Herbal Wisdom for the Next Generation

Jul 07, 2024

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Every conversation started with coughing.

I have a close friend who suffered for a decade and a half from a chronic, dry cough brought on by 2 years of overseeing various aspects of wildfire response teams and extracting firefighters from deep within burning forests. He was stuck in fires often, a few times barely escaping with his life.

I’ve heard the stories of deployed Shake n’ Bakes (fire blankets), seeing the charred ground all around him, and of the utter chaos and destruction left in the wake of these fires.

Of course, the less visible destruction was inside.

He was never a smoker. Allergic to tobacco products from an early age.

For years, every conversation I had with him started with coughing spasms. Followed by a few words, and more coughing.

I recommended dietary changes:

More probiotics. No gluten. Meat only. More raw.

Nothing seemed to work.

Of course he had tried other remedies over the years, including over the counter meds, without much success. The cough always came back.

It felt like a hopeless situation.
In many ways, it was.

But then, I began exploring herbal remedies. It was something I’d been interested in for a long time, but hadn’t taken the time to learn much about.

Call me a skeptic. I’d always had an underlying belief that herbs could work for some things, but I hadn’t explored enough to understand them entirely.

(I also am generally doubtful of the claims of anyone trying to sell something.)

Cynical and skeptical.

But, since nothing else seemed to work, I figured I’d give herbs a try.

I got a free sample of a tincture to help with respiratory problems from a local herb shop.

My friend was going to be my guinea pig for this tincture.

We talked about it, and he started that day.

A couple weeks later, his cough was substantially better. The coughing spasms greatly diminished to mostly an occasional dry cough.

And a few weeks after that, I realized the cough had almost completely gone.

I was–frankly–blown away.

Over the next several years, I used a few tinctures myself to clear up stuff that was bothering me.

All to wonderful results.

As I dug more into the world of tinctures, teas, and salves, I returned to a basic principle:

Plants are POWERFUL.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t be the basis of so many pharmaceutical and recreational drugs.

Such as:

Aspirin – inspired from willow bark
Opiates – from the flower of the humble poppy plant
CBD/THC – from the flowers (and CBD sometimes other parts) of the cannabis plant
Cocaine – from coca leaves
Topical salves and creams – from the leaves of the comfrey plant and other plants
Tobacco products – from tobacco leaves

And so many more…

Plants have a rich and varied history of helping humans. This is a fun topic to dive into–one that I have only dipped my toes in. And the learning opportunity is incredible.

Plants are truly amazing gifts of nature.

You can harness their benefits.

This past week, I had the pleasure of interviewing master herbalist and herbal historian Judson Carroll for the Nourishing Liberty podcast.

Whoa! This simple conversation was a bit like the proverbial “drinking from the fire hose.”

Judson’s got in depth knowledge of the history of medicinal plants, as well as a robust experiential knowledge of how these plants are used and perform in our ecosystems as members of the plant community.

I was especially curious how, why, and when herbal medicine became “vilified”—especially among women who practiced herbal medicine and got turned into societal scapegoats.

It’s a truly fascinating history with many twists and turns going back centuries, even millennia.

And here we are today, in a mosquito-filled world (and no one likes mosquitos) where Judson knows just the right plants to help keep the mosquitos away from YOU this summer.

It’s a whole other world of wonder delving into herbal remedies of the past, the joys these plants can bring to our gardens, and the ways we can learn to use them in our everyday lives.

One of the most important principles Judson and I covered is that of teaching our next generations.

The knowledge and experiential wisdom of our herbalists is passed down generation to generation, securing this information from person to person. I believe it’s imperative that we learn what we can so we can pass down our accumulated wisdom to the next generation.

We’re building food and health security.

And that begins with learning a little bit of history from our past teachers.

What was the role of the Catholic Church in cultivating and recording herbal medicine?
Who was the 12th century nun considered one of the most important herbalists in history?
How did the stereotypical witch image come about?
When and why were women vilified for using herbs for healing?
How can you start today, in your own backyard with the resources you have available to you now?
Why is it important to pair the wisdom of past generations with the empirical evidence we find for ourselves?
How do ancient herbal traditions match up with modern science?
How have religious traditions influenced both the spread of herbal medicine and the censoring of it?

Here is the full interview with Judson.

Enjoy!

The Wild History of Herbal Medicine with Judson Carroll. (On Apple Podcasts)

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Raw Milk Mama