(this is part 3 of a 10-part series, a life’s journey to become an herbalist observing gail faith edward’s article on the subject. you can find part 1 and part 2 here.)

gail’s third step in her ten-fold path is to become humus and humble yourself. she says:


“…Kneel on the earth, place yourself at the foot of the herbs, ask them for help. Tell them what you need. Do this day after day, month after month, year after year. Leave all your problems in the soil, they will be transformed, like everything else, by unseen soil microorganisms…“

i can’t tell you how many times i have gone and just sat on the ground in my garden to think and be. or taken a walk back into the sassafras patch where the roses grow to just be. around here, it is extremely hard to get away from everyone and alone time is prime. sneaking off to the garden or woods is the easiest way to get this freedom. and while my main intent is for a bit of quietness in my head, the plants and earth always give me something more than i originally went searching for. hugging a tree or feeling my weight sink into the strength of the ground as the long blades of grass tickle my nose and scratch my back gives me such a feeling of peacefulness.

(this is part 2 of a 10-part series, a life’s journey to become an herbalist observing gail faith edward’s article on the subject. you can find part 1 here.)

gail’s second step in her ten-fold path is to pay attention, observe and concentrate. she says:

“I have lived on this ridge-top herb farm for over thirty years. The thing about living in one place for a long time is that you get to notice things. And you have plenty of time and activity behind you to base observations on. It takes a long time to notice some things; like how plants move naturally across a field, on their own, over a thirty year span. Or the length of time it took your usnea tincture to turn orange the last few times you made it. Observation is one of the most important skills of an herbalist. Whether you are or aspire to be a wildgatherer and medicine maker, a clinical herbalist or herbal nutritionist, whatever your particular herbal path is, you will need to develop keen observation skills. How do you do that? By paying attention.

An herbalist must pay constant attention to life. All of life and life processes. One way to do that is by tending a garden over many years. Goethe said that he spent his whole life in the garden and thus discovered the entire world. Start seeds and watch them grow. Welcome the same plant stands back year after year. Notice everything about your plants in every season. Notice their effects on people, animals, insects, other plants, the soil, the air. Visit your garden often, taking time to breath deeply, smell deeply, see deeply, listen deeply, relax deeply. Breathe from your heart. Watch the bees and butterflies, feel the breeze.”

although i’ve only been on this farmette for 6 years, i have observed more activity and changes with the flora than i probably have a lifetime of living at any other place. i have observed the plants moving slowly across the garden as well as plants that completely moved to the other side of our property and start growing where they never existed before as well as plants disappear completely from the landscape.

this year, i learned there are at least 3 wild varieties of rose growing on our property simply by taking regular walks that i didn’t bother to do in the past. i observed that the multiflora rose blooms sooner than the rugosa rose and the 3rd unidentified rose. i’ve watched small elder plants mature enough to start producing fruits, my own st. john’s wort completely disappear from my garden and jewelweed slowly creeping closer onto our property.

i’ve also noticed different growth patterns and plants emerging sooner than usual or later than usual. i got to see my peony plant bloom for the first time since i’ve lived here. also, nettles appeared for the first time after hopefully searching for them over the past 6 years. this year they flourished as if they had always grown there.

(this is part 1 of a 10-part series, a life’s journey to become an herbalist observing gail faith edward’s article on the subject),

gail’s first step in the ten-fold path is to build a sense of place:

“The cultivation of a deep sense of place is invaluable for an herbalist. We all emerge out of an eco system, a bioregion, we are all connected elementally, as well as ethereally, to our surroundings, to our place. Understanding this sense of place and how it relates to plants and people is an important part of the herbalist’s path. It is often overlooked, as when a woman in northeastern America is offered an herb that grew in South Africa as a remedy for her ills. Cultivate a sense of place, its critical to understanding the actions as well as possible effects of combining individual plants and people.”

this one is dear to my heart but for a different reason. i completely believe in using herbs from my region but i more have considered it because of 1. teaching people to be self healers and confidence starts with being able to show them herbs that grow in their own backyards and are easy to recognize and 2. if the end of the world as we know it were to happen, we would not be able to get an exotic herb so instead of trying the latest and greatest, i feel it’s better to stick with what we have at our fingertips.

being able to take advantage of the abundance in our own back yards, local parks, woods and wild places is one of the best things we as herbalists can do and teach. during the summer, my herbal study group includes herb walks so i can show plants that i cultivate in my garden and plants that grow on their own in the wild. this includes natives and invasives. invasives are here to stay whether we like it or not so we might as well take advantage of their medicine that they offer and use them. it will keep them in check as well.

taking daily walks is a great way to have a sense of space. i try to take note of what i discover growing in the wild, where it is growing (shade, full sun, near water, along fence row, in pathway), what the conditions are like (spring, summer, fall, winter) and what stage of grow it is in (flowering, fruiting, dying back) for future reference. i have finally dedicated a watercolor spiral bound book just for my walks to keep note in and hope to fill it with my notes, sketches and possibly even a few photographs as time goes on. this will allow me to track the changes of plant species growing, what comes, what goes, and when. i’ve lived on this land for 6 years and already i’ve seen big changes to the flora.

while i view this home as a temporary place, a sort of transition to my future forever home, my roots go deep into the earth in this area and for now, this is my place in life. i love to nurture and urge plants to grow here and teach me all they can. for now, my sense of place is here and i will continue to offer what i can to the plants and people of my community.

gail faith edwards wrote an article awhile back about the ten-fold path to becoming a community herbalist in response to an article that paul bergner wrote. most of them tie in nicely with quaker testimony so i plan to try to incorporate them into my daily living. here is a brief outline of the 10 things she feels are important to become a community herbalist:

1 – Sense of Place

2 – Pay Attention – Observation. Concentration

3 – Become humus. Humble yourself

4 – Learn to open your wild heart, connect with your inner wild nature

4 – Herbal Ally

5 – Study, study, study

6 – Simplify your life

7 – Cultivate your spirituality

8 – Listen to your clients

9 – Be your own refuge

10 – Practice learning

over then next few weeks,  i hope to write a bit about each item and what i’m doing or plan to start to deepen my learning as a community herbalist.

Editor’s note:

Today we are excited to have a guest herbal columnist on our site today. Kiva Rose is a well-known herbal blogger, and co-founder of the Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference.

Kiva is finally coming out with her secrets of how she learns so much about plants without using books. Her plant monographs, like the one below, are famous for their deep exploration into herbs that you will not find in other places.

Click here to learn just HOW she does it.

Do you REALLY know chamomile? Review what you’ve learned this summer about it with this article. Enjoy the article…

Earth Apple: The Bittersweet Medicine of Chamomile

By Kiva Rose

I am excited to finally be able to go deeper into explaining herbal energetics in my upcoming course, Herb Energetics.

Let’s begin with an herb we all know and love, chamomile.

However, do you REALLY know Chamomile?

Chamomile means “earth apple” which is easy to understand when we accidentally trample the flowers and underfoot and suddenly smell the welcome fragrance of apples rising from the earth. In the same way, Spanish speaking peoples often use the name Manzanilla, literally meaning “little apple”.

Even for those largely unfamiliar with herbs, the distinctive sweet scent of Chamomile is often both familiar and comforting. This plant is many people’s first and perhaps only introduction to herbalism, often from a cup of honey-sweetened and belly-calming tea from their grandmother.

Many children enjoy eating the buds or just opened flowers, savoring the sweet aromatic taste of the plant, and rarely seeming to mind the slightly bitter aftertaste. Some patches of Chamomile, depending on phase of flowering and availability of moisture, are much more bitter than others but the fragrant sweetness persists even in the most bitter batches.

Far from irrelevant, these signature sensory characteristics of Chamomile that make the plant memorable in our minds are also the primary keys to understanding how to work with Matricaria as a medicine.

As with almost any herb, the taste and scent of Matricaria tells us a great deal about its properties, allowing us to use our senses to listen to the plant and understand its essence as a medicine. That blissfully apple-like scent that children so love to breathe in from the flowers tends to bring relaxed smiles to their faces and anyone who’s ever drank a cup of the tea can testify to the relaxing, tension alleviating effects of the plant.

That aromatic component, stemming from the plant’s high volatile oil content, is predictably nervine, meaning that it has a discernible effect on the nervous system. In this case, a specific relaxing, calming effect. Additionally, that same volatile oil content is responsible for Chamomile’s actions as a carminative, relieving digestive stagnation in the form of gas, gut cramping and mild constipation. A traditional remedy by several North American indigenous tribes for the uterine cramps of girls just beginning their menstrual cycles, Chamomile is a mild relaxant for the smooth muscles of the gut, uterus, bladder and respiratory tract with a specific affinity for the gut.

Matricaria is not just aromatic, even in the sweetest Chamomile flowers we find a notably bitter aftertaste. Rather than ruining the flavor of an otherwise tasty herb, that bitter element enhances and expands the medicinal properties of the plant. The bitter flavor tells us that it has a distinct effect on the digestive system, even beyond the aromatic/carminative qualities.

The bitterness increases the secretion of digestive juices and enzymes in the gut, thereby improving digestion wherever there is a lack of secretions, which is a common cause of heartburn and many cases of general gut discomfort. This combined with its obvious nervine properties; Matricaria excels at treating what is commonly known as a “nervous stomach”, which generally implies digestive upset concurrent with anxiety and nervous tension.

Volatile oils and bitter principles together make for a powerful ability to reduce inflammation and promote healing, especially in the gut. I rarely create a formula for those with leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome or even Crohn’s disease that doesn’t contain some proportion of Chamomile. Even as a simple, this pleasant tasting plant can very effectively reduce gut inflammation, pain and cramping while promoting healing of the mucosa and improving overall digestion. And of course, reducing any anxiety that may be aggravating or triggering the gut issues in the first place.

Just as it soothes and heals internally, Matricaria is also a first-rate external application for almost any case of inflammation, irritation, swelling and even potential infection. It finds its way into many of my compress formulas for eczema, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and other common inflammatory skin conditions.

Steams, baths and infused oil are other effective ways of utilizing the calming, decongestive and healing properties of the herb. It’s also the first plant I think of in addressing the discomfort, irritability, insomnia, belly upset and fever of teething in small children.

Chamomile is one of my favorite remedies for all sorts of eye inflammations and infections. It can be used as a warm compress or saline eyewash to reduce inflammation, possible infection and pain in the treatment of styes, conjunctivitis, pink eye and similar maladies.

It teams up especially well with any Rosa spp. petals where there is a great deal of redness, irritation and swelling in the eye and the surrounding area. Just be sure to strain all those tiny (and potentially irritating) bits of Chamomile flower before using as an eyewash.

Chamomile has a well-deserved reputation as an archetypal remedy for children (or as Matthew Wood says “children of any age”), especially where there is fussiness, restlessness, frequent digestive upset and a tendency to react strongly to any irritant or discomfort. If one were to read the first dozen monograph on Matricaria they came across, the word “soothing” would be likely to show up in nearly every one. While now a somewhat clichéd representation of this common herb, it is nonetheless very accurate.

There’s a tendency by some of us to be less interested in the classic gentle herbs whose effects seem obvious, mild and less than profound. And yet, Chamomile has retained it’s popularity and reputation over the years for a very a specific reason. It works. It’s an effective, widely applicable, safe medicine well-loved by countless generations of mothers, herbalists and more recently, even medical doctors. This small but fragrant apple of the earth remains an invaluable medicine for all of us. Through both sweet and the bitter tastes, Chamomile provides us with a simple yet essential remedy.

Considerations: People with sensitivities to plants in the Aster family may have similar problems with Matricaria. Also note that Pineapple Weed (M. discoidea) often has a stronger bitter component and overall action than the common garden grown M. recutita.

The low down…

Common Name: Chamomile, Manzanilla, Pineapple Weed

Botanical Name: Matricaria recutita (as well as M. discoidea)

Botanical Family: Asteraceae

Taste: Aromatic, sweet, bitter

Vital Actions: relaxant nervine, relaxant diaphoretic, aromatic bitter/carminative, vulnerary,

Specific Indications: Irritability, tension, heat, hypersensitivity to pain

Energetics: sl. Cool, dry

So, exactly how does Kiva learn about plants by using her senses?

Just click here.