June 14, 2025 • 61 mins
In this enriching episode, we dive deep into the captivating world of herbalism with the esteemed Lisa Ganora. Known for her vibrant approach to medicinal plants, Lisa shares her personal journey that began with a transformative dream and led her down the path of herbal education. The episode explores the significance of herbal constituents and how they interact with the body, emphasizing an essential blend of scientific understanding and holistic practices.
As we navigate through fascinating stories of her experiences with plants, listeners will come to appreciate the rich tapestry that is herbal medicine. From battling food cravings using herbal remedies to the importance of connecting with the spirit of each plant, Lisa offers a wealth of knowledge that empowers individuals to take charge of their health. She reminds us that herbalism is not merely about remedies; it's a profound relationship with the earth and an intricate dance of biochemistry.
Join us as we unravel these complexities, taking with us key insights into the art and science of herbal healing. Don't forget to tune in, share, and explore how you can incorporate the wisdom of plants into your life!
Heart of Herbs Herbal School
The Heart of Herbs Podcast with Demetria Clark! 🌿 Tune in for herbal wisdom & wellness tips!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello, this is Demetria Clark, the director of Hard of Herbs
Herbal School. And today on the Hard of Herbs
Herbal School podcast, I know it's a mouthful, is Lisa Gnora
who runs herbalconstituents.com.Is that correct?
Yes, ma'am. And she has the herbal
constituents book on the market and it's a resource that we
(00:25):
encourage our students to to purchase and to use.
And I'm just so excited to have you on here today.
We even have a lecture from you in our in our student materials.
And one of the things I always hear is I never thought
constituents going to be so muchfun.
So our people are huge fans and we are so grateful that you were
(00:51):
willing to do that with us. I think it was about what, two
years ago now three years? Ago now a.
While. Does weird things lately.
But I wanted to say welcome and thank you so much for being
here. Can you please just tell us a
little bit about yourself? Sure, sure.
You know, let's see how far back, How far back do we go?
(01:16):
1986, I lived on Cape Cod. I started hearing about, hmm,
like women healers and herbs, you know, kind of hovering
around and I'm like, oh, it's all this.
And, you know, back back then itwas in Provincetown.
(01:36):
So I was kind of out in the ocean and I had, I was trying to
figure my life out, right? I was like, who am I?
Am I an artist, am IA photographer, am IA classical
musician. I'm like, who am I?
What am I supposed to be doing on this earth?
And I started having dreams, right?
And I started dreaming. In one of these dreams, this
(01:59):
elder native elder was sitting down in a kiva with her back to
me and she had some things arranged out in front of her.
And I walked up and that it was a lucid dream, right?
I walked up in the dream and I saw her and I stopped and I'm
like, oh, I shouldn't bother this person, they're doing
something important. And then I stood there for a
(02:21):
minute and thought, and I'm like, I'm here and she's here in
this dream. That's.
Which is mine. Don't walk away.
So I, you know, very respectfully walked down in and
sat down opposite of her. And after a little while, she
looked up and she said to me, well, I knew you were coming,
(02:42):
but I didn't think it would takethis long.
Don't you love it when your dreams have attitude?
I know. And I was like, OK, this is for
real. I will not look away.
I'm going to pay attention. And she showed me three things
that were laid out, three ceremonial objects, and one of
(03:05):
them was a wreath made of herbs with herbs twisted all around
the grapevines. And she pointed in that
everything. And she said memorize these.
And so I looked at them for a while and memorized them.
And then she looked up at me andshe didn't tell me what to do.
She didn't tell me how to do it.She just looked up at me and got
(03:27):
this big smile on her face and dissolved and vanished.
And I woke up and went, what happens here?
You know, what am I supposed to?Who was that?
And you know, short story, I hada series of dreams like that
when I was out there and it the plants were calling to me.
And so I followed that. I followed up with that by my
(03:52):
first herb that I used medicinally was dandelion root,
right? And I had gotten like super
addicted to chocolate. It's crazy.
I was eating so much of it. I was making myself sick and I
was so ignorant of health. I didn't even realize that like
the chocolate was followed an hour later by the blood sugar
crash and I felt terrible. And then I ate more chocolate
(04:13):
and I'd be great again, you know?
So I went through this wrangle with that and a friend of mine
turned me on to dandelion root. And she's like, you know, when
you get the craving, drink the dandelion root tea.
She showed me how to make a really strong tea with a like an
infusion and just drink a cup ofthe tea.
And then don't fight with yourself because you're going to
lose. If it's like, you know, an
(04:34):
addictive kind of relationship, you're going to lose.
Don't fight with yourself. Just do what you got to do.
But always drink the tea 1st. And I did it And the first time,
I kid you not, I went to eat thechocolate bar and see eating the
whole thing, I ate half and thenmy body was like good enough.
And that was 1 cup of dandelion root tea.
I know, right? So I kept doing it and I was all
(04:56):
skeptical and stuff. And I know I'm drinking weeds.
This is super weird, you know? But I kept doing it and it kept
working. And after about two weeks, I had
zero desire for chocolate anymore.
And I was like, I need to learn about these herbs because nobody
in school, like I've been to college and stuff, nobody in
school told me that this was a real thing, right.
(05:18):
And I was pre Med studies and, and it's all like, oh, isn't
that funny superstition that your, your grandma used to do?
Ha, ha, study the real medicine over here, you know, old wives
tale. Yeah.
Oh, that was an old wife down the Internet.
Yeah, yeah. You know, so I Yeah, the dandy,
(05:40):
the dreams and the dandelion andthe whole world started opening
up. I'm like, I really need to know
about this. So I connected 1986.
I connected with the Wise Woman Center up in Saugerties, NY,
Susan Weed's place. And I was like broke ass.
Like I didn't have any money. So I wrote an actual letter
(06:04):
before we had the Internet, y'all.
Oh my gosh. And I sent it up there and I
said, hey, I can I do photography, I can trade, can I
come up? This dream happened.
And so I got invited up there and it was a, it was a summer
solstice. And then I forget exactly.
(06:25):
And it completely blew my mind 'cause there was a group of
women there communicating with plants and doing this whole oral
tradition of plant healing just like this exists.
That was like I was, I remember driving up the driveway for the
first time. I was like, oh, what am I
getting into? But everyone was super friendly
(06:47):
and I learned so much. And then I went back and then I
went back again. So that was, that was the first
tradition that I learned herbalism in, which is great
because it gave me this hands on, you know, medicine making,
wild crafting. Learn directly from the plants,
have a relationship with the plants and I, you know, and all
the kind of shamanic type aspects involved.
(07:09):
And I did that for about 10 years.
And I also hung out with traditional nurse midwives back
there in Western Mass. Yeah, when I moved to Western
Mass from the Cape, which was like a special class of humans,
right, with amazing skills and also just this long history of
(07:30):
using herbs in very specific context and really understanding
the safety and the dosage and when to use what.
So I followed a lot of those folks around and be like, I'll
dig your, I'll carry your tools,I'll dig your root for you.
You know, I don't. I didn't even know there was
such a thing as an herb school back then.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
(07:51):
But I did that for a while, and then I ended up moving to this.
Yeah, I was in Massachusetts forabout 10 years, doing like the
Villager list and going to some births and different stuff.
Had a kid and decided I needed to move to the Southern
Appalachians because my family had a house way back in the
woods up in Yancey County. And it was empty at the time.
(08:14):
And I was like, I need a place to live.
So that whole relationship with those herbs and those mountains
and those traditions, just really, you know, that was it.
Like this is what I'm doing withmy wife is weird.
It was just amazing. I mean, it's amazing part of the
country. It's gorgeous.
(08:36):
You. Know yeah my grandmother is from
there Oh really yeah she she went to finishing school in
Asheville and worked at Woolworths that was her first
job wow yeah. So I.
Moved there, huh? Woolworths was still open when I
moved there. We used to go in there.
Yeah, no, she she. And then she ran off to marry my
(08:58):
grandfather and have seven children.
But and then they, but they, they never strayed far from the
mountains, even when he was, youknow, I mean, I think that's
something that gets in your soul.
Absolutely that. Kind of connection.
Like, I can't wait to get back. I'm going on a big road trip in
May, and that's like the star ofthe road trip.
Oh. Cool.
(09:18):
Area visiting some of my old plant stands.
Hopefully they survived the hurricane and, you know, other
destruction down there, but I still have a lot of friends in
the area and it's just, you know, it's my other home,
really. Oh nice.
If I wouldn't live here, I wouldlive there.
OK, All right, Fair enough. Right.
(09:40):
We always have those few places that tug on our heartstrong
streams. So when you were in there, down
there, what was what was happening next?
So you moved to. Yeah, so continued doing the
wild crafting, selling the herbal products, hanging out
with the midwives, you know, andjust making do plant rescues for
(10:02):
when they were putting the highway in.
Worked on a organic ginseng and golden seal woods grown farm for
a while. Lived in a teepee, Spent some
time at Joe Hollis's Mountain Gardens, lived in a teepee
there, you know, did the, the, the downhome herbalist life.
And, and then somebody suggestedto me that I should go back to
(10:25):
college because at that point you could get grants and super
cheap student loans. And, you know, I was a single
mom with a kid. So they're like, why don't you
just do that? You'll even get enough money to
live on. You can learn more stuff.
And, you know, I thought about it.
I'm like, that sounds fun, right?
(10:46):
Yeah. Fair.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
So I enrolled at UNCA in the biology department, and I was
shooting for a minor in chemistry, which I missed by one
class because it wasn't scheduled my last semester.
So I did a lot of chemistry, a lot of biology, all the plant ID
(11:07):
and field studies, learned how to key and do a botanical key
and everything. All the independent studies
thing like independent research project, I made it be about
herbal medicine or medicinal plants.
And I was the weirdo back then, right?
So I graduated from there in 2000.
So this is the late 90s. This is what I was doing in the
(11:27):
late 90s. You know, they were all like,
well, isn't she interesting, Youknow, except there's the plant
Physiology professor kind of gotit.
But at that point, academia and traditional herbal medicine
didn't quite know what to do with each other, you know, And
that's gone a long way since then.
Oh, my gosh, yeah. I was, I was the edgy one.
(11:51):
I was that strange, eccentric but smart kid who, like, wrote a
thesis about phytolaca, poke, weed and, you know, all these
things. But I had a great time there.
I love just being able to dive into that and, you know, learn
the sciences that are behind that have really come up now to
introduce modern herbalism. And when I graduated, I was
(12:17):
like, this is so cool. I now have this hands on
community herbalist, wise women tradition background and this
scientific education. What am and you know, how do I
put those together and what sortof herbalist am I going to make
my career into? You know, and I thought about it
(12:39):
and I'm like, herbal constituents.
No one is talking very much. People are starting to be
curious about that. But there's not a good book out
there, you know? You wrote it.
Yeah, on purpose because, you know, there were like good like
pharmacognosy books, which is like what the pharmacy schools
(13:00):
would. It's like PhD dive stuff, you
know? Yeah, yeah.
Post baccalaureate stuff, there was good stuff, but it was hard
to understand for people with anherbal background or maybe who
hadn't studied years of chemistry and everything.
So I'm like, I'm going to study all of this stuff with the help
of the great Jim Duke. He really inspired me.
James that's. Probably an inspiration.
(13:22):
James Duke Yeah. You know, I I sought out, it's
like, who knows about this? You know, I sought out a few
people. And so I studied.
After I graduated, I studied that and you know, unfortunately
I had the background to understand it and then I started
translating it. So it would be more practical
(13:43):
for Herbus and also so you couldhave an actual personal
relationship with phytochemicals, right?
Because you can smell them, you can taste them.
Some of them you can smell, somelike, well, you know this Auron
therapy, right? Some of them you can taste.
Some of them have a particular feel like mucilages are
(14:04):
slippery, tannins are dry. You know, some of them you can
tell by the colors. So I spent a lot of time weaving
together the sensory experience of herbs and how you can
communicate with a plant that way, with what's behind it in
the herbal constituents world and with the physiological
activities of those constituents.
(14:24):
And also how that applies to medicine making.
Like why would I tincture this herb versus make it into a fire
cider or drink, drink a water infusion or make a oil or a
salve out of it? You know, because you can bring
so many different kinds of medicines out of one herb
depending on how you, you know what, what you make with it, how
(14:44):
you extract it and what that's also chemistry behind that, like
herbal chemistry behind those principles, right?
Because some things really come out in the water well and some
things need higher percent ethanol, like, you know, in
tinctures and that's alcohol andsome things really make a really
good oil infusion. So learning how to put together,
(15:08):
you know, the constituents, their solubility, their activity
and all that kind of stuff is a way to understand how to make
better medicines out of plants also.
Awesome. So that's what I got fascinated
with and I'm still doing it. Yeah, no, we, we, we always hear
(15:31):
students that always love like, like they go and check out your
stuff after they like, hey, check out this book, you know,
because your enthusiasm for yourtopic is contagious.
I love how you, you mentioned the fact that a nerve can do
more than one thing. So like I always try to like
(15:53):
really encourage students to like, yes, you can use it this
way or this way, but it's like there's more than one
application. There's like more than one way
to make a cake, you know? And they're like, oh, you know,
like that light bulb moment whenthey're very beginning.
And it's like echinacea for thisor this is for that.
And then you see that like the whole thing just like kind of
explode. And they're like, whoa, hang on
(16:14):
a SEC. Yeah, it's like.
You think you're going to learn an herb.
You know, it's like I'm just. No Nice try and I'll.
Know it and then I'll all of a sudden this still happens, you
know? Oh.
Yeah, like, routinely I'm like, oh, I think I know what I'm
doing. I think I know.
And then I learned something newabout the plant and I'm like,
wait. Oh, absolutely.
I know this for 30 years, You know, because plants are so
(16:37):
deep, they're really complex, you know, and so it totally
makes sense to learn like one orone action at first, but you,
you got to realize it's like, wow, that's, you know, that's
herb kindergarten. It just keeps going.
I love that I'm going to have tosteal that phrase, Herb.
Kindergarten. Because it's it's true.
It's like that's, that's like the basic worksheet.
(17:00):
What color is this? You know what I mean?
Like basic, basic worksheet, butit's, it's a lot more herbs are
a lot more involved and complex and simple than we think.
You know what I mean? Like it's all.
Over the place. It's all over the place.
I love that you first started with like the Wise woman
(17:21):
tradition that, you know, I did some early work with when you
said, you know, you wrote a letter.
I remember sending in my writtenhomework.
So I love that. But I think that that it's
important that people understandthat you can be, quote, very
scientific and write a book about constituents, right?
(17:47):
But you can also understand the beauty, the grace and the
mystery at the same time. And I think that sometimes I see
different herbal approaches thatit's like all or nothing.
And I'm like, oh, OK, then wheredo I fit in?
Like, so if you're listening to this and you, you love both
theories. Lisa is a good example of of how
(18:10):
those things can work together. We shouldn't.
You know, I one thing I've learned throughout my long life
is not to limit herbs with my own opinion.
You know what I mean? I'll be like, oh, that's good
for this, or I don't like this herb or, you know, that doesn't
work very well or that's amazingor that doesn't do this or that.
That's the only thing for this. I don't.
(18:31):
I try not to do that at all anymore because herbs
continually surprise me. Yeah, it's like as we have the
opportunity to dig deeper, more is being uncovered.
It's like an archaeological site, you know?
It really is. It's the discovery and the
mystery, you know what I mean? You're just like, guess what?
I found out and then I get all. I used to really be into
(18:53):
archaeology as a kid, so great analogy.
Oh, perfect, perfect. I was real.
I'm really into anthropology. So like, for me, herbalism was
just, it made sense. You would use what's around you
if you were a community or whatever.
So why would this not be a good thing to do?
I mean, you know, so it's, it's interesting how we can take so
(19:17):
much from the past when when it's convenient and not
acknowledge things from the pastwhen it's not.
And it's like, yeah, there's a reason why people use something
for so long. Yeah, or the, OR the plant is
named after the condition. You know, like you probably
think a few of those like the like, like self heal, Prunella
(19:39):
vulgaris, right, Self heal or heal all super interesting herb,
right? The German name for it.
I'm not going to butcher it by trying to say it, but the German
name for it is the word for infected bleeding gums or
ginger. Oh, try to say it.
Yeah, it's like BBRUNEL or something close to that, you
(20:02):
know, and. It's just like, OK, if a plant
is named after a condition, there's a pretty good chance
snake bite. Root.
What's it? Snake bite root is like one of
the names of like, you know, we always tell students to learn
the Latin name because there's so many common names out there
(20:25):
that overlap are the same, or there's like four or five plants
that carry the same common name.Yeah, besides, the world knowing
like Latin names is like, is like, you know, in Harry Potter
verse, it's like you can cast a spell with a Latin name.
Well, I could talk to anyone with it.
So I remember I've gone to herb markets in Turkey and in Egypt
(20:47):
and and then different places inEurope.
And so I would go in and I'd just be looking around and we
couldn't necessarily speak the same language.
I didn't know Farsi. I didn't know, you know, Arabic
or anything like that. But I could say the Latin name
of the herb. And we were suddenly vibing, you
know, we were suddenly like, OK,understanding each other and
(21:10):
making faces and hand gestures or slight language overlap to
figure out what was going on. And I think that the Latin names
are the scientific names, no matter what you call them,
right? I think they open you up to each
other herbally. That's really cool.
Yeah, 'cause it's like the lingua franca, you know, it's
like, it's the language. It's like, oh, we can talk about
(21:32):
Prunella. Yeah, yeah, that's.
But it does help keep you straight with your species.
I mean, you know, that's one of the fun things when you're first
getting into herbalism, too. You learn your plant
identification, right? And and you can get better and
better and better at that your whole life.
But having those scientific names it like, you know, it puts
(21:54):
you in that realm where you're like, OK, I am able to learn
this specific plant and not confuse it with other plants,
which, you know, you don't want to make those mistakes.
So yeah, it's important and, andit's really cool too.
Like one of my favorite things about herbalism is these archaic
words you get to use, right? Like, like archaic medical words
(22:16):
and like, you know, energetics language and stuff like that,
along with the Latin names. And yeah, it's just, it's a
whole nother realm. It's got a lot of like kind of
mystery appeal to it, you know, at the same time.
And it's not mutually exclusive with science.
That's the thing. It's like I communicate with
plants. I learned how to do that.
(22:37):
You know, I'll sit down and I'lllisten to them and I'll engage
my intuitive, you know, my intuitive sense when I'm
formulating for a person or something.
I think that's equally legitimate stuff as the whole,
you know, read the scientific studies, understand the
chemistry, you know, know the human Physiology in detail and
how they interact and got some geisha enzymes and all this
(22:59):
stuff. It's all you know.
It's all part of being a living human in relationship with
living plants. Absolutely.
Yeah, limit myself. Yeah, spend.
A long time. It's funny, I like, I love the
scientific names cuz it helps mevisualize the landscape Too
(23:21):
often when they talk about like or something like that, I'm
like, OK, all right, maybe something I've never heard of
before. It helps me visualize where it
comes from. And this, I can understand the
color even if it's just reading something and I'm not actually
looking at it. So I love that it's a language
(23:41):
of its own. It is.
It's just like, well, just like the work that you do, Like,
yeah. That's a.
Whole other that's. There's a lot of overlap,
fortunately. But yeah, I mean, those Latin
name, they all mean something. You get like, what is there's a,
there's a really cool little book.
I'm not remembering the name of it now, but it helps you
(24:02):
understand what Latin names meanand botany and medicine and
stuff. And I mean, they all, it's just
a different language. They all have meanings like, you
know, tall spiky plant that grows near the Creek or, or you
know what I mean? It's like it's not just, you
know, spells, not just spells. Maybe a little.
(24:26):
That's what you're being, lactones.
I always do that when I teach class.
Constipation. No, Morris.
Yeah, dude, get get yourself a rowing wand.
That's all I can. Say that's awesome.
I love that. I love that.
So what is the what is the one of the?
(24:47):
What is one of your biggest joyswith teaching?
With teaching, oh man, lighting,lighting, that enthusiasm.
That's the thing. It's like when I'm teaching, I
get so excited because plants and phytochemistry and all that
stuff. It's just super interesting to
(25:09):
share it with people who you seethe light bulbs going off, you
know, because like with medicinemaking, for example, and I get
to be 9 years old, by the way. All right.
Which is like awesome. But so medicine making is an
example like we'll we learn first kind of what the recipe
(25:29):
say, you know, you learn from your teachers, like do it this
way, do it this way, use this much of that, use these herbs,
whatever. And it's kind of recipe based
approach, but we don't necessarily learn at first why
we're doing it that way, right? It's like, why did, why is this
tincher made with 50%, you know,alcohol?
(25:50):
Why is this? And then you look at tinchers in
the store and you're like, why is this one 8085%?
Why is this 130%? Like what is happening there?
What what are people doing with that?
You know, And when you start asking yourself the why
questions, then it opens up thiswhole other realm.
And when you learn what's behindthe why, then you have amazing
(26:10):
skills as a medicine maker, right?
So I love to teach all kinds of classes, but I, I try to work
some kind of medicine making andconstituents based medicine
making thing into most of what Ido.
And, and just to like watch the light bulbs go off and, and
people they're getting the whys behind the, you know, do this,
(26:31):
Don't do that. Feel like, don't use that herb
with that medication because youmight have in our drug
interaction, right? And then we go, why?
How does that work? Learn the details and learn when
it's OK to do that or what form,like can I use a tincture?
Can I use AT, how much of it canI use?
Like what? Which particular medication are
(26:53):
we talking about? Because there's always all these
details behind the things that we learn, you know?
Yeah. And it just keeps going, like we
were saying forever. So I think one of my favorite
things about teaching is, is getting people to start asking
why they're doing what they're doing, you know, and why they're
doing a thing the way they're doing it.
(27:15):
And then once they start understanding the why behind it,
it gives you a whole lot more. And this is for clinical
practice, too. It gives you a whole lot more
insight and ability to, for example, formulate for a
specific person. Yeah, right.
Because instead of being like, you know, echinacea is good for
the immune system, you Start learning this kind of stuff and
(27:37):
you're like, what is it? Good for Tom's immune system or?
Whatever. Yeah.
Or like, the immune system is complicated.
Let's learn about the immune system and how it works, you
know? And maybe we should review our
immune system unit. Oh my God, I will never learn
everything I want to know about the immune system.
I will never learn everything I want to know about how humans
(28:01):
work, you know? Like.
You know, like I always feel like I'm running really fast to
play catch up with everything. You know, anytime there's a new
advancement or new this or new that that I've never heard of
before, I'm like, I'm never going to keep up.
And I mean, I guess that's the beauty of our work.
(28:22):
It always challenges us and always, like, makes us think.
That's the beauty of having a few decades of experience too,
you know? So I was such a smarty pants
when I was a young herbalist. Like, I learned a little bit,
and then I thought I knew a lot and I had opinions.
And I was all like, you know, entranced by my opinions.
(28:44):
And now that I'm like, just about 65, I have this
perspective. And I'm like, Oh, now I have a
sense of like, I know a lot morestuff, but I also know that, you
know, there's so much I don't know and that I could still
learn that'll make me a better herbalist.
(29:05):
And that gives me a lot of respect for my herbal elders.
You know, you hear this stuff. It's like respect your elders
when you're a young person, you're like, which ones?
I think they're all a bunch of they don't even know how to how
to how to work a phone. I mean, but you know, it's like
the herbal elders who've been practicing for 30-40 fifty
(29:26):
years. Those people have insights, you
know, and that are just valuableyou can't get anywhere else.
Like Paul Burdner was my, you know, is my herbal elder that I
learned so much about clinical herbalism, vitalist herbalism.
I mean, he's a science nerd too,you know, But just that whole
(29:48):
Vitalis practices thing and the importance of the food and like
form the, the diet is specific to the person and that herbal
formula is for the person. It's not just like this herb is
good for migraines. And it goes like that's the
Vitalis tradition and it goes way deeper than that.
And you start looking at conditions or diseases and
(30:10):
actual symptoms that the body iscommunicating.
Something underlying is going wrong.
Yeah, yeah. The body's finding a way to talk
to you, right? Or to talk to whoever's working
with them. No, it's really interesting how
we, we definitely, I find that herbalism is one career where
(30:34):
you definitely can grow into it long term.
So like some careers, like it's like you get a certain age and
it's like certain things are just too different or things
change too much. But herbalism, I think, keeps
challenging you. The longer you're in, the more
exciting it becomes. The more you learn, the more you
(30:56):
let go of, the more you understand.
I know nothing. I literally teach students but
I'm supposed to be the teacher and I'm like.
Yeah. Well, you know, students will be
like, well, what about this for this?
And I'm like, it's a little bit more complex than that.
You know, it's like it's yes, you can, but we can also do
(31:18):
this. We can also look at this like,
why aren't we looking at that? And then they're just like, oh,
OK. You know what that brings up
that that's like a huge thing, right?
Because even as a practicing or even as an experienced
practicing herbalist, like people will come up to you in
the farmers market or whatever and they'll be like what's good
for eczema? And they'll show you the eczema
and you're like, oh, how do I approach this?
(31:40):
Because most of us in this, in our culture have been trained in
allopathic thinking, right? Take this to make that go away
this for that. And then, you know, we have
whatever experiences we have with pharmaceuticals that make
us want some alternatives. And and so in the, in the
(32:00):
allopathic mindset, we're like, Oh, I this drug really didn't do
it for me for whatever reason. Maybe there's an herb that I
could use instead? Yeah.
Right. So then we go into allopathic
herbalism, which is a good placeto start, but don't get stuck
there, right? Because like you just said, it
goes deeper, deeper, deeper. And you know, and you can,
(32:23):
there's nothing wrong with doingharm reduction too.
And it's like, oh, I have a pounding headache.
Is there an herb I could take from that?
And you come up with something and they feel better.
But but we're always having, as herbalists, we're always having
to tell people it's like, look, we need to find the origins of
the condition. Yeah, it's a long term
commitment. It's not just, I mean, yeah,
(32:44):
there are some things, you're right, there's some things A for
B and things are taken care of and that's great.
I, I always tell my students like, that's a cute herbalism,
right? Like got to cut da da, da, da
or. But like when we're working with
clients, it's like one of the first jobs you have as a a
clinician is to let the client know this is a long term
(33:09):
relationship between the two of us.
This is not a way for me to keepmaking money off of you.
This is yeah, this is this is you having to follow through
too. Like you're part of this.
And I think it's so empowering for our clients to feel like
they're part of that, right? Yeah, because it's like the
(33:29):
original meaning of the word. Now, we're not allowed to call
ourselves doctors, and that's like it's illegal.
But the original meaning of the word doctor is teacher, Latin
meaning it means the teacher. And so I see the herbalist role
as like helping the person to understand what's going on, you
know, especially with chronic conditions, what's going on with
(33:51):
their body and where's the some of the roots of these conditions
are. And it's going to be
individualized, right? Yeah.
And start empowering, you know, supporting them and empowering
them to make changes that are going to let the wisdom of the
body self correct some of these conditions.
You know, because somebody knowshow to heal.
That's built in. Oh yeah.
(34:13):
I mean we. We.
It's like figuring that out and figuring where your herbal
support or your herbal nudges, as Simon Mills would say, it's
like just nudge that process andwatch it rebalance.
I always say it's like putting in a Lego block, you know, like
just filling in the missing piece, like building, you know,
(34:33):
working off of the foundation and adding in the blocks that
keep everything stable. Because the body will say, you
know, it's like when you talk, when you work with little kids,
right? You can tell them, close your
eyes, imagine that you've got a sword and you're killing the
germ bugs, right, or whatever. This is like what we used to do.
My boys were in the Knights, right?
They went through their phase orthey're really in the Knights,
(34:54):
right? So it's like you're going to be
like God, you're in battle and La La and that's your body
taking care of itself. And I swear they still do this
to this day. They may not admit it, but I
think like they know their body will, you know, they've learned
to trust that thing And and I think we're taught not to trust
our ability. Oh, oh, cool, right.
(35:14):
I mean, that's a huge gap in in American education.
You don't learn how your body works and you don't learn how
money works. Yeah.
Right. So I don't know if you know
anything about me, but I teach, I teach urban business courses
just for the money part, like. Yeah, it's, you know.
Because we're we're deficient inthose areas.
(35:38):
Yeah, and and that and and that goes back to what the wise long
tradition teaches. It's like learn your body, go
within, you know, establish likewhat is your liver telling you
by doing this? You know, because I mean, we, we
tend to that's another like a bit of a thing that I think
allopathic medicine could improve on is a lot of times
they think the protocols, you know, are gold standard
(36:00):
treatment. It's like you have this named
disease entity, you have it somewhere, you got it, You know,
you have eczema. Eczema must be on my mind today.
Here is the treatment approved, you know, by the insurance
company will pay for it or whatever.
Here is the standard treatment for that condition, and it
doesn't really work that way because, you know, while people
(36:24):
with eczema will have some things in common, they will also
be different. Oh yeah.
And it can have a different set of causes in different people.
And different people can respondto herbs differently too.
That's a relationship, you know,A person and an herb are in
relationship. It's not going to be the same.
You know, it's like, think aboutyourself, like in your grandma,
(36:46):
like that relationship yourself and like your exciting new
boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever friend.
Like you're a different person in those different
relationships. Yeah.
And that happens between herbs and people too.
So absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's. Really interesting.
Like even if you have two peoplewho have the same, well, use
(37:09):
eczema, eczema trigger, right? They both are allergic to some
laundry detergent, I'll say, right?
Because that's a common one if you work with children, right?
And they could come, they could come to you.
It could look exactly the same. The trigger's exactly the same.
And the treatments are completely different because of
who that person is, what they eat, what they're exposed to,
(37:33):
what their stress is like, what kind of water they use to bathe
with. I mean, like we just, we forget
that everything that is of the most success in our country and
I'll save the world when it comes to healing is when we have
a personalized approach. But in our country, the
personalized approach is really the gold standard.
(37:54):
Like you were saying, oh, here'sthe gold standard approach,
which is we give you this protocol AB or C and this is
what's going to work in it and we can sell that.
Like it's personalized, but there's no person in it, you
know what I mean? Like it's just you get a
handout. Here's what you use and the
personalized 7. Minutes like diagnostic test,
(38:16):
prescription, next you know and.Yeah, and I feel bad.
I'll be honest with you. I feel bad for physicians.
I wouldn't want someone telling me I can only spend 15 minutes
with a patient. That's crazy.
You can't get anything done. Not the doctor's fault, because
that's the system, but a lot of them are ditching the system
too. Nuts.
(38:38):
You see their Instagram reels. Yeah.
You know, I think medicine is evolving, but every, every big
system has inertia. You know, it's like dragging
along, getting gradually more messed up, but it's also
evolving at the same time. And that's that's where I get
really excited because I work with pharmacists and atripathic
(39:00):
physicians, functional medicine doctors, like people, healthcare
professionals of various kinds because they've been trained in
the chemistry and the Physiologylanguage.
So they have this background where we have, we have a common
understanding and a common language, right.
And then we go off into the things we've been talking about,
(39:21):
you know, the individual, you know, action response, things
that people have a relationship with herbs and the, the
intuitive approach and plant spirit medicine and all this
stuff. And some of them aren't quite
ready for that. And some of them just like fully
embrace it and they're like, wow, the world just got so more
(39:41):
multifaceted and amazing, amazing, you know?
But I really love working with healthcare professionals because
the ones who are curious about is there more like what's going
on. Those are the kind of people
that come and take my take my online classes or come to
workshops and lectures and stuff.
So I do spend and we get to use the word, the nerdy constituent
(40:04):
words and, you know, the fun equipment and all the things so.
I have AI have a really good time with that too.
But like any kind of herbalist. So here's the thing with what I
do. Like a lot of people think
herbal chemistry is just this hard, gnarly, esoteric, you
know, saying that they're just like, I don't even want to learn
(40:27):
that, you know, because that's kind of what you got in school
with chemistry. Like, oh, oh, yeah, It was like
a learning a foreign language, right?
Yeah. With math.
With math. And it's.
Like if you have a, you know, ifmath isn't your favorite topic,
that makes it harder. But a lot of so we've, and, and
(40:51):
it's just like, and my organic chemistry teacher was so bad.
I mean, bless his heart. He was like hot, super fast,
like super conventional guy ready to retire.
And that class was the biggest challenge because I was super
excited about I'm like, oh, organic chemistry, I did my
(41:11):
general chem and everything. So that was a, a wrangle.
But it did teach me a lot of important skills, like how to
draw chemical structures and write without looking down at
your paper, you know, things like that.
Yeah. But you know, when I graduated,
I got like, all these awards andchemistry and stuff.
(41:32):
And when I graduated, he was like, I've got a entry level
position for you making 60,000 bucks a year.
This is in 2000 at this pharmaceutical company.
Do you want it? And I was like, that's a
temptation, having been like a broke student for the last.
(41:54):
Yeah, well, what a flattering like thing to have someone offer
you. I know I was really touched too
and I'm just like you sweet old super conventional difficult
chemistry teacher you. I really appreciate that, but
I'm going in a. Different way, but.
Yeah. You know, and, and, and it was
(42:14):
like that. So, so the way chemistry is
taught academically, basically the point of it is to get you
ready to like work in, you know,creating molecules or work in
industry or work in pharmaceuticals or, you know,
the careers, the standard American careers.
And I think certain kinds of people really, that really works
(42:34):
for them, but it turns a lot of like nature oriented people off.
Unfortunately, right, because itcould be something really
exciting. Yeah, that's my goal is to make
like this is one of my missions in life.
It's like plants make these phytochemicals.
It's not a laboratory thing. Yeah, you know, they make them.
(42:58):
Plants do that. They create the stuff on
purpose. For on their own.
Yeah, and plants are master pharmacists.
Like, I mean, think about a plant, right?
It's out there growing and all the sudden, like some hail comes
along and has to deal with that or the grasshoppers show up.
It has to deal with that or the sun gets really hot or it dries
(43:19):
out or it's super wet. It's like they can't get up and
go inside because they're rooted, you know, So they have
to deal with stuff by their by their phytochemical genius.
So they make more of this. They drive the grasshopper away
with some volatile compound if they're lucky.
We had a bad grasshopper a year last year.
(43:39):
You know, they make more anthocyans if the sun is too
hot, they change the way they'rehandling water.
You know, So they, they've come up with ways to use constituents
or phytochemicals to, you know, deal with.
Their army. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm sorry I missed the last. Word.
Oh, I said, as like as their army.
(44:00):
Yeah. Yeah, you know, they just
they're. You know, it's their own
apothecary, yeah. Exactly.
This I'll make that, you know, and I think we can have an
influence on that. This is a shamanic thing, right?
Because that's a nomenom where plants make different
phytochemicals for their needs that you end up having plants
(44:22):
with. And you know this from
aromatherapy, right? You can have really different
things going on in the same species of a plant according to
what the plant is up to. But if you also establish a way
to communicate with a plant. And I, and I think this is like
my understanding of what a very,very old universal practice is,
(44:42):
you know, the herbalist or the medicine person, shaman
communicates with the plant before they harvest it and ask
the plant to make really good medicine for what they're going
to do with the plant. Right.
Yeah, I came up with a a term for that.
I call that responsive variability.
Oh, I love that. I love that.
To the to the healer, the herbalist.
(45:03):
You should you should write a book on that.
I know. Like, you know, practices to
help people because a lot of people they they have a hard
time tapping into this stuff. Even if they do all the moves,
they still have a hard time breaking through that inside.
You know, we work with students sometimes who are like, yeah,
(45:25):
no, I get it, I understand. But like they need to the
trigger to help them open up their doors, right?
So something like that could be awesome.
You could do like a workbook or something.
That's it. Well, so that's like a workshop
we do out here. It's cool.
How do people get find your website in your website?
So, so we have two websites, Oneof them is focusing on the
(45:48):
herbal constituent stuff and it's called
herbalconstituents.com, right? And there's different levels of
nerdiness in there, but it's basically for, you know, an
herbalist that's had herbalism one O 1, you know, OK, like
you've learned these things or, you know, maybe a healthcare
professional. We get a lot of nurses coming in
(46:08):
now, which is super interesting.We do too.
I love that right? I'm like the full shift I'm.
Just blown away by nurses, you know, So it, it'll be like
somebody who's like, OK, I went to, I went to herb school.
I've got a good foundation in herbs, you know, or I've done
like a couple of herb programs and or people who have done a
(46:31):
lot of medicine making right or health professionals who are
like, OK, you know, I understand, you know, the
principles. I want to learn the herbs.
So that's what most of the herbal constituents type stuff.
I have all kinds of classes there and we started a new thing
actually, which is super exciting, which is what I was
working on this stuff for. It's a membership community.
(46:54):
It's called Phyto Sapiens. Oh cool.
I don't. I don't say to you, my friend
gave all of that. She's I love that.
Grace, thank you. Yeah, but that's for like,
that's the next step of nerdiness.
That's like, oh, you like this herbal constituents intro that
you took? Because I like herbal
constituents intro course and then I have like a two semester
(47:16):
course if you'd really want to go into it.
So people have done either one of those, you know, depending on
the background. I'm like, OK, let's really nerd
out with the so we just are in our second month in that and
that's super fun because I can just unleash, you know, my
phytochemistry nerd and do a bunch of research and learn new
(47:38):
things about hers that I thoughtI knew.
Can I give you an example of that?
Because this brings up the world's together.
OK. So earlier when you were talking
about, you know, this is good for that and you've got formulas
that generally work for everybody.
And so for, so for like a UTI, like a urinary tract infection,
like an uncomplicated 1, you know, over and over and over
(48:01):
again, I learned this from the nerve from the traditional
midwife herbalist. Those are kind of easy to get
rid of, like the occasional urinary tract infection, you
know, if it keeps coming back over and over again, that's
telling about underlying stuff. But in just a simple UTI, all
the time we would put this formula and variations of this
(48:22):
formula together for people. And almost every single time it
works, right? And we would put Uber ERC and
Yarrow and echinacea, right? But one of the things we always
put in it was marshmallow root, you know, I still do.
And, you know, a lot of us have learned that marshmallow root is
(48:43):
musilaginous. It's a demulcent, it's cooling,
it's soothing. It's just like really gentle,
supportive herb for the mucous membranes, which are also in the
bladder and the urethra, right? And you put all those together
and it just like almost always works, you know?
And so I was like, yeah, great Demulsen.
(49:06):
And then I was doing some research for this phyto sapiens
thing. And we're like, what?
You know, we do constituents of the month, herbs of the month in
the lab, live webinar. That's like our weekly thing.
And so I was like, which constituents of the month should
we start out with? And I was all fascinated with
medicinal mushrooms. And they have like
(49:29):
polysaccharide, immunomodulatingpolysaccharides says that up
there and Echinacea has immunomodulating
polysaccharides, etcetera. So a lot of the herbs used to
deal with, you know, the, the set of winter woes, the
respiratory conditions and etcetera.
(49:50):
So I was like, let's do immunomodulating
polysaccharides. That'll be fun.
So I started researching it, right?
And I got, I knew that like marshmallow had some of those as
part of the mucilage, right, thecomplex mixture stuff.
So I, I started looking at them like, I wonder if there have
been any scientific studies published on this recently
(50:12):
because like, oh man, scientificresearch on herbs is just on
fire around the world right now.Very encouraging.
So there's new papers coming outall the time.
So I went and looked and like there was like, and then one of
them was like immunostimulant activities of marshmallow root.
And I'm like, we did let me learn about this.
(50:35):
And so I got into that and I waslike, that makes so much sense,
you know, because I kind of heard of that before.
I didn't know it in depth, but Iread some of these papers and
I'm like, that makes so much sense in that UTI formula.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not just a cooling,
soothing demulsant, it's an immunostimulant too.
(50:56):
So it helps you kill those bacteria that have gotten into
the bladder. Oh, I love that.
I love that. I know I'm I'm still like.
So you're going to have fun teaching this class too, from
the looks of it. Wait.
What's that? So you're going to have fun
teaching that class too, becauseyou get to learn more and.
(51:19):
More I know. Well, that's the thing.
It's like, what do I almost knowabout?
That's what I need to study so that I can teach people.
And then, and then another thingI learned from that was that
econic like, you know, inulin, right?
Like burdock root, inulin, it feeds your good gut microbes and
that just helps everything, likeeverything.
(51:43):
So a lot of times we learn burdock root as an excellent
source of inulin, right? Helps balance blood sugar too.
And dandelion root. That inulin was my friend since
the beginning, right? I did not realize there's a
bunch of inulin and echinacea root.
Oh yeah, yeah. Right.
So you know echinacea root has those tingly buzzy that you get,
(52:05):
they're called alkamides, You get them in tinctures and they
are both immune modulators and anti-inflammatory constituents,
right? Perfect for that formula we were
talking about. I know, right?
And then the water extracted theEchinacea root.
You get immunomodulating polysaccharides.
The herb is really famous for those.
(52:25):
But you also get all these enulins, right, which feeds gut
microbes. But then I go down in there and
it's like, guess what? Inulins are also build the
immune system. They don't just feed the gut
microbes. So now they're immuno modulating
polysaccharides too, you know, And I'm just like Echinacea, you
(52:46):
know, and then, and then I was like, how do you get a really
great concentration of inulence and polysaccharides out of
Echinacea root? Oh, you decocked it just like we
learned in herb school, Echinacea root decoction.
And then squirt your tape and you've got like, you know, so
that was super exciting putting all those different pieces
(53:09):
together when I was working on the the last Fido Sapiens stuff.
Oh I love that. And So what is the other website
they can find you at? So that's our farm elderberries
farm.com and it's it's RRYS withno acostrophe because you can't
(53:29):
put the. Apostrophe.
On Oh, yeah. But I did it that way because I
dedicated this farm to the elderberry.
I'm like, I don't really entirely believe in like,
landowning, even though I'm a landowner, because I don't think
humans can actually own Mother Earth, you know?
But that's the game that we playin America.
(53:51):
So I was like, let me say that this farm belongs to Elderberry.
Oh cool, I love that. Farm.com Yeah.
And, you know, and Elderberry Bush actually welcomed me to
this area, which was another amazing thing.
I'm like, look at you. But so we're in what we call the
(54:12):
North Fork Valley of the Gunnison River.
North Fork of the Gunnison River.
It's the western slope of Colorado.
Yeah. So, you know, a lot of people
know where Aspen is, for example.
And it's like Aspen is over thatway, about 40 miles, but you
can't get there from here. As the crow flies.
(54:38):
Yeah. So you go to the mountains and
valleys. You know, it takes, it takes
about 2 1/2 hours to get to Aspen.
But so we're at, we're in that part of Colorado where it's
super mountainous off to the east, but then the desert
deserty part starts to the West of us.
Oh, beautiful. Which is cool.
So we're in this transitional zone where we get snow melt
(55:02):
irrigation, and then it's like hot in the summer and kind of
cold, but not that cold in the winter.
And it's a really interesting place to have an herb farm.
Oh, it sounds like it. Yeah, because some things are
like, yes, and they grow like mad.
And other things are like, I don't think so, you know?
I was about to make that same voice.
(55:24):
Right. I think our I think our attitude
plants are related or something.Oh, that's.
What's? Really funny is I got poke weed
to grow here. Oh wow I can't stop poke weed
from growing where I am. It's not even supposed to be
able to grow here. It's not on like the zone list,
(55:45):
you know, But we we work that out.
So but you you get this combination of like western
bioregional herbs, like, you know, like Michael Moore, you
know, type herbs, but also theselike mountainous, you know,
herbs will grow here. It's nothing like the
Appalachian. It's totally different.
(56:05):
Oh yeah, I would imagine. Actually.
Wow, how exciting. So where can people get your
book? Oh, they can buy it.
You know what? They get it directly from you or
you don't. Have to buy it from the devil,
OK, but the devil moves a lot ofbooks.
(56:26):
But you can get it from lulu.com.
That's my printer publisher lulu.com.
It's the best way to buy it. And then I learned about this
new online bookstore. I put a thing up on my socials
about it, and now I'm blanking on it because I got it from
someone else. I literally forget the name of
(56:48):
it, but it's really cool becausethey're an indie bookseller and
they give like 10 or 15% of all their sales back to actual
independent bookstores. Oh, that's cool.
Which is yeah, they're really. Powell's is it.
Powell's is the big one, and outWest, Powell's.
No. OK, because I know they're a big
(57:10):
independent bookstore, but that's really because that's.
The point about this if people go see my Facebook or whatever.
OK, Yeah, yeah. So people go look at her
Facebook and find that bookstore.
Yeah. Because I just, I just ordered a
bunch of books from them, you know, cool, yay.
I like my money to go to goods supportive, you know, actual
people instead of large. Yeah, we, I'm, I'm like famous
(57:33):
for that. Like to the point, I think it
probably drives people crazy. Well.
I mean, I just don't like, I like to buy stuff from my
neighbors. For sure.
You know, really what we do here, we're like, we need some
chickens. We go, do you guys have any
bacon? Like that's what I thought about
(57:53):
this valley. This is the highest
concentration of organic agriculture in Colorado.
That's so awesome. It's so awesome and we have
orchards Vineyards Valley now, orchards, vineyards, herb farms,
flower farm, vegetable farms, heritage livestock farms, yak
(58:14):
ranches, I mean wild out here. Like there's a gold medal trout
stream right over the hills. You know I love.
That. No, it's this valley.
It's very into producing its ownfood and medicine and
regenerative agriculture is likethe hot topic right now.
And lots of really good Coloradocannabis has grown here,
(58:36):
cannabis and hemp. So it's like all about plants.
Yeah, for real, right. That is so exciting.
I'm really like, we're really into.
Well, we've raised almost all ofour own food, but also just
like, I just love the idea of supporting other people who are
(58:56):
in this journey from you know who I buy my dishes from, you
know who who, who makes my clothing.
Like I really like thinking about things a little bit
differently to I. Think it's more important than
my neighbors because it's part of the community too.
Yeah. And, and we trade, we do a lot
(59:17):
of trading here. So cool.
That's awesome. They traded for a pile of
firewoods and consultations, youknow, or whatever, because I
think like a locally strong local economy and a strong
community and even like the economic aspect of that is super
important, you know? Well, and I think it makes you
(59:39):
become one with people maybe youdon't always come into contact
with. Well, yeah, you know, like, oh,
they're, you know, we our path would never cross except for at
the farmers market and then we become friends and then we get
to know each other and then we care about each other's, you
know, things even if we're like we have nothing else in common
but this. There's always that uniter that
(01:00:03):
and I think that makes communitystrong.
So I love that you have that. That's.
Beautiful. I mean, farmers markets are kind
of key, you know what I'm saying?
Like I go in town, I go to the farmers market, I buy a few
veggies and whatever. Mostly I go to socialize, you
know? Yeah, no, 100%.
It's a great way to get to know people and see what's going on
(01:00:23):
what, what people are looking for and you know, as far as.
At least two and sometimes 3 herbalists at our teeny little
town farmers market, you know, and say like, hey, what's up?
What have you been doing lately?Try this, you know?
Yeah. Cool.
Important community Community building event for sure.
Yeah, Well, thank you. Speaking of community, thank you
(01:00:43):
so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
I will let you know when we haveeverything up because I think
the students are going to be so excited to see this with you.
So thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate you so much and I just thank you well.
(01:01:04):
Thanks for having me on, it's been great.
Absolutely. And I look forward to talking to
you again soon. Thanks and have a great day.
You too. Bye.
Bye.
Hello, this is Demetria Clark, the director of Hard of Herbs
Herbal School. And today on the Hard of Herbs
Herbal School podcast, I know it's a mouthful, is Lisa Gnora
who runs herbalconstituents.com.Is that correct?
Yes, ma'am. And she has the herbal
constituents book on the market and it's a resource that we
(00:25):
encourage our students to to purchase and to use.
And I'm just so excited to have you on here today.
We even have a lecture from you in our in our student materials.
And one of the things I always hear is I never thought
constituents going to be so muchfun.
So our people are huge fans and we are so grateful that you were
(00:51):
willing to do that with us. I think it was about what, two
years ago now three years? Ago now a.
While. Does weird things lately.
But I wanted to say welcome and thank you so much for being
here. Can you please just tell us a
little bit about yourself? Sure, sure.
You know, let's see how far back, How far back do we go?
(01:16):
1986, I lived on Cape Cod. I started hearing about, hmm,
like women healers and herbs, you know, kind of hovering
around and I'm like, oh, it's all this.
And, you know, back back then itwas in Provincetown.
(01:36):
So I was kind of out in the ocean and I had, I was trying to
figure my life out, right? I was like, who am I?
Am I an artist, am IA photographer, am IA classical
musician. I'm like, who am I?
What am I supposed to be doing on this earth?
And I started having dreams, right?
And I started dreaming. In one of these dreams, this
(01:59):
elder native elder was sitting down in a kiva with her back to
me and she had some things arranged out in front of her.
And I walked up and that it was a lucid dream, right?
I walked up in the dream and I saw her and I stopped and I'm
like, oh, I shouldn't bother this person, they're doing
something important. And then I stood there for a
(02:21):
minute and thought, and I'm like, I'm here and she's here in
this dream. That's.
Which is mine. Don't walk away.
So I, you know, very respectfully walked down in and
sat down opposite of her. And after a little while, she
looked up and she said to me, well, I knew you were coming,
(02:42):
but I didn't think it would takethis long.
Don't you love it when your dreams have attitude?
I know. And I was like, OK, this is for
real. I will not look away.
I'm going to pay attention. And she showed me three things
that were laid out, three ceremonial objects, and one of
(03:05):
them was a wreath made of herbs with herbs twisted all around
the grapevines. And she pointed in that
everything. And she said memorize these.
And so I looked at them for a while and memorized them.
And then she looked up at me andshe didn't tell me what to do.
She didn't tell me how to do it.She just looked up at me and got
(03:27):
this big smile on her face and dissolved and vanished.
And I woke up and went, what happens here?
You know, what am I supposed to?Who was that?
And you know, short story, I hada series of dreams like that
when I was out there and it the plants were calling to me.
And so I followed that. I followed up with that by my
(03:52):
first herb that I used medicinally was dandelion root,
right? And I had gotten like super
addicted to chocolate. It's crazy.
I was eating so much of it. I was making myself sick and I
was so ignorant of health. I didn't even realize that like
the chocolate was followed an hour later by the blood sugar
crash and I felt terrible. And then I ate more chocolate
(04:13):
and I'd be great again, you know?
So I went through this wrangle with that and a friend of mine
turned me on to dandelion root. And she's like, you know, when
you get the craving, drink the dandelion root tea.
She showed me how to make a really strong tea with a like an
infusion and just drink a cup ofthe tea.
And then don't fight with yourself because you're going to
lose. If it's like, you know, an
(04:34):
addictive kind of relationship, you're going to lose.
Don't fight with yourself. Just do what you got to do.
But always drink the tea 1st. And I did it And the first time,
I kid you not, I went to eat thechocolate bar and see eating the
whole thing, I ate half and thenmy body was like good enough.
And that was 1 cup of dandelion root tea.
I know, right? So I kept doing it and I was all
(04:56):
skeptical and stuff. And I know I'm drinking weeds.
This is super weird, you know? But I kept doing it and it kept
working. And after about two weeks, I had
zero desire for chocolate anymore.
And I was like, I need to learn about these herbs because nobody
in school, like I've been to college and stuff, nobody in
school told me that this was a real thing, right.
(05:18):
And I was pre Med studies and, and it's all like, oh, isn't
that funny superstition that your, your grandma used to do?
Ha, ha, study the real medicine over here, you know, old wives
tale. Yeah.
Oh, that was an old wife down the Internet.
Yeah, yeah. You know, so I Yeah, the dandy,
(05:40):
the dreams and the dandelion andthe whole world started opening
up. I'm like, I really need to know
about this. So I connected 1986.
I connected with the Wise Woman Center up in Saugerties, NY,
Susan Weed's place. And I was like broke ass.
Like I didn't have any money. So I wrote an actual letter
(06:04):
before we had the Internet, y'all.
Oh my gosh. And I sent it up there and I
said, hey, I can I do photography, I can trade, can I
come up? This dream happened.
And so I got invited up there and it was a, it was a summer
solstice. And then I forget exactly.
(06:25):
And it completely blew my mind 'cause there was a group of
women there communicating with plants and doing this whole oral
tradition of plant healing just like this exists.
That was like I was, I remember driving up the driveway for the
first time. I was like, oh, what am I
getting into? But everyone was super friendly
(06:47):
and I learned so much. And then I went back and then I
went back again. So that was, that was the first
tradition that I learned herbalism in, which is great
because it gave me this hands on, you know, medicine making,
wild crafting. Learn directly from the plants,
have a relationship with the plants and I, you know, and all
the kind of shamanic type aspects involved.
(07:09):
And I did that for about 10 years.
And I also hung out with traditional nurse midwives back
there in Western Mass. Yeah, when I moved to Western
Mass from the Cape, which was like a special class of humans,
right, with amazing skills and also just this long history of
(07:30):
using herbs in very specific context and really understanding
the safety and the dosage and when to use what.
So I followed a lot of those folks around and be like, I'll
dig your, I'll carry your tools,I'll dig your root for you.
You know, I don't. I didn't even know there was
such a thing as an herb school back then.
Right. Yeah, yeah.
(07:51):
But I did that for a while, and then I ended up moving to this.
Yeah, I was in Massachusetts forabout 10 years, doing like the
Villager list and going to some births and different stuff.
Had a kid and decided I needed to move to the Southern
Appalachians because my family had a house way back in the
woods up in Yancey County. And it was empty at the time.
(08:14):
And I was like, I need a place to live.
So that whole relationship with those herbs and those mountains
and those traditions, just really, you know, that was it.
Like this is what I'm doing withmy wife is weird.
It was just amazing. I mean, it's amazing part of the
country. It's gorgeous.
(08:36):
You. Know yeah my grandmother is from
there Oh really yeah she she went to finishing school in
Asheville and worked at Woolworths that was her first
job wow yeah. So I.
Moved there, huh? Woolworths was still open when I
moved there. We used to go in there.
Yeah, no, she she. And then she ran off to marry my
(08:58):
grandfather and have seven children.
But and then they, but they, they never strayed far from the
mountains, even when he was, youknow, I mean, I think that's
something that gets in your soul.
Absolutely that. Kind of connection.
Like, I can't wait to get back. I'm going on a big road trip in
May, and that's like the star ofthe road trip.
Oh. Cool.
(09:18):
Area visiting some of my old plant stands.
Hopefully they survived the hurricane and, you know, other
destruction down there, but I still have a lot of friends in
the area and it's just, you know, it's my other home,
really. Oh nice.
If I wouldn't live here, I wouldlive there.
OK, All right, Fair enough. Right.
(09:40):
We always have those few places that tug on our heartstrong
streams. So when you were in there, down
there, what was what was happening next?
So you moved to. Yeah, so continued doing the
wild crafting, selling the herbal products, hanging out
with the midwives, you know, andjust making do plant rescues for
(10:02):
when they were putting the highway in.
Worked on a organic ginseng and golden seal woods grown farm for
a while. Lived in a teepee, Spent some
time at Joe Hollis's Mountain Gardens, lived in a teepee
there, you know, did the, the, the downhome herbalist life.
And, and then somebody suggestedto me that I should go back to
(10:25):
college because at that point you could get grants and super
cheap student loans. And, you know, I was a single
mom with a kid. So they're like, why don't you
just do that? You'll even get enough money to
live on. You can learn more stuff.
And, you know, I thought about it.
I'm like, that sounds fun, right?
(10:46):
Yeah. Fair.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah.
So I enrolled at UNCA in the biology department, and I was
shooting for a minor in chemistry, which I missed by one
class because it wasn't scheduled my last semester.
So I did a lot of chemistry, a lot of biology, all the plant ID
(11:07):
and field studies, learned how to key and do a botanical key
and everything. All the independent studies
thing like independent research project, I made it be about
herbal medicine or medicinal plants.
And I was the weirdo back then, right?
So I graduated from there in 2000.
So this is the late 90s. This is what I was doing in the
(11:27):
late 90s. You know, they were all like,
well, isn't she interesting, Youknow, except there's the plant
Physiology professor kind of gotit.
But at that point, academia and traditional herbal medicine
didn't quite know what to do with each other, you know, And
that's gone a long way since then.
Oh, my gosh, yeah. I was, I was the edgy one.
(11:51):
I was that strange, eccentric but smart kid who, like, wrote a
thesis about phytolaca, poke, weed and, you know, all these
things. But I had a great time there.
I love just being able to dive into that and, you know, learn
the sciences that are behind that have really come up now to
introduce modern herbalism. And when I graduated, I was
(12:17):
like, this is so cool. I now have this hands on
community herbalist, wise women tradition background and this
scientific education. What am and you know, how do I
put those together and what sortof herbalist am I going to make
my career into? You know, and I thought about it
(12:39):
and I'm like, herbal constituents.
No one is talking very much. People are starting to be
curious about that. But there's not a good book out
there, you know? You wrote it.
Yeah, on purpose because, you know, there were like good like
pharmacognosy books, which is like what the pharmacy schools
(13:00):
would. It's like PhD dive stuff, you
know? Yeah, yeah.
Post baccalaureate stuff, there was good stuff, but it was hard
to understand for people with anherbal background or maybe who
hadn't studied years of chemistry and everything.
So I'm like, I'm going to study all of this stuff with the help
of the great Jim Duke. He really inspired me.
James that's. Probably an inspiration.
(13:22):
James Duke Yeah. You know, I I sought out, it's
like, who knows about this? You know, I sought out a few
people. And so I studied.
After I graduated, I studied that and you know, unfortunately
I had the background to understand it and then I started
translating it. So it would be more practical
(13:43):
for Herbus and also so you couldhave an actual personal
relationship with phytochemicals, right?
Because you can smell them, you can taste them.
Some of them you can smell, somelike, well, you know this Auron
therapy, right? Some of them you can taste.
Some of them have a particular feel like mucilages are
(14:04):
slippery, tannins are dry. You know, some of them you can
tell by the colors. So I spent a lot of time weaving
together the sensory experience of herbs and how you can
communicate with a plant that way, with what's behind it in
the herbal constituents world and with the physiological
activities of those constituents.
(14:24):
And also how that applies to medicine making.
Like why would I tincture this herb versus make it into a fire
cider or drink, drink a water infusion or make a oil or a
salve out of it? You know, because you can bring
so many different kinds of medicines out of one herb
depending on how you, you know what, what you make with it, how
(14:44):
you extract it and what that's also chemistry behind that, like
herbal chemistry behind those principles, right?
Because some things really come out in the water well and some
things need higher percent ethanol, like, you know, in
tinctures and that's alcohol andsome things really make a really
good oil infusion. So learning how to put together,
(15:08):
you know, the constituents, their solubility, their activity
and all that kind of stuff is a way to understand how to make
better medicines out of plants also.
Awesome. So that's what I got fascinated
with and I'm still doing it. Yeah, no, we, we, we always hear
(15:31):
students that always love like, like they go and check out your
stuff after they like, hey, check out this book, you know,
because your enthusiasm for yourtopic is contagious.
I love how you, you mentioned the fact that a nerve can do
more than one thing. So like I always try to like
(15:53):
really encourage students to like, yes, you can use it this
way or this way, but it's like there's more than one
application. There's like more than one way
to make a cake, you know? And they're like, oh, you know,
like that light bulb moment whenthey're very beginning.
And it's like echinacea for thisor this is for that.
And then you see that like the whole thing just like kind of
explode. And they're like, whoa, hang on
(16:14):
a SEC. Yeah, it's like.
You think you're going to learn an herb.
You know, it's like I'm just. No Nice try and I'll.
Know it and then I'll all of a sudden this still happens, you
know? Oh.
Yeah, like, routinely I'm like, oh, I think I know what I'm
doing. I think I know.
And then I learned something newabout the plant and I'm like,
wait. Oh, absolutely.
I know this for 30 years, You know, because plants are so
(16:37):
deep, they're really complex, you know, and so it totally
makes sense to learn like one orone action at first, but you,
you got to realize it's like, wow, that's, you know, that's
herb kindergarten. It just keeps going.
I love that I'm going to have tosteal that phrase, Herb.
Kindergarten. Because it's it's true.
It's like that's, that's like the basic worksheet.
(17:00):
What color is this? You know what I mean?
Like basic, basic worksheet, butit's, it's a lot more herbs are
a lot more involved and complex and simple than we think.
You know what I mean? Like it's all.
Over the place. It's all over the place.
I love that you first started with like the Wise woman
(17:21):
tradition that, you know, I did some early work with when you
said, you know, you wrote a letter.
I remember sending in my writtenhomework.
So I love that. But I think that that it's
important that people understandthat you can be, quote, very
scientific and write a book about constituents, right?
(17:47):
But you can also understand the beauty, the grace and the
mystery at the same time. And I think that sometimes I see
different herbal approaches thatit's like all or nothing.
And I'm like, oh, OK, then wheredo I fit in?
Like, so if you're listening to this and you, you love both
theories. Lisa is a good example of of how
(18:10):
those things can work together. We shouldn't.
You know, I one thing I've learned throughout my long life
is not to limit herbs with my own opinion.
You know what I mean? I'll be like, oh, that's good
for this, or I don't like this herb or, you know, that doesn't
work very well or that's amazingor that doesn't do this or that.
That's the only thing for this. I don't.
(18:31):
I try not to do that at all anymore because herbs
continually surprise me. Yeah, it's like as we have the
opportunity to dig deeper, more is being uncovered.
It's like an archaeological site, you know?
It really is. It's the discovery and the
mystery, you know what I mean? You're just like, guess what?
I found out and then I get all. I used to really be into
(18:53):
archaeology as a kid, so great analogy.
Oh, perfect, perfect. I was real.
I'm really into anthropology. So like, for me, herbalism was
just, it made sense. You would use what's around you
if you were a community or whatever.
So why would this not be a good thing to do?
I mean, you know, so it's, it's interesting how we can take so
(19:17):
much from the past when when it's convenient and not
acknowledge things from the pastwhen it's not.
And it's like, yeah, there's a reason why people use something
for so long. Yeah, or the, OR the plant is
named after the condition. You know, like you probably
think a few of those like the like, like self heal, Prunella
(19:39):
vulgaris, right, Self heal or heal all super interesting herb,
right? The German name for it.
I'm not going to butcher it by trying to say it, but the German
name for it is the word for infected bleeding gums or
ginger. Oh, try to say it.
Yeah, it's like BBRUNEL or something close to that, you
(20:02):
know, and. It's just like, OK, if a plant
is named after a condition, there's a pretty good chance
snake bite. Root.
What's it? Snake bite root is like one of
the names of like, you know, we always tell students to learn
the Latin name because there's so many common names out there
(20:25):
that overlap are the same, or there's like four or five plants
that carry the same common name.Yeah, besides, the world knowing
like Latin names is like, is like, you know, in Harry Potter
verse, it's like you can cast a spell with a Latin name.
Well, I could talk to anyone with it.
So I remember I've gone to herb markets in Turkey and in Egypt
(20:47):
and and then different places inEurope.
And so I would go in and I'd just be looking around and we
couldn't necessarily speak the same language.
I didn't know Farsi. I didn't know, you know, Arabic
or anything like that. But I could say the Latin name
of the herb. And we were suddenly vibing, you
know, we were suddenly like, OK,understanding each other and
(21:10):
making faces and hand gestures or slight language overlap to
figure out what was going on. And I think that the Latin names
are the scientific names, no matter what you call them,
right? I think they open you up to each
other herbally. That's really cool.
Yeah, 'cause it's like the lingua franca, you know, it's
like, it's the language. It's like, oh, we can talk about
(21:32):
Prunella. Yeah, yeah, that's.
But it does help keep you straight with your species.
I mean, you know, that's one of the fun things when you're first
getting into herbalism, too. You learn your plant
identification, right? And and you can get better and
better and better at that your whole life.
But having those scientific names it like, you know, it puts
(21:54):
you in that realm where you're like, OK, I am able to learn
this specific plant and not confuse it with other plants,
which, you know, you don't want to make those mistakes.
So yeah, it's important and, andit's really cool too.
Like one of my favorite things about herbalism is these archaic
words you get to use, right? Like, like archaic medical words
(22:16):
and like, you know, energetics language and stuff like that,
along with the Latin names. And yeah, it's just, it's a
whole nother realm. It's got a lot of like kind of
mystery appeal to it, you know, at the same time.
And it's not mutually exclusive with science.
That's the thing. It's like I communicate with
plants. I learned how to do that.
(22:37):
You know, I'll sit down and I'lllisten to them and I'll engage
my intuitive, you know, my intuitive sense when I'm
formulating for a person or something.
I think that's equally legitimate stuff as the whole,
you know, read the scientific studies, understand the
chemistry, you know, know the human Physiology in detail and
how they interact and got some geisha enzymes and all this
(22:59):
stuff. It's all you know.
It's all part of being a living human in relationship with
living plants. Absolutely.
Yeah, limit myself. Yeah, spend.
A long time. It's funny, I like, I love the
scientific names cuz it helps mevisualize the landscape Too
(23:21):
often when they talk about like or something like that, I'm
like, OK, all right, maybe something I've never heard of
before. It helps me visualize where it
comes from. And this, I can understand the
color even if it's just reading something and I'm not actually
looking at it. So I love that it's a language
(23:41):
of its own. It is.
It's just like, well, just like the work that you do, Like,
yeah. That's a.
Whole other that's. There's a lot of overlap,
fortunately. But yeah, I mean, those Latin
name, they all mean something. You get like, what is there's a,
there's a really cool little book.
I'm not remembering the name of it now, but it helps you
(24:02):
understand what Latin names meanand botany and medicine and
stuff. And I mean, they all, it's just
a different language. They all have meanings like, you
know, tall spiky plant that grows near the Creek or, or you
know what I mean? It's like it's not just, you
know, spells, not just spells. Maybe a little.
(24:26):
That's what you're being, lactones.
I always do that when I teach class.
Constipation. No, Morris.
Yeah, dude, get get yourself a rowing wand.
That's all I can. Say that's awesome.
I love that. I love that.
So what is the what is the one of the?
(24:47):
What is one of your biggest joyswith teaching?
With teaching, oh man, lighting,lighting, that enthusiasm.
That's the thing. It's like when I'm teaching, I
get so excited because plants and phytochemistry and all that
stuff. It's just super interesting to
(25:09):
share it with people who you seethe light bulbs going off, you
know, because like with medicinemaking, for example, and I get
to be 9 years old, by the way. All right.
Which is like awesome. But so medicine making is an
example like we'll we learn first kind of what the recipe
(25:29):
say, you know, you learn from your teachers, like do it this
way, do it this way, use this much of that, use these herbs,
whatever. And it's kind of recipe based
approach, but we don't necessarily learn at first why
we're doing it that way, right? It's like, why did, why is this
tincher made with 50%, you know,alcohol?
(25:50):
Why is this? And then you look at tinchers in
the store and you're like, why is this one 8085%?
Why is this 130%? Like what is happening there?
What what are people doing with that?
You know, And when you start asking yourself the why
questions, then it opens up thiswhole other realm.
And when you learn what's behindthe why, then you have amazing
(26:10):
skills as a medicine maker, right?
So I love to teach all kinds of classes, but I, I try to work
some kind of medicine making andconstituents based medicine
making thing into most of what Ido.
And, and just to like watch the light bulbs go off and, and
people they're getting the whys behind the, you know, do this,
(26:31):
Don't do that. Feel like, don't use that herb
with that medication because youmight have in our drug
interaction, right? And then we go, why?
How does that work? Learn the details and learn when
it's OK to do that or what form,like can I use a tincture?
Can I use AT, how much of it canI use?
Like what? Which particular medication are
(26:53):
we talking about? Because there's always all these
details behind the things that we learn, you know?
Yeah. And it just keeps going, like we
were saying forever. So I think one of my favorite
things about teaching is, is getting people to start asking
why they're doing what they're doing, you know, and why they're
doing a thing the way they're doing it.
(27:15):
And then once they start understanding the why behind it,
it gives you a whole lot more. And this is for clinical
practice, too. It gives you a whole lot more
insight and ability to, for example, formulate for a
specific person. Yeah, right.
Because instead of being like, you know, echinacea is good for
the immune system, you Start learning this kind of stuff and
(27:37):
you're like, what is it? Good for Tom's immune system or?
Whatever. Yeah.
Or like, the immune system is complicated.
Let's learn about the immune system and how it works, you
know? And maybe we should review our
immune system unit. Oh my God, I will never learn
everything I want to know about the immune system.
I will never learn everything I want to know about how humans
(28:01):
work, you know? Like.
You know, like I always feel like I'm running really fast to
play catch up with everything. You know, anytime there's a new
advancement or new this or new that that I've never heard of
before, I'm like, I'm never going to keep up.
And I mean, I guess that's the beauty of our work.
(28:22):
It always challenges us and always, like, makes us think.
That's the beauty of having a few decades of experience too,
you know? So I was such a smarty pants
when I was a young herbalist. Like, I learned a little bit,
and then I thought I knew a lot and I had opinions.
And I was all like, you know, entranced by my opinions.
(28:44):
And now that I'm like, just about 65, I have this
perspective. And I'm like, Oh, now I have a
sense of like, I know a lot morestuff, but I also know that, you
know, there's so much I don't know and that I could still
learn that'll make me a better herbalist.
(29:05):
And that gives me a lot of respect for my herbal elders.
You know, you hear this stuff. It's like respect your elders
when you're a young person, you're like, which ones?
I think they're all a bunch of they don't even know how to how
to how to work a phone. I mean, but you know, it's like
the herbal elders who've been practicing for 30-40 fifty
(29:26):
years. Those people have insights, you
know, and that are just valuableyou can't get anywhere else.
Like Paul Burdner was my, you know, is my herbal elder that I
learned so much about clinical herbalism, vitalist herbalism.
I mean, he's a science nerd too,you know, But just that whole
(29:48):
Vitalis practices thing and the importance of the food and like
form the, the diet is specific to the person and that herbal
formula is for the person. It's not just like this herb is
good for migraines. And it goes like that's the
Vitalis tradition and it goes way deeper than that.
And you start looking at conditions or diseases and
(30:10):
actual symptoms that the body iscommunicating.
Something underlying is going wrong.
Yeah, yeah. The body's finding a way to talk
to you, right? Or to talk to whoever's working
with them. No, it's really interesting how
we, we definitely, I find that herbalism is one career where
(30:34):
you definitely can grow into it long term.
So like some careers, like it's like you get a certain age and
it's like certain things are just too different or things
change too much. But herbalism, I think, keeps
challenging you. The longer you're in, the more
exciting it becomes. The more you learn, the more you
(30:56):
let go of, the more you understand.
I know nothing. I literally teach students but
I'm supposed to be the teacher and I'm like.
Yeah. Well, you know, students will be
like, well, what about this for this?
And I'm like, it's a little bit more complex than that.
You know, it's like it's yes, you can, but we can also do
(31:18):
this. We can also look at this like,
why aren't we looking at that? And then they're just like, oh,
OK. You know what that brings up
that that's like a huge thing, right?
Because even as a practicing or even as an experienced
practicing herbalist, like people will come up to you in
the farmers market or whatever and they'll be like what's good
for eczema? And they'll show you the eczema
and you're like, oh, how do I approach this?
(31:40):
Because most of us in this, in our culture have been trained in
allopathic thinking, right? Take this to make that go away
this for that. And then, you know, we have
whatever experiences we have with pharmaceuticals that make
us want some alternatives. And and so in the, in the
(32:00):
allopathic mindset, we're like, Oh, I this drug really didn't do
it for me for whatever reason. Maybe there's an herb that I
could use instead? Yeah.
Right. So then we go into allopathic
herbalism, which is a good placeto start, but don't get stuck
there, right? Because like you just said, it
goes deeper, deeper, deeper. And you know, and you can,
(32:23):
there's nothing wrong with doingharm reduction too.
And it's like, oh, I have a pounding headache.
Is there an herb I could take from that?
And you come up with something and they feel better.
But but we're always having, as herbalists, we're always having
to tell people it's like, look, we need to find the origins of
the condition. Yeah, it's a long term
commitment. It's not just, I mean, yeah,
(32:44):
there are some things, you're right, there's some things A for
B and things are taken care of and that's great.
I, I always tell my students like, that's a cute herbalism,
right? Like got to cut da da, da, da
or. But like when we're working with
clients, it's like one of the first jobs you have as a a
clinician is to let the client know this is a long term
(33:09):
relationship between the two of us.
This is not a way for me to keepmaking money off of you.
This is yeah, this is this is you having to follow through
too. Like you're part of this.
And I think it's so empowering for our clients to feel like
they're part of that, right? Yeah, because it's like the
(33:29):
original meaning of the word. Now, we're not allowed to call
ourselves doctors, and that's like it's illegal.
But the original meaning of the word doctor is teacher, Latin
meaning it means the teacher. And so I see the herbalist role
as like helping the person to understand what's going on, you
know, especially with chronic conditions, what's going on with
(33:51):
their body and where's the some of the roots of these conditions
are. And it's going to be
individualized, right? Yeah.
And start empowering, you know, supporting them and empowering
them to make changes that are going to let the wisdom of the
body self correct some of these conditions.
You know, because somebody knowshow to heal.
That's built in. Oh yeah.
(34:13):
I mean we. We.
It's like figuring that out and figuring where your herbal
support or your herbal nudges, as Simon Mills would say, it's
like just nudge that process andwatch it rebalance.
I always say it's like putting in a Lego block, you know, like
just filling in the missing piece, like building, you know,
(34:33):
working off of the foundation and adding in the blocks that
keep everything stable. Because the body will say, you
know, it's like when you talk, when you work with little kids,
right? You can tell them, close your
eyes, imagine that you've got a sword and you're killing the
germ bugs, right, or whatever. This is like what we used to do.
My boys were in the Knights, right?
They went through their phase orthey're really in the Knights,
(34:54):
right? So it's like you're going to be
like God, you're in battle and La La and that's your body
taking care of itself. And I swear they still do this
to this day. They may not admit it, but I
think like they know their body will, you know, they've learned
to trust that thing And and I think we're taught not to trust
our ability. Oh, oh, cool, right.
(35:14):
I mean, that's a huge gap in in American education.
You don't learn how your body works and you don't learn how
money works. Yeah.
Right. So I don't know if you know
anything about me, but I teach, I teach urban business courses
just for the money part, like. Yeah, it's, you know.
Because we're we're deficient inthose areas.
(35:38):
Yeah, and and that and and that goes back to what the wise long
tradition teaches. It's like learn your body, go
within, you know, establish likewhat is your liver telling you
by doing this? You know, because I mean, we, we
tend to that's another like a bit of a thing that I think
allopathic medicine could improve on is a lot of times
they think the protocols, you know, are gold standard
(36:00):
treatment. It's like you have this named
disease entity, you have it somewhere, you got it, You know,
you have eczema. Eczema must be on my mind today.
Here is the treatment approved, you know, by the insurance
company will pay for it or whatever.
Here is the standard treatment for that condition, and it
doesn't really work that way because, you know, while people
(36:24):
with eczema will have some things in common, they will also
be different. Oh yeah.
And it can have a different set of causes in different people.
And different people can respondto herbs differently too.
That's a relationship, you know,A person and an herb are in
relationship. It's not going to be the same.
You know, it's like, think aboutyourself, like in your grandma,
(36:46):
like that relationship yourself and like your exciting new
boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever friend.
Like you're a different person in those different
relationships. Yeah.
And that happens between herbs and people too.
So absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's. Really interesting.
Like even if you have two peoplewho have the same, well, use
(37:09):
eczema, eczema trigger, right? They both are allergic to some
laundry detergent, I'll say, right?
Because that's a common one if you work with children, right?
And they could come, they could come to you.
It could look exactly the same. The trigger's exactly the same.
And the treatments are completely different because of
who that person is, what they eat, what they're exposed to,
(37:33):
what their stress is like, what kind of water they use to bathe
with. I mean, like we just, we forget
that everything that is of the most success in our country and
I'll save the world when it comes to healing is when we have
a personalized approach. But in our country, the
personalized approach is really the gold standard.
(37:54):
Like you were saying, oh, here'sthe gold standard approach,
which is we give you this protocol AB or C and this is
what's going to work in it and we can sell that.
Like it's personalized, but there's no person in it, you
know what I mean? Like it's just you get a
handout. Here's what you use and the
personalized 7. Minutes like diagnostic test,
(38:16):
prescription, next you know and.Yeah, and I feel bad.
I'll be honest with you. I feel bad for physicians.
I wouldn't want someone telling me I can only spend 15 minutes
with a patient. That's crazy.
You can't get anything done. Not the doctor's fault, because
that's the system, but a lot of them are ditching the system
too. Nuts.
(38:38):
You see their Instagram reels. Yeah.
You know, I think medicine is evolving, but every, every big
system has inertia. You know, it's like dragging
along, getting gradually more messed up, but it's also
evolving at the same time. And that's that's where I get
really excited because I work with pharmacists and atripathic
(39:00):
physicians, functional medicine doctors, like people, healthcare
professionals of various kinds because they've been trained in
the chemistry and the Physiologylanguage.
So they have this background where we have, we have a common
understanding and a common language, right.
And then we go off into the things we've been talking about,
(39:21):
you know, the individual, you know, action response, things
that people have a relationship with herbs and the, the
intuitive approach and plant spirit medicine and all this
stuff. And some of them aren't quite
ready for that. And some of them just like fully
embrace it and they're like, wow, the world just got so more
(39:41):
multifaceted and amazing, amazing, you know?
But I really love working with healthcare professionals because
the ones who are curious about is there more like what's going
on. Those are the kind of people
that come and take my take my online classes or come to
workshops and lectures and stuff.
So I do spend and we get to use the word, the nerdy constituent
(40:04):
words and, you know, the fun equipment and all the things so.
I have AI have a really good time with that too.
But like any kind of herbalist. So here's the thing with what I
do. Like a lot of people think
herbal chemistry is just this hard, gnarly, esoteric, you
know, saying that they're just like, I don't even want to learn
(40:27):
that, you know, because that's kind of what you got in school
with chemistry. Like, oh, oh, yeah, It was like
a learning a foreign language, right?
Yeah. With math.
With math. And it's.
Like if you have a, you know, ifmath isn't your favorite topic,
that makes it harder. But a lot of so we've, and, and
(40:51):
it's just like, and my organic chemistry teacher was so bad.
I mean, bless his heart. He was like hot, super fast,
like super conventional guy ready to retire.
And that class was the biggest challenge because I was super
excited about I'm like, oh, organic chemistry, I did my
(41:11):
general chem and everything. So that was a, a wrangle.
But it did teach me a lot of important skills, like how to
draw chemical structures and write without looking down at
your paper, you know, things like that.
Yeah. But you know, when I graduated,
I got like, all these awards andchemistry and stuff.
(41:32):
And when I graduated, he was like, I've got a entry level
position for you making 60,000 bucks a year.
This is in 2000 at this pharmaceutical company.
Do you want it? And I was like, that's a
temptation, having been like a broke student for the last.
(41:54):
Yeah, well, what a flattering like thing to have someone offer
you. I know I was really touched too
and I'm just like you sweet old super conventional difficult
chemistry teacher you. I really appreciate that, but
I'm going in a. Different way, but.
Yeah. You know, and, and, and it was
(42:14):
like that. So, so the way chemistry is
taught academically, basically the point of it is to get you
ready to like work in, you know,creating molecules or work in
industry or work in pharmaceuticals or, you know,
the careers, the standard American careers.
And I think certain kinds of people really, that really works
(42:34):
for them, but it turns a lot of like nature oriented people off.
Unfortunately, right, because itcould be something really
exciting. Yeah, that's my goal is to make
like this is one of my missions in life.
It's like plants make these phytochemicals.
It's not a laboratory thing. Yeah, you know, they make them.
(42:58):
Plants do that. They create the stuff on
purpose. For on their own.
Yeah, and plants are master pharmacists.
Like, I mean, think about a plant, right?
It's out there growing and all the sudden, like some hail comes
along and has to deal with that or the grasshoppers show up.
It has to deal with that or the sun gets really hot or it dries
(43:19):
out or it's super wet. It's like they can't get up and
go inside because they're rooted, you know, So they have
to deal with stuff by their by their phytochemical genius.
So they make more of this. They drive the grasshopper away
with some volatile compound if they're lucky.
We had a bad grasshopper a year last year.
(43:39):
You know, they make more anthocyans if the sun is too
hot, they change the way they'rehandling water.
You know, So they, they've come up with ways to use constituents
or phytochemicals to, you know, deal with.
Their army. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm sorry I missed the last. Word.
Oh, I said, as like as their army.
(44:00):
Yeah. Yeah, you know, they just
they're. You know, it's their own
apothecary, yeah. Exactly.
This I'll make that, you know, and I think we can have an
influence on that. This is a shamanic thing, right?
Because that's a nomenom where plants make different
phytochemicals for their needs that you end up having plants
(44:22):
with. And you know this from
aromatherapy, right? You can have really different
things going on in the same species of a plant according to
what the plant is up to. But if you also establish a way
to communicate with a plant. And I, and I think this is like
my understanding of what a very,very old universal practice is,
(44:42):
you know, the herbalist or the medicine person, shaman
communicates with the plant before they harvest it and ask
the plant to make really good medicine for what they're going
to do with the plant. Right.
Yeah, I came up with a a term for that.
I call that responsive variability.
Oh, I love that. I love that.
To the to the healer, the herbalist.
(45:03):
You should you should write a book on that.
I know. Like, you know, practices to
help people because a lot of people they they have a hard
time tapping into this stuff. Even if they do all the moves,
they still have a hard time breaking through that inside.
You know, we work with students sometimes who are like, yeah,
(45:25):
no, I get it, I understand. But like they need to the
trigger to help them open up their doors, right?
So something like that could be awesome.
You could do like a workbook or something.
That's it. Well, so that's like a workshop
we do out here. It's cool.
How do people get find your website in your website?
So, so we have two websites, Oneof them is focusing on the
(45:48):
herbal constituent stuff and it's called
herbalconstituents.com, right? And there's different levels of
nerdiness in there, but it's basically for, you know, an
herbalist that's had herbalism one O 1, you know, OK, like
you've learned these things or, you know, maybe a healthcare
professional. We get a lot of nurses coming in
(46:08):
now, which is super interesting.We do too.
I love that right? I'm like the full shift I'm.
Just blown away by nurses, you know, So it, it'll be like
somebody who's like, OK, I went to, I went to herb school.
I've got a good foundation in herbs, you know, or I've done
like a couple of herb programs and or people who have done a
(46:31):
lot of medicine making right or health professionals who are
like, OK, you know, I understand, you know, the
principles. I want to learn the herbs.
So that's what most of the herbal constituents type stuff.
I have all kinds of classes there and we started a new thing
actually, which is super exciting, which is what I was
working on this stuff for. It's a membership community.
(46:54):
It's called Phyto Sapiens. Oh cool.
I don't. I don't say to you, my friend
gave all of that. She's I love that.
Grace, thank you. Yeah, but that's for like,
that's the next step of nerdiness.
That's like, oh, you like this herbal constituents intro that
you took? Because I like herbal
constituents intro course and then I have like a two semester
(47:16):
course if you'd really want to go into it.
So people have done either one of those, you know, depending on
the background. I'm like, OK, let's really nerd
out with the so we just are in our second month in that and
that's super fun because I can just unleash, you know, my
phytochemistry nerd and do a bunch of research and learn new
(47:38):
things about hers that I thoughtI knew.
Can I give you an example of that?
Because this brings up the world's together.
OK. So earlier when you were talking
about, you know, this is good for that and you've got formulas
that generally work for everybody.
And so for, so for like a UTI, like a urinary tract infection,
like an uncomplicated 1, you know, over and over and over
(48:01):
again, I learned this from the nerve from the traditional
midwife herbalist. Those are kind of easy to get
rid of, like the occasional urinary tract infection, you
know, if it keeps coming back over and over again, that's
telling about underlying stuff. But in just a simple UTI, all
the time we would put this formula and variations of this
(48:22):
formula together for people. And almost every single time it
works, right? And we would put Uber ERC and
Yarrow and echinacea, right? But one of the things we always
put in it was marshmallow root, you know, I still do.
And, you know, a lot of us have learned that marshmallow root is
(48:43):
musilaginous. It's a demulcent, it's cooling,
it's soothing. It's just like really gentle,
supportive herb for the mucous membranes, which are also in the
bladder and the urethra, right? And you put all those together
and it just like almost always works, you know?
And so I was like, yeah, great Demulsen.
(49:06):
And then I was doing some research for this phyto sapiens
thing. And we're like, what?
You know, we do constituents of the month, herbs of the month in
the lab, live webinar. That's like our weekly thing.
And so I was like, which constituents of the month should
we start out with? And I was all fascinated with
medicinal mushrooms. And they have like
(49:29):
polysaccharide, immunomodulatingpolysaccharides says that up
there and Echinacea has immunomodulating
polysaccharides, etcetera. So a lot of the herbs used to
deal with, you know, the, the set of winter woes, the
respiratory conditions and etcetera.
(49:50):
So I was like, let's do immunomodulating
polysaccharides. That'll be fun.
So I started researching it, right?
And I got, I knew that like marshmallow had some of those as
part of the mucilage, right, thecomplex mixture stuff.
So I, I started looking at them like, I wonder if there have
been any scientific studies published on this recently
(50:12):
because like, oh man, scientificresearch on herbs is just on
fire around the world right now.Very encouraging.
So there's new papers coming outall the time.
So I went and looked and like there was like, and then one of
them was like immunostimulant activities of marshmallow root.
And I'm like, we did let me learn about this.
(50:35):
And so I got into that and I waslike, that makes so much sense,
you know, because I kind of heard of that before.
I didn't know it in depth, but Iread some of these papers and
I'm like, that makes so much sense in that UTI formula.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not just a cooling,
soothing demulsant, it's an immunostimulant too.
(50:56):
So it helps you kill those bacteria that have gotten into
the bladder. Oh, I love that.
I love that. I know I'm I'm still like.
So you're going to have fun teaching this class too, from
the looks of it. Wait.
What's that? So you're going to have fun
teaching that class too, becauseyou get to learn more and.
(51:19):
More I know. Well, that's the thing.
It's like, what do I almost knowabout?
That's what I need to study so that I can teach people.
And then, and then another thingI learned from that was that
econic like, you know, inulin, right?
Like burdock root, inulin, it feeds your good gut microbes and
that just helps everything, likeeverything.
(51:43):
So a lot of times we learn burdock root as an excellent
source of inulin, right? Helps balance blood sugar too.
And dandelion root. That inulin was my friend since
the beginning, right? I did not realize there's a
bunch of inulin and echinacea root.
Oh yeah, yeah. Right.
So you know echinacea root has those tingly buzzy that you get,
(52:05):
they're called alkamides, You get them in tinctures and they
are both immune modulators and anti-inflammatory constituents,
right? Perfect for that formula we were
talking about. I know, right?
And then the water extracted theEchinacea root.
You get immunomodulating polysaccharides.
The herb is really famous for those.
(52:25):
But you also get all these enulins, right, which feeds gut
microbes. But then I go down in there and
it's like, guess what? Inulins are also build the
immune system. They don't just feed the gut
microbes. So now they're immuno modulating
polysaccharides too, you know, And I'm just like Echinacea, you
(52:46):
know, and then, and then I was like, how do you get a really
great concentration of inulence and polysaccharides out of
Echinacea root? Oh, you decocked it just like we
learned in herb school, Echinacea root decoction.
And then squirt your tape and you've got like, you know, so
that was super exciting putting all those different pieces
(53:09):
together when I was working on the the last Fido Sapiens stuff.
Oh I love that. And So what is the other website
they can find you at? So that's our farm elderberries
farm.com and it's it's RRYS withno acostrophe because you can't
(53:29):
put the. Apostrophe.
On Oh, yeah. But I did it that way because I
dedicated this farm to the elderberry.
I'm like, I don't really entirely believe in like,
landowning, even though I'm a landowner, because I don't think
humans can actually own Mother Earth, you know?
But that's the game that we playin America.
(53:51):
So I was like, let me say that this farm belongs to Elderberry.
Oh cool, I love that. Farm.com Yeah.
And, you know, and Elderberry Bush actually welcomed me to
this area, which was another amazing thing.
I'm like, look at you. But so we're in what we call the
(54:12):
North Fork Valley of the Gunnison River.
North Fork of the Gunnison River.
It's the western slope of Colorado.
Yeah. So, you know, a lot of people
know where Aspen is, for example.
And it's like Aspen is over thatway, about 40 miles, but you
can't get there from here. As the crow flies.
(54:38):
Yeah. So you go to the mountains and
valleys. You know, it takes, it takes
about 2 1/2 hours to get to Aspen.
But so we're at, we're in that part of Colorado where it's
super mountainous off to the east, but then the desert
deserty part starts to the West of us.
Oh, beautiful. Which is cool.
So we're in this transitional zone where we get snow melt
(55:02):
irrigation, and then it's like hot in the summer and kind of
cold, but not that cold in the winter.
And it's a really interesting place to have an herb farm.
Oh, it sounds like it. Yeah, because some things are
like, yes, and they grow like mad.
And other things are like, I don't think so, you know?
I was about to make that same voice.
(55:24):
Right. I think our I think our attitude
plants are related or something.Oh, that's.
What's? Really funny is I got poke weed
to grow here. Oh wow I can't stop poke weed
from growing where I am. It's not even supposed to be
able to grow here. It's not on like the zone list,
(55:45):
you know, But we we work that out.
So but you you get this combination of like western
bioregional herbs, like, you know, like Michael Moore, you
know, type herbs, but also theselike mountainous, you know,
herbs will grow here. It's nothing like the
Appalachian. It's totally different.
(56:05):
Oh yeah, I would imagine. Actually.
Wow, how exciting. So where can people get your
book? Oh, they can buy it.
You know what? They get it directly from you or
you don't. Have to buy it from the devil,
OK, but the devil moves a lot ofbooks.
(56:26):
But you can get it from lulu.com.
That's my printer publisher lulu.com.
It's the best way to buy it. And then I learned about this
new online bookstore. I put a thing up on my socials
about it, and now I'm blanking on it because I got it from
someone else. I literally forget the name of
(56:48):
it, but it's really cool becausethey're an indie bookseller and
they give like 10 or 15% of all their sales back to actual
independent bookstores. Oh, that's cool.
Which is yeah, they're really. Powell's is it.
Powell's is the big one, and outWest, Powell's.
No. OK, because I know they're a big
(57:10):
independent bookstore, but that's really because that's.
The point about this if people go see my Facebook or whatever.
OK, Yeah, yeah. So people go look at her
Facebook and find that bookstore.
Yeah. Because I just, I just ordered a
bunch of books from them, you know, cool, yay.
I like my money to go to goods supportive, you know, actual
people instead of large. Yeah, we, I'm, I'm like famous
(57:33):
for that. Like to the point, I think it
probably drives people crazy. Well.
I mean, I just don't like, I like to buy stuff from my
neighbors. For sure.
You know, really what we do here, we're like, we need some
chickens. We go, do you guys have any
bacon? Like that's what I thought about
(57:53):
this valley. This is the highest
concentration of organic agriculture in Colorado.
That's so awesome. It's so awesome and we have
orchards Vineyards Valley now, orchards, vineyards, herb farms,
flower farm, vegetable farms, heritage livestock farms, yak
(58:14):
ranches, I mean wild out here. Like there's a gold medal trout
stream right over the hills. You know I love.
That. No, it's this valley.
It's very into producing its ownfood and medicine and
regenerative agriculture is likethe hot topic right now.
And lots of really good Coloradocannabis has grown here,
(58:36):
cannabis and hemp. So it's like all about plants.
Yeah, for real, right. That is so exciting.
I'm really like, we're really into.
Well, we've raised almost all ofour own food, but also just
like, I just love the idea of supporting other people who are
(58:56):
in this journey from you know who I buy my dishes from, you
know who who, who makes my clothing.
Like I really like thinking about things a little bit
differently to I. Think it's more important than
my neighbors because it's part of the community too.
Yeah. And, and we trade, we do a lot
(59:17):
of trading here. So cool.
That's awesome. They traded for a pile of
firewoods and consultations, youknow, or whatever, because I
think like a locally strong local economy and a strong
community and even like the economic aspect of that is super
important, you know? Well, and I think it makes you
(59:39):
become one with people maybe youdon't always come into contact
with. Well, yeah, you know, like, oh,
they're, you know, we our path would never cross except for at
the farmers market and then we become friends and then we get
to know each other and then we care about each other's, you
know, things even if we're like we have nothing else in common
but this. There's always that uniter that
(01:00:03):
and I think that makes communitystrong.
So I love that you have that. That's.
Beautiful. I mean, farmers markets are kind
of key, you know what I'm saying?
Like I go in town, I go to the farmers market, I buy a few
veggies and whatever. Mostly I go to socialize, you
know? Yeah, no, 100%.
It's a great way to get to know people and see what's going on
(01:00:23):
what, what people are looking for and you know, as far as.
At least two and sometimes 3 herbalists at our teeny little
town farmers market, you know, and say like, hey, what's up?
What have you been doing lately?Try this, you know?
Yeah. Cool.
Important community Community building event for sure.
Yeah, Well, thank you. Speaking of community, thank you
(01:00:43):
so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
I will let you know when we haveeverything up because I think
the students are going to be so excited to see this with you.
So thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate you so much and I just thank you well.
(01:01:04):
Thanks for having me on, it's been great.
Absolutely. And I look forward to talking to
you again soon. Thanks and have a great day.
You too. Bye.
Bye.
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