What is Herbalism?

Herbalism is the knowledge and practice of healing with medicinal herbs. Every human culture on Earth has their own unique form of plant medicine practice, passed on through the generations to contemporary times. Indigenous cultures worldwide, despite the ongoing effects of genocide and colonisation, continue to practice their plant medicine knowledge and cosmologies.

Herbalism is a traditional form of healing rooted within the earth, centring the relationship between humans and plants, and harnessing the healing power of nature. Relationship is key here, because without relationship we humans (especially those of us living disconnected from the land or subsumed by the idea of consumer capitalism and human supremacy) are set adrift and easily lose our sense of perspective, our sense of responsibility and feelings of love and reciprocity towards nature, and that profound sense of connection to nature that inextricably bind us together. It is all too easy to think (because this is what we are conditioned to believe) that we as humans, exist at the top of some imaginary hierarchy with nature far down the ladder, with it (as though nature is an object and not an amorphous, heterogenous constellation of beings) being an exploitable resource at our fingertips for our own benefit. When we see ourselves as separate from, and better than nature, we lose our sense of meaning and purpose, and of joy and relationship with the whole being-ness of nature. Think of all the birds, the soil, the microbes, the mycelium, the water, the moss, the stones, the trees, the plants, the wind, the animals- the more-than-human kin that inhabit this earth with us, and with whom we breathe the same air, and drink the same water, and walk the same land. How are we not connected? How can we not be moved by these vast, expansive, beautiful, complex and interconnecting relationships? Herbalism helps us connect back to nature, to ask these questions, and to conceive of ways to reintegrate into nature.

Plant medicine, as an integral part of nature, anchors us to place, and provides a lens through which we see ourselves and each other. The plants and their ecosystems, of which we are a part, provide frameworks within which we have developed entire cosmologies over the time span of humanity, from language to kinship, to philosophy, social behaviour, lore and law, and spirituality. It is within these cosmologies that plant medicine practices emerged and continue to thrive across human cultures.

The type of herbalism I practice, as a white settler on colonised lands far from my ancestral lands and ties (in the sense of time and place), is a herbalism that is both born from disparate European and British cultures, and is simultaneously bound up in the appropriated, stolen and assimilated plant medicine traditions of other cultures. While we live in a globalised world with easy access to cross-cultural and social pollination which is of benefit and can be positive in establishing and maintaining relationships, respect and understanding across differences, it is important to also recognise where and when certain resources and knowledges such as plant medicine traditions, particularly of Indigenous and First Nations peoples, have at best, been taken out of their context, and at worst, been stolen and misappropriated in the name of exploitation, appropriation and extraction for profit and gain. In this way, contemporary so-called western herbal medicine holds an often tense and fraught space, at once a nature-based healing modality and a colonising harmful force. A lot more can be said about this, which I may write about in the future (reflecting on and critiquing western herbal medicine from a decolonial lens).

Western herbal medicine is also a herbalism that straddles two scientific worlds; one of traditional knowledge practiced over millennia, rooted in Ancient Islamic and Greek science and philosophy, and entrenched over time in everyday life through communal learning, practice and reverence and contact with nature; and one of contemporary evidence-based biomedical science, centring the scientific methodology of hypothesising, observation, testing, and outcome measures. This herbalism is the marriage of botany, herbal materia medica, pharmacology, anatomy, physiology, biology, pathophysiology, biochemistry, nutrition, herbal therapeutics and herbal manufacturing.

When the traditional and scientific rigour of herbalism is applied to the practice of health as a discipline, herbalism looks to identify the root causes of a given imbalance or state of ill health rather than make diagnoses. This occurs through comprehensive assessment of an individual, considering the state of their health within a holistic context, incorporating mental, physical, emotional, social, psychological, financial, cultural, and spiritual health. The individual and their unique ecosystem is situated within yet larger ecosystems of family and community, right up to institutions, organisations and society. This is known as systems theory and it highlights the points where an individual simultaneously exists and is influenced by multiple intersecting and interconnected systems. In this way, herbalism can be particularly empowering and liberating, allowing individuals to engage a sense of agency in their own healthcare journey and narrative, looking beyond and between the contemporary notion of healthcare as symptom management to a holistic understanding of healthcare as all-encompassing and healing on every interconnected level, fostering healing of mind, body and spirit.