Herbalism In A Time of Man Made Climate Change

Street Altar ( Brooklyn, Ny) By Frances F. Denny

With an herbal practice all about caretaking, I’m always thinking about the state of our planet. My ancestors grew food, herbs, flowers, trees… yeah, but what they really valued was stewarding wildlife ~ providing safe space for the plants to do what they do. They maintained a relationship with the natural world they inhabited, learned the plants ways, reciprocally tended them, sustained their lives largely from the abundance of their local land. Their gardens were mostly in the forest, looking quite different from the open acres of rows we see in today’s farms. Picture that kind of biodiversity! This isn’t just the story of my ancestors, its the story of most working class people’s families (that’s most of us) ~ one that we have been so far removed from.

Recently while in the woods, where I spend most of my time, I was thinking about this broken relationship, and conversely, how just being in nature, in the forest, oceans, mountains ~ can be just as medicinal as consuming the medicine we make from it. Because capitalism pervades everything, even the dominant conversations of herbalism in the united states, we so often hear about the million medicines we should be taking, all the self care rituals we should engage in… seldom do we hear our “teachers” tell us that the best thing we can do for ourselves is to just get outside (unless of course they’re charging). Sit with the Trees. Listen to your Plants. Watch the Water and the Sky. Grow your own Food. We could all be doing all the things we pay for other people to do for us ~ and be left with all that we need and more free time than we have now. And in way better health.

It made me think of hearing Ron Finley speak a while back. He spoke about how this isn’t by accident, but by design. Beauty in ~ Beauty out, he said. Reminding us how simple it is - what we put into our bodies and environment is what we will get out of them. He used the example of our public spaces… despite how much we know about how environments shape our behavior, how color affects us, how interconnected and elevated we are by the earth & its plants … we still continue to have schools, hospitals, prisons, all built by the same contractors, all designed in the same oppressive industrial way.

We know that reestablishing people’s relationship with nature is the best thing we could do for them. Giving them a sense of connection, worth, purpose, and providing them with a lifelong skill. Yet we don’t. And the truth that a very small group of people make the choice not to because it benefits them financially is undeniable. That’s why Ron thinks growing your own food is the most gangster thing you can do, and I agree.

Because its all connected. The pain we’re causing our planet with our senseless production and consumption, our global markets, our exploitation of the earth and its inhabitants ~ it mirrors the sicknesses & afflictions we’re now facing. And even though we’re tired, everyday we make a whole host of decisions ~ and while they may not be the big ones that cause the most destruction, little by little (and so collectively a lot) we can choose not to support those that do.

We can reestablish our relationship to our only home. We can tend the wild plants in our backyards and communities. We can ask questions about where the things we buy come from, who’s benefiting from them, and who’s being exploited in the process. How can we make these things ourselves instead of buying them? Do we even need them? Who built the spaces we inhabit and operate within? Why did they build them this way? How do we feel when we’re inside a school, a town hall, a hospital? How do we feel when we’re in the mountains, or the forest, or by the ocean?

And we can start feeling, thinking, imagining, creating for ourselves. We can delve into the very real possibility that there’s so many ways we can be going about life day to day. Then we can tell our own stories.