The Sustainable Herbalist
Herbs are moving into a new realm of the West: Allopathic Herbalism. This is a shelf at Wal Mart of standardized herbal extracts from unknown sources. These are advertised with a one size fits all philosophy and a simple fix approach.
The goal of the sustainable herbalist is to survive corporate interests of herbalism with our hands still in the soil and freedom intact. Life is an integrated whole, one in which we all exist and one aspect cannot be ignored for another. Herbs as well as humans cannot be broken down into minute chemical constituents. The whole plant, whole foods and the whole person are how we have traditionally existed for thousands of years.
Now is the time to move out of this industrialized mass consumption and turn to our local farmers, community herbalists and other small, local businesses to put our health and economy into a realistic and comprehensible perspective.
Community Herbalism means looking at the whole self, and beyond that the family and community. It means that sleep, fresh air, rest, relaxation and good times are all necessary to achieve health. Herbs are helpful allies to speed the process of recovering health and joy, but they will not achieve it without care and attention to the quality of our lives.
Quality does not mean money per se, or possessions. Quality does not mean consumption. Quality is sometimes less, stopping long enough for things to settle and for the innate beauty of life to have a chance to show itself, inside and out.
