OK one day late:)! Hard to believe it has already been 2 years since I first started blogging~ Still lovin' it! I have also started another blog Authentic Mama if you are interested in following your authentic path come on over!

If anyone is interested in reading my first post EVER on a blog you can find it HERE.

My home on earth day-

zig zag road

The Sandy River
The park we often walk to from our house
My home on Earth Day. Me and the kids at my favorite coffee shop Mountain Moka

The kids and I just got back from our morning outing - thought I would share some pictures.

Huge Saving on my most popular online course Herbalist 101! | Authentic Mama

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Easter! To celebrate I am giving a huge discount on my most popular online course Herbalist 101!

I have had students tell me what a bargain the course is at $65.00- unbelievably for a limited time I am offering the course for $37.00!

You receive one on one email support from me throughout the entire course. The course is packed full of information (it takes most students about 6 months to complete). Now is a great time to join especially if you live in the US because many plants are ready to harvest now!

Empower yourself by learning how to make ‘common weeds’ and kitchen spices into remedies for yourself and your family (and many yummy wild food recipes as well). The course also covers balance, nourishment and overall wellness.

I hope to see you there!

Here is what one student had to say about her experience.

You should enroll in this class if your goal is to become an herbalist for fun or profit. The best way to start on the path to becoming an herbalist is to become intimate with a few plants and learn the basics of herbal preparation.

This course will cover 25 herbs that you can find in your kitchen or backyard! They include Dandelion, Mullien, Yarrow, Nettle, Plantain, Calendula, Cleavers, Burdock, Yellow dock, Marshmallow, Red clover, Comfrey, Catnip, Chamomile, Alfalfa, Black Pepper, Cinnamon, Flax, Fennel, Ginger, Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Tumeric, and Garlic. Detailed descriptions with scientific names, constituents, associated aliments and recipes will be included. This class will also cover herbal consulting, herbal preparation, wildcrafting. This course will also cover how to make herbal remedies for friends and family, basic herbal pharmacognosy, the spiritual aspect of healing, different types of herbal tradition such as Native American, Western herbalism, Folk medicine, and much more!

You will learn how to make infusions, decoctions, tinctures, fluid extracts, elixirs, essences and many other recipes. This class will also cover the healing philosophy of balance and the role and responsibilities of the community herbalist. Begin your herbal journey with me today!

Disclaimer: This course is for education only and has not been evaluated by the FDA, it is not intended to treat or diagnose disease. Please consult your Doctor before taking herbal medicines.

Plant Spirit Healing Pam Montgomery Forward Stephen Harrod Buhner

I'm giving away Plant Spirit Healing over at Authentic Mama- comment for a chance to win! Keep an eye open- I will be giving away more great herb books this weekend (like Stehen Buhner & M Wood)!

Gardening on my mind, snow on the ground

Woke up to snow again this morning- according to forecasts, it is supposed to snow quite a bit this weekend.

I am so ready to start gardening! I am getting such an itch I am adding more herbs to my indoor kitchen garden! All my outdoor pots broke because I did not move them in during the first big freeze, so I may pick up some more today as well- If I find a good deal on some nice pots I will post pictures!

I am giving away Growing and Using Herbs Successfully by Betty Jacobs over at the Authentic Mama blog- head over and comment on the simple living challenge of the day- you just may win!

Challenge! On a whim I am giving away my herb books!!!

Check it out http://authenticmama.com/?p=95

Yep, over at my other blog Authentic Mama I will be giving away my herb books.
Since I did this on a whim - I started with a good book, but not my absolute favorite.
Keep going back daily because I plan on giving away books from authors like.
Matthew Wood
Stephen Harrod Buhner
James Green
and many others!

The contest will go on until at least March 21st ..... Enjoy!

Challenge: guess ID 7 spring plants from my yard

I thought this may be fun. Can you guess the ID on these plants? These are all from my yard today:) Leave a comment with your guesses! From top to bottom 1-7.

Spring iris has sprung! Just days after snow

Above it what our yard looked like just 2 days ago- and look!!! The wild iris is back! They spread from last year, when I had just one or 2!
I'm so excited that spring has sprung!
Oregano and Catnip are peeking out as well:)

New Herbal Videos - Facebook and Twitter

John has some new videos on youtube

Ok I am jumping on the bandwagon! I joined twitter- if you are interested in what I am eating you may be disappointed (unless it is beneficial when it comes to herbs). I plan on putting little herbal tid-bits I find throughout the day (like when I heard about johns new videos, articles or other good resources that I don't have time to blog about) really not sure what to think about twitter- we will see how it goes- I'm not going to overwhelm anyone, I will probabaly only post once or twice daily (if that). It is a lot like facebooks 'what are you doing right now' app. So I may just stick with Facebook.

I also joined Facebook- you will find a lot of my old high school friends there- but I will also be posting my events and other herbal insights:) Some pretty cool herbalists are on facebook now- I really encourage you to join!

New Blog for Green Mamas! Authentic Mama

Here is the blog Authentic Mama

I finally started a blog on my own server
It is just for moms it is called Authentic Mama


Don't worry I am still going to be blogging about herbs on this blog.

Just wanted to share just in case some of you green mamas are interested!

How to Become a Master Herbalist in Thirty Years or More

For those of you who are not subscribed to any of the email herb lists or who have not seen this excerpt yet-


Here is an excerpt from an upcoming article from one of my favorite herbalists Paul Bergner (posted with permission)

How to Become a Master Herbalist in Thirty Years or More
by Paul Bergner

I am convinced that Western medical herbalism is dying in North
America and Britain. If we stop congratulating ourselves for a moment
on the growing numbers of herbalists, or of schools, or of accredited
degrees, or of more interest by scientists in herbs, and look
honestly, we will see it is dying. If we look to a hundred years ago,
the number of herbs in use, and the knowledge of those herbs, by
professional herbalists, they greatly exceeded what we use today. Our
medical herbal forebears mastered more herbs than we do today, and
also knew more about each of them. If, say, an herbalist today, truly
understands about a hundred herbs, and knows 2-3 clinical things about
each of them, we can call that 250 data bits. If our ancestors learned
365 herbs (more on this below), and knew 6-8 things about each, then
that is more than 2500 data bits, and 90% of our herbal knowledge has
gone down the drain.
Much of this loss of knowledge in North America is because the the
collapse of medical level herbal education early in the 20th century.
The loss of direct clinical education has been most devastating.
Another cause is the abandonment by herbalists of their own traditions
in the later 20th century in favor of "scientific" herbalism, as the
trend by herbalists to become defensive and "prove that herbs work"
came to dominate the psychology of the herbal faculties. Herbal
practice has become dominated by The Book rather than by Direct
Clinical Observation, or even by Tasting. A scientific trial of an
herb is like a serial killer. We have, for instance, a wonderful
diffusive and diaphoretic, reliable emmenagogue, mucous membrane
remedy for the stomach and lungs, and occasional remedy for certain
kinds of headaches, in the herb feverfew. These properties can
readily be experienced and confirmed by simply taking some of the herb
and paying attention. But once a clinical trial establishes that
feverfew is "good for migraines" it becomes The Migraine Remedy. Never
mind that feverfew is not all that effective for migraines (it reduced
episodes on average by about 25% in one trial, and for one segment
provided no relief at all), in the absence of direct experience, or of
clinically experienced faculty who know the herb from first hand use,
or even an authenic clinically based text book, the trial "murders"
all the other uses of the herb, and they fall away, lost to posterity
with no one even to mourn at their grave. Now the proud student
adminsters standardized extracts of feverfew to the patient with a
migraine, ignoring such factors as the hot or cold or deficient state
of the patient, or her menstrual patterns, and tells them to take it
every day forever to reduce migraine. Now the weak and exhausted
patient with a red face sweats profusely and her dehydration is
aggravated. The women with normal menses suddenly is flooding, not to
mention the patient with menorrhagia. Because of the scientific trial,
and the devaluation of traditional experience and hands-on experience,
the student is for practically purposes disabled for clinical
practice. The "expert faculty" has become the one who knows all the
clinical trials and plant constituents instead of the one who has
decades of experience taking the herb personally and seeing its
effects directly in clients and students. The epitaph on the tombstone
of medical herbalism will read:

European Phytotherapy
finally was the death of me.
I had three-hundred-

sixty-five;
they cut me down to twenty-five.

About those 365 herbs: I have a copy of Physio-Medical Therapeutics,
Materia Medica and Pharmacy by T.J.Lyle. This book was used as the
materia medica text at the Chicago Physiomedical College after its
publication in 1897 until the college closed in 1913. (You can
download an electronic version of this book at David Winston's web
site). The book later formed the basis for sections of the Dominion
Herbal College course written by Dr Herbert Nowell in 1926 and still
available today.. My copy of the book is a reprint from 1932 by the
the National Association of Medical Herbalists in Britain; the copy
appears to have belonged to a student sometime mid-century when it was
used as a text in a pre-clinical therapeutics course at school there.
The student underlined, very carefully, with a fountain pen and a
ruler, the material from the lectures for which he or she would be
responsible on examination. The markings fairly well ruin the resale
value of the book on the rare book market, but offer very valuable
insight into mid-century British herbal education and entry level
knowledge into the profession at that time. The book contains
listings for about 430 herbs in the materia medica section, and about
85% of these are underlined. That comes to 365 herbs this student was
required to learn. (This is, by the way, the same number of herbs in
the oldest Chinese classical materia medica) The underlining itself is
telling, because the student was not responsible for all the material
in the book, but most often for the uses of the herb and the tissues
it affects. And the fingerprints of the teacher in this class are also
evident, because not all the uses were emphasized. It is the mark of
an experienced clinician and experienced clinical educator to be able
emphasize those things that will be most important clinically,
according to his or her experience, from the larger amount that
inevitably appears in books and can overwhelm the entry-level clinical
student. And we also have the fingerprints there of Lyle, who was the
protégé of Physiomedicalist master William Cook for decades, and who
also interviewed many of his contemporary colleagues before completing
his text; and of Cook himself, who practiced and taught diligently for
more than fifty years. Which brings me to the topic of this article.
Drs. Cook, Lyle, Nowell, and the unnamed faculty of the student who
did the underlining in my book were all masters of herbalism. All
studied and practiced with a diligence and rigor and a focus on
hands-on experience which is for the most part lost from contemporary
North American herbal education and practice. they all studied under
masters of herbalism, either directly or indirectly. And without the
reemergence of that level of rigor in study and practice, and that
level of mastery, I think our profession will die.

--
Paul Bergner
North American Institute of Medical Herbalism http://naimh.com
Medical Herbalism Journal http://medherb.com

The Kids - Survived the 'Arctic Blast'

Here are some recent shots of the kids- the above shot was taken after the 'Arctic Blast' that made it impossible to get out of our street for 5 days (no snow plow- 3 ft of snow on the street) Of course I ordered a camera and it could not be delivered due to the snow storm so I was unable to get any really good shots of the deep snow:(

Announcing the new Medicine Woman Tradition and Animá websites

I have been enjoying taking a break away from the interntet so I can spend more time with family. I have missed the blog so expect some new posts coming soon:)
Oh, in other news- I finally got a new camera!!! (mine bit the dust a few months back) So expect some great new pictures too!

In the meantime.....Announcing the new Medicine Woman Tradition and Animá websites!

Announcing the new Medicine Woman Tradition and Animá websites:

THE MEDICINE WOMAN TRADITION SITE
& Correspondence Courses

http://www.medicinewomantradition.org

A home for all herbalists, healers and students of the living earth, featuring medicinal herb profiles, the inspiring writings of Kiva Rose, descriptions of the Medicine Woman Core and Herbal courses, and the magical Medicine Woman Gathering held each Summer in the forested mountains of New Mexico.

&

ANIMÁ

Correspondence Courses, & Wilderness Retreat & Learning Center

http://www.animacenter.org

A site offering empowering Shaman Path, Rewilding, Medicine Woman and Path of Heart online courses, and a free articles archive… as well as information on wilderness retreats, vision quests and workshops at the Animá Sanctuary, a wild river canyon and ancient place of power in the enchanted Southwest.

2009 Workshops:

ReWilding: Thriving in Hard Times as Good May 22-25
Shaman Path Intensive July 2-5
The Medicine Woman Gathering Aug 7-12
Wild Foods Weekend Aug 28-31

Animá is the way of vital, authentic, purposeful being… of heightened awareness, radical honesty, connective sentience, self knowledge and self love, purpose and conscious action, bliss and balance, health and wholeness… correspondence Courses, events and books drawn directly from the source, from the living earth and through our intuitive hearts, manifest in our commitments and acts on our unique individual paths. The Animá Medicine Woman tradition focuses in addition on the committed healing of self, others, and the world we are a part of.
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Please consider a supportive Membership.
And thank you so very much for your interest and alliance, helping spread the word about this special place and service.
We are only able to give because of you.