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Confluence & Resurgence: The Dandelion Spirit of New Herbalism

4/20/2017

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​Herbalists can often be compared to the Dandelion – or any other insistent and persistent plant – in finding ways to sprout in even the most sterile environs, furthering diversity, penetrating the assumed impenetrable, loosening the restraints, seeking and discovering the openings and opportunities that can allow both our true natures and nature’s healing ways to blossom again. 

surge |sərj|
noun: a sudden powerful forward or upward movement, esp. by a crowd or by a natural force such as the waves or tide; a plant’s surge of growth.
• increase suddenly and powerfully, typically during an otherwise stable or quiescent period


Picture for a moment, if you will, a small crack in the carefully laid sidewalk of any city, wrested open by the heaving breathing, freeze and thaw of a living earth intolerant of stasis and control.  Picture, too, the vibrant green expression of the vital life force as it sinuously wriggles and forces its way upwards towards the sun, resplendent with its disorderly leaves, it’s shameless yellow flower-head unbowed and un-saddened: the proverbial outlaw Dandelion!  

Dissed as a “weed” by a majority of citizens, poisoned with herbicides or ignominiously yanked from the ground by even some lovers of gardens, it nonetheless continues to not only persist but flourish, breaching the restraints of any pernicious pavement or callous concrete that ever tries stop it.  The Dandelion serves us as both a symbol and agent of insistent self determination in the face of oppression, conformity and control, of a natural resurgent vitality in resistance to the unhealthy ways and stultifying sameness of the dominant paradigm.  It is medicine for the liver, for the ecosystem, and for our ways of perceiving ourselves and our role in this world and work.  Dandelion resistance.  Dandelion healing.  Dandelion delight.
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Like the Dandelion, the herbalist is by nature an agent of healing and enlivening, as well as a symbol of strong if gentle persistence in the the face of periodic eras of increased oppression, exclusion, distraction or neglect.  Herbalists, have at times joined Dandelions in being demeaned, with folk herbalists in particular denigrated like weeds.  Most importantly, the encroaching concrete that the Dandelion suffers, bedevils herbalists as well – in the form of not only oppressive regulation and restrictions, but also our own traditions and beliefs whenever they limit our evolution and innovation.  It can be seen in the institutionalizing of our craft and sometimes rigidifying of its practitioners.  It is manifest in those systems and standards that make folks at any level of knowledge feel unworthy, excluded or trivialized... and that crusting slurry of self doubt that can cement us the the floor.   

Like the dandelion, herbalism prospers, gestates and spreads surreptitiously whenever suppressed, feeling right at home in the “underground.”  Neither walls nor borders can restrain it.  If there be a but single fissure anywhere in that which holds it down, it is through it that herbalism will surge forth into the light of day once more.

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Resurgence

“...the nexus of a folk herbal resurgence – resurrecting the spirit of Western Herbalism.“   
~Paul Bergner

​resurgence |riˈsərjəns|
noun: An increase or revival after a period of less  activity, popularity, or occurrence.
• to surge again

Don’t be fooled by claims of a need to “professionalize” this craft, to make it acceptable to the dominant corporatized paradigm through certification, rigidification, and self imposed hierarchy. Herbalism is intrinsically unacceptable to those who put money ahead of the health of people and ecosystems, and this makes it a rebel, Dandelion tough. 

Like the Dandelion, the practice of herbalism is itself a living thing, as caring as the most sentient being, while plant-like in its powers of resilience, resumption and regeneration.  Again and again it has quieted of its own accord or been systematically repressed, been alternately embraced and dissed.  In its Autumns and Winters, it draws into itself.  Its roots continue to grow, but its vines rest from their earlier wrangling, its leaves fall or hang snow-bent in contemplation.  In its Springs and Summers, new growth is awakened, and new sprouts burst from hungering seed.

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In its most recent manifestation, the herbal resurgence is a response to the placation, reduced enthusiasm, timidity and complacency that can effect any comfortably successful field... and an eruption of community, an alliance of folk herbalists who for too long had felt peripheral, excluded by the systems of membership and degrees, offended by hierarchy, and alienated by the increasing stress and pressure around professional status and mainstream acceptance.  It includes home and small business makers of herbal preparations who felt threatened, sidelined or alienated by the slick commercialism and impersonal corporatism they saw as becoming herbalism’s public face.   And those who have felt there is a further responsibility, that the conditions of our society and this planet required one work to heal the stressful lifestyles and relationships that beget much illness, the communities we live in and governments we allow to supervise us, the fundamental character of our society, the ways we grow our food and medicines, and the threatened wildlands from which both we and our herbs emerged.   ​

​Evolution is a call for renewal, every bit as important for us and our craft as is a return to our roots – a reclaiming of herbalism’s intrinsic spirit and essential organic nature, its informality and egalitarianism, social consciousness and courageous response.  Ours is a remembering of the original feelings and motivations that have always inspired this work with medicinal plants.  And ours is a surging forward to self empowerment and grass roots action, mated with the  reawakening of the curiosity, excitement, and giddy pleasures of this healing work.  
​
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A Confluence of Purpose

A “Confluence” is an act or process of merging, the coming together of wildly diverse courses and tributaries into a single shared purpose as powerful and as needed as any river.

In what by all appearances is a particularly bizarre, dangerous, intolerant, xenophobic, and oppressive era, it is time – for a confluence of purpose, of like hearted, plant loving healers of self, society, and planet.  And a time for herbal resurgence after resurgence, continuous eruptions of powerful passions and caring insistence, wild-heartedness and nonconformity, awareness and action, love and devotion that – like the health-full outlaw Dandelion – nothing can keep down, and none can hold back.
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​Jesse Wolf Hardin  is cofounder and co-director of Plant Healer Magazine, along with his partner Kiva Rose, and he invites your participation this June in Plant Healer’s Good Medicine Confluence in Durango, Colorado. Wolf is an acclaimed ecosopher, eco and social activist, artist, and champion of nature’s medicine, living seven river crossings from the nearest road in a rewilded river canyon of S.W. New Mexico.  He has been a leading voice of and for the natural world for over four decades, his work earning praise from a wide range of contemporaries from Gary Snyder to Starhawk and Rosemary Gladstar. Wolf has been a featured presenter at hundreds of conferences and universities, including cross cultural collaborations appropriately called Earth First! “Medicine Shows” that melded his spoken word with live music. He’s the author of over 600 published magazine articles and 20 books such as Gaia Eros, The Plant Healer’s Path, and The Healing Terrain, as well as co-editing the compilation book Radical Herbalism, all available from the Plant Healer bookstore. At this Summer’s Good Medicine Confluence, he will be teaching classes on both ReWilding (a term he coined) and ReEnchantment. Check out: www.PlantHealer.org
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Featured Chapter: Mahonia Chapter - Greater Vancouver BC Area

4/10/2017

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​What is your chapter name and which region do you serve?

Mahonia Chapter – BC Lower Mainland (Greater Vancouver BC area)
​

How many members do you have in your group?

Membership has been a continued learning situation. Electronically on our fantastic face book community we have over 200 “members”, but getting individuals to meetings and events has been a challenge! We have access to a beautiful historic chapter house and garden in the New West area and we hope that future members will come and enjoy the special learning atmosphere we have to offer!
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Who is your main coordinator?​

Petra Sovcov

Do you have any past projects that you wish to share? What you did or made, who you worked with, and how it benefit community?

Past projects for 2017 include an urban gardening workshop to teach about growing native plants and herbs in the greater Pacific Northwest.  The benefit of this workshop was to educate community members about some of the fantastic local varieties that can be grown in an urban garden setting and to explore some of the native medicines that are available at our fingertips.
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Does your region face any unique needs? 

I think our unique need for the region is simply exposure. I have found that though many individuals are familiar with natural medicine as a whole, not many are aware of the presence of clinical herbalists in the community. I would very much like to change this and to offer ways for individuals to learn more about their options for botanical/natural healing.

Do you have any special plans or goals for 2017?

-    Grow our group to 20 registered/enrolled members
-    Have consistent monthly meetings
-    Host a work shop every other month
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What do you enjoy/like most about your HWB chapter or HWB international?

Our passion for supplying botanical/natural medicine and information to those in need!
​
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Who to contact to join this chapter (Don't forget to join HWB first!):

Email: hwbvolunteers@gmail.com
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    Herbalists Without's bookshelf: read

    Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
    Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
    by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
    tagged: activism and health-justice
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    Infusions of Healing: A Treasury of Mexican-American Herbal Remedies
    by Joie Davidow
    tagged: herbal-traditions and history
    Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
    Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
    by Londa L Schiebinger
    tagged: anti-colonialism, black-herbalists, and herbal-traditions
    Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing
    Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing
    by Michele Elizabeth Lee
    tagged: activism, anti-colonialism, black-herbalists, and herbal-traditions
    Unequal Health: How Inequality Contributes to Health or Illness
    Unequal Health: How Inequality Contributes to Health or Illness
    by Grace Budrys
    tagged: health-justice
    Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies
    Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies
    by Renee Linklater
    tagged: trauma-healing
    Native American Medicinal Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary
    Native American Medicinal Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary
    by Daniel E. Moerman
    The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege
    The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege
    by Ken Wytsma
    tagged: racism
    Oppression and the Body: Roots, Resistance, and Resolutions
    Oppression and the Body: Roots, Resistance, and Resolutions
    by Christine Caldwell
    tagged: anti-colonialism
    Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
    Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
    by Robin Wall Kimmerer
    tagged: herbal-traditions

    goodreads.com

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  • Home
  • ABOUT HWB
    • HWB VISION & VALUES
    • HWB BOARD OF DIRECTORS
    • CORE COORDINATORS
    • HERBAL ACTION PODCAST
  • OUR WORK
    • PEOPLE'S CLINICS >
      • FREE & SLIDING SCALE HERBAL CLINIC DIRECTORY
      • INT'L BORDERLESS MEDICINE
      • VETERANS RESILIENCY HOLISTIC CLINIC
      • LOS GUARDIANES DE LAS TRADICIONES MEDICINALES ANCESTRALES
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  • GET INVOLVED
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