Beginner’s Guide to Herbalism
What is herbalism?
To put it simply, herbalism is the practice of learning the medicinal qualities of different plants and using various techniques to extract those qualities for application or use. The history and origins of herbalism are fascinating and stem from many different ancient societies from all corners of the world.
I began studying herbalism five years ago, when I completed a nine-month herbalism training with The Hawthorn School of Plant Medicine, in the pacific northwest region of the United States.
Harvesting hibiscus flowers at The Republic of Corn.
This nine-month immersion was a highly transformative experience that ushered students into the realm of plant medicine through ethical techniques and intentional excursions to different sites around Washington and Oregon where we were able to locate and harvest the plants we made medicine from.
Upon completion, we had the tools and knowledge to continue our own herbalism practice. Right away, I set up a section of my home dedicated to drying & storing herbs, and preparing tinctures, powders, & salves. I established an herb garden and used the plants that I grew to make my own products.
A great resource for getting started with herbalism and organic herbal products is Mountain Rose Herbs. Their website is full of free information to learn about herbalism and features links to their podcast, youtube channel, and books published on plant medicine. The offer an abundance of sustainably sourced organic herbal products like teas and essential oils, but the most exciting part of Mountain Rose Herbs is their vast stock of base supplies needed to prepare your own herbal products.
Does herbalism really work?
I find this question somewhat hilarious. We are so accustomed to western modern medicine, which rejects plant-based medicine as “alternative” when it in fact, herbalism is the original practice of making and administering medicine. This practice, along with the millions of plant species that it interacts with, have existed long before the pharmaceutical industry and modern medicine were ever conceived.
It is normal to question the validity of anything that deviates from the popular understanding of medicine and healing, because many of us tend to simply believe what we are told by mainstream culture and society. If something is not presented to us without our own immediate culture/societal bubble, naturally we doubt its reliability.
This is not only extremely unfortunate, but it is also something that has arguably been arranged for by dominant societal narrative and the populations in positions of power for centuries.
Harvesting lemongrass and ginger for teas and propagation.
Since herbalism is a traditional practice, commonly stemming from indigenous and native socieites, commonly practiced by women, and offers a diversion from reliance on corporate medicine and western institutions, of course every effort has been made to eradicate it over time.
Herbalism has historically been a common practice by communities considered to be “lower class” as a means of creating their own solutions to health afflictions. Throughout different periods of time practicing herbalism was seen as associating oneself with lower classes of people in past societies. Part of the modern hesitation and doubt targeted towards plant medicine today stem from these historic patterns of racism, classism, and white supremacy.
Fortunately, these efforts have not been wholly successful. Today, as more of us become conscious of the sacredness of our environment and deep knowledge that nature contains, herbalism is experiencing a revival.
Knowledge and wisdom about how to work with and cultivate plants, as well as expertise about their vast healing qualities, are being increasingly recognized again for their immense value and contribution to our lives and wellness as humans.
Different Types of Plant Medicine
You probably have “practiced” herbalism without even knowing it. In a way, adding loose leaf spices to your meal for their nutritional benefits could be considered dabbling in the discipline.
Mixing different herbs you may find in the garden for a tea is practicing herbalism. Home remedies such as garlic for a bee sting or a poultice of leaves for a mosquito bite could be considered applying herbal medicine techniques.
Here is a breakdown of some of the most common ways to consume plant medicine. You may be surprised at how many you have already engaged with.
Basic forms of plant medicine:
-tea: steeping dried herbs or plant material in hot water to extract their medicinal or desired qualities for consumption.
-capsule (supplement): filling a gelatin or veg-based capsule with dried and powdered plant material to be swallowed like a pill.
-salve/lotion: a technique of double boiling or extracting plant material in a carrier substance or base such as shea butter, beeswax, cocoa butter, coconut oil, etc.
More advanced forms of plant medicine:
-decoction: similar to tea, but involves steeping a larger portion of plant material in a smaller portion of water base to make a stronger concentration of extract.
-tincture: the process of using alcohol (or in some cases vinegar) to extract the desired medicinal properties of a plant, to be pressed and strained after a designated amount of time.
-essential oil: the process of using a distill to extract the desired properties from harvested plant material in a highly potent concentration. Requires very specific equipment, measurements, skill, and is perhaps the most time-consuming of all the techniques in this list.
This list is not exhaustive or complete. There are many other techniques used in different disciplines of herbalism to extract and concoct plant medicine. This list is introductory and presents some of the most basic and common ways to make herbal products.
Moringa leaf, one of the many medicinal plants that grow on our farm.
What do you need to practice herbalism?
-An open heart: Herbalism requires a fine-tuned communication with your own intuition and deep listening. It is important to be mindful of where you harvest plants from, and how much you harvest. It takes awareness to know when enough is enough, and how to formulate different plant medicines.
-PLANTS: Of course, there is no herbalism without herbs. Growing in your herbalism practice opens the door to the world of plant species that humans have been working with for millennia. The plants are truly the ones running the whole show of herbal medicine, and approaching them as collaborators and teachers requires the utmost respect.
To create herbal products you will need alcohol for tincturing and containers (glass preferred) for storing herbal medicines during processing and once processed.
-A few special tools: There are a few tools fundamental to practicing herbalism. Several different kinds of tools are needed to harvest the plants (hori-hori, shovel, pruners, knife). Another short list of tools will be needed to process them into medicine (scale, smushing stick, press, bottling and storage equipment).
Basic tools for plant harvest include a knife and hori-hori, which allows us to harvest plants by the roots without damaging them.
How to Start Practicing Herbalism
To begin practicing herbalism you need to have a clear intention. For example: “I want to go to (a place or site) to harvest (a particular plant) in order to use it to make a (which type of medicine) to help with (uses/properties of the plant).” For example: “I want to go to Scatter Creek Prairie to harvest Yarrow to tincture the flowers and stems to be used to help with menstrual cramping.”
Working with plants requires awareness and consciousness of what one is doing. For this reason, it is important to not just go frolicking in a random place you have no permission to be, harvesting plants left and right that you cannot identify. With some plants, toxicity is an issue so you must practice caution and make every decision an educated one.
Once you have your clear intentions, the supplies you need, and permission to visit a certain site and harvest certain plants, you are ready to begin practicing herbalism.
Establishing your own garden, greenhouse, or nursery where you live will help you advance your herbalism practice by cultivating your own medicinal plants.
If getting permission or knowing if you are allowed to harvest from a certain area is a challenge for you, it might be best to get some herb starts from your local garden center, or seeds, and begin by growing your own plants. This way you know you have permission to harvest and work with them, because they are yours. Some great household herbs that could get you started are basil, oregano, motherwort, lemongrass, echinacea, lemon balm and rosemary.
Ethics of Herbalism
If you’re still reading, you are aware that practicing herbalism is more than just guesswork and free-for-all harvesting. There are specific ethics involved in cultivating a respectful plant medicine practice.
1. Permission: A primary guide of these ethics is that of permission. Wherever you go to harvest plants, ask yourself: Do I have permission to be here? If the answer if yes, ask yourself the follow-up question: Do I have permission to harvest plants here?
A situation where you may have permission to harvest plants could be, for example: you have mentioned to your neighbor you are interested in using some local plants to make herbal products. You neighbor has a property lush with herbs and flowers, that you have learned through study contain medicinal properties. Your neighbor tells you you are welcome to enter their land and harvest from their plants. This is explicit permission not only to be on the land, but also to harvest plants from it.
A situation where you may not have permission to harvest plants could be, for example: you are on a roadtrip driving through an expanse of land that is partially National Park, some government land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and some Native American Reservation Land. It is difficult while driving to confirm where which section of land begins and the next one ends. You pull over on the side of the road and begin walking down a trail, after having spotted a familiar plant species that you like to use for herbal products. You begin snipping pieces of the plants to take home with you. No one is around to ask permission from, and no one sees you taking snippets.
My herbalism training would deduce that this is a situation in which there was not permission to be on the land nor to harvest. If you were able to confirm that it was National Forest land you were in, and not a Reservation or Nature Reserve or any kind, it may be okay to harvest. If you are not able to confirm which land you are on, neither are you able to confirm that you have permission to harvest plants from that place.
2. Propagation: Another very important element of the ethics of herbalism is propagation, or the practice of encouraging and supporting plant reproduction. This was stressed throughout the Hawthorn School experience by my teacher, Sean, as being of utmost importance for herbalism practitioners who desire to work sustainably.
The idea of propagation is simple. When you harvest some plants from somehere, propagate some of that plant in that same place before you leave, when you can. Every plant is unique in its required technique for propagation, but often times it can be as simple as making a few cuttings and sticking them in the ground near the already mature stand from where you harvested.
Propagation techniques are often a bit more advanced than the typical beginner practitioner’s skills. For this reason, it is important to find a trustworthy teacher or guide, and to be communicating with those who live in or near the places where you may be going to harvest (with permission) to learn specific propagation techniques appropriate for the local plants there.
Propagation ethics apply more to wild-harvesting or foraging for plant material to work with. If you are cultivating your own herb garden and harvesting from it, you are already doing the work of ensuring you do not over-deplete the population of plants you are working with.
3. Intuition: Intuition is fundamental when it comes to working with plants and practicing herbalism. Listen to your intuition every step of the way. A very important moment in which to rely on your intution is at the moment of harvest, in order to be conscious of how much of a plant you are harvesting and when to stop.
The plants are generous givers, but we do not want to take advantage of them. Ideally, our harvest helps them grow and maintain themselves such as through post-harvest propagation or harvesting from a stand that is overgrown and needs maintenance, or a stand that is doing fine and won’t be bothered by sharing some of its population with you.
Be in constant communication with your intuition and ask yourself questions such as these:
Is there a way I can harvest this plant or piece of plant without doing any damage to the rest of the stand of the rest of the plant?
How much plant material do I really need? Do I already have enough? If I take more, will it just be wasted since I already harvested enough?
Do any insect or animal species rely on this plant for their survival? Maybe I should take less or propagate more if that is the case.
As you grow in your herbalism practice, these questions and more will arise naturally for you. You will likely even begin communicating with the plants themselves, and your intuition will interact with the information the plants have to share with you.
The key is to always be listening and fully present when working with and harvesting plants. That awareness and consciousness will go into the herbal products you create and will make them all the more powerful and holistic.
4. Care: Similar to intuition, care will take you far as you practice working with plants and harnessing their medicinal properties. At a basic level, this care includes washing your hands and having a clean environment when preparing to make an herbal product.
It also includes keeping things dated and properly labelled in your apothecary or stock so that you know when different plant materials were harvested or how long a tincture blend has been steeping.
Labelling to keep track of seeding as well as lunar cycles helps cultivate a careful, conscious, and grounded herbalism practice.
Care emerges as critical when it comes to leaving a harvest site. Do not forget your tools behind and definitely be sure to never leave trash or waste. We want to leave every environment better than how it was when we found it, especially those environments that are giving so much to us through sharing the abundant goodness of their plants.
Like intuition, the cultivation of care will emerge increasingly often throughout the development of your herbalism practice. After a few years, you will be aware of and intentional about things that you could not even have imagined at the beginning of your plant medicine journey. This is normal! And it means you are growing and becoming more attuned to the way of the plants, what they need, and how they are.
This article is intended to present an introduction to the basics of herbalism. Specific recipes for herbal product preparation, uses for different tools mentioned, strategies for how to establish your own herb garden or find harvest sites, and what to do with your herbal products once you have made them will appear in articles to come. If you have a specific question or doubt about anything mentioned in this beginner’s guide, please reach out to me through the contact form. If you are a seasoned herblism, blossoming practitioner or complete herbal virgin, leave a comment below to share anything you’d like about your experience working with plants thus far.
Thank you for taking the time to learn how to consciously harvest and work with plants! They will thank you for it and your practice will grow to be all the more sustainable and enriched.
take care of yourself and all the plants you know out there,
xo Lex
