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