African American Herbalism: A Practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions
by Lucretia VanDyke, Ulysses Press, 2022

-Review by Arati Ursus
I loved this book! VanDyke starts off by looking at the history of African American herbalism, including prominent herbalists and midwives and the roots of their practices. Later on in the book she shares the work and wisdom of modern day, African American herbalists. This book includes how-to’s on medicine making, a materia medica including herbalism for physical wellness, warnings, and magical uses of the same herbs, and many of enticing recipes. It isna wonderful addition to my herbal knowledge and would be a great first herb book for any new herb enthusiast. The best part was hearing VanDyke’s way of expressing her connection with the plants themselves. They offer a tender, intelligent, & magical interconnection. It is sweet to hear those personal experiences described poetically.

VanDyke looks back to African roots, including sound healing, hoodoo, plant medicine recipes that inform African American herbalism, past and present. In their early years in the US, African Americans often provided herbal healing and midwifery to their enslavers. There was an interplay between those in power being fearful of their herbal knowledge, resulting in trying to dominate their practices, and dependency on their ability to heal and catch their babies. You can’t understand “traditional western herbalism” without learning from African American herbalist ancestors and the way the law restricted the practice. Many people are thirsting for more resources, more voices in herbalism. I wished only for more information about all the herbalists she introduced! It provides the beginning of a journey. 

I enjoyed learning about new uses for familiar herb friends. My new adventure in herbalism will be exploring the spiritual bath recipes and intentions for ourselves and spaces. I am already a lover of bathing with flowers and gemstones and love having this resource. I am also eager to try out the Fried Dandelion Flower Fritters recipe. I love seasonal recipes and this sounds like it will soon become a summertime tradition.

These pages offer many introductions to plants and people. Let their wisdom remind you to honor your own bloodline, as well as to help you find new chosen ancestors and sources of nature magic. Without these connections we are lonely people. Through the practice of learning plant medicine, healing ourselves, and helping others heal, we develop interconnectedness, a sense of oneness with the world. Oneness with the plants that speak to us, and oneness with those bodies we communicate with and connect to plants. As we nurture oneness it becomes easy to see how much more we have in common than things that separate us. It is so easy to see how we can make great healing magic in our global community by setting our intentions for increasing health and lifting each other up together. 

In the words of Alice Walker: 

“To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before.”

Thank you for the introductions to new ancestors, Lucretia VanDyke, and directing us to the magic of the many ways to “work the roots”: hoodoo, literal roots of plants, and delving into our ancestry. 

Black History Month: Black Herbalists and Their Legacies through Books
By Carolyn Jones

Black herbalism has a rich history that is rooted in the Motherland. Although enslaved Africans were forced to survive under extremely inhumane conditions, they continued their traditions of using teas, powders, and salves made from plants and animals-- also incorporated into their spiritual lives with charms, prayers, and conjurations. Their sociopolitical perspectives were shaped according to where their captors docked their ships. 

The treasure trove of books by Black herbalists is exhaustive, offering a scholarship that weaves the traumatic history of a people together with the botanical medicine that sustained them.

In Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors , author Carolyn Finney acknowledges that Africans believed in “good use” of the land and the connection between the health of the land and their community. 

Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing by Michelle Elizabeth Lee offers a walk down memory lane with interviews of African American healers, illustrating how Black people survived the tests of time by merging their knowledge of healing and medicinal practices with Europeans and Native Americans.

In Secret Doctors: Ethnomedicine of African Americans, author Wonda Fontenut links traditional African beliefs and practices with current African American traditions. 

Certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide, Kimberly Ruffin, explores a theory of “ecological burden and beauty” in her book,  Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions. She chronicles ecological insights from the antebellum era to the 21st century, documented by novels, essays, celebrated artists, and the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) slave narratives. 

Clara Adams, a woman who was enslaved in Alabama, is resurrected in this passage:

“…I wants to see de dawn break over de black ridge and de twilight settle…spreadin’ a sort of orange hue over de place. I wants to walk de path th’ew de woods…an’ see de rabbits an’ watch de birds an’ listen to frogs at night.”

Sticks, Stones, Roots, and Bones: Hoodoo, Mojo, and Conjuring With Herbs by Stephanie Rose Bird brings it all home by introducing the reader to jiridon, the science of the trees. Masters of jiridon are herbalists and adept ecologists, tree whisperers who understand, live with and study a single tree and soul.

Bookshop is an affiliate link and purchasing a book from Bookshop.org not only supports small, independent bookstores, but a small % comes to HWB. Thank you for your support. 

Carolyn Jones
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Carolyn Jones is a Holistic Health Educator and Chaplain who teaches the art of self-care and practices a ministry of presence. She is licensed by the New York State Chaplain Task Force and serves the community as an herbalist, a certified aromatherapist and reflexologist. Respected by her peers, she embraces and is supported by a strong community of traditional and non-traditional healers who follow uniquely different paths that merge at the crossroads of community health. Carolyn is the Coordinator of The Healing Project, a Project under HWB: The Healing Project and is on the HWB Board of Directors as Secretary. 

Our latest newsletter is 26-pages filled wth recipes, articles, news, updates, member and coordinator news, and more. Click the link to read the PDF. Want to read back issues - go to our newsletter page and read them all. 

Register for our FREE Members-Only webinar: Cannabis Fundamentals, with Colleen Quinn. 

By the end of the webinar, you will understand the botany of cannabis, know more about the science of cannabis and CBD, be more knowledgeable about CBD and other cannabinoids, know more about regulations where you live, as well as know what and where to buy your CBD and Cannabis products. 

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Denise Cusack

How long have you been a member of HWB? How else are you involved?
I joined HWB in 2015, and in 2016-2017 was the HWB website coordinator. I became the volunteer Executive Director in September of 2017, and worked as ED over the past 5 years, I  created the US Donation Distribution Network, US Seed Grants, HWB Podcasts and Webinar series, several e-guides, and more in my time as ED. In October of this year (2022), I stepped down as ED, and joined the HWB Board. I am continuing to volunteer with HWB as a Board Member, US Donation Network Coordinator, US SeedGrant Coordinator, and helping as Social Media Coordinator. 

What drew you to HWB as a member and board member? 
I had started the #HappyFlowerProject in 2015 to grow flowers (and veggies and herbs) for the local food pantry with my kids. I was also working towards my RH designation with the AHG under a mentor, and working as an herbalist with clients. In these roles I saw lack of health access, lack of healthy food access, and a need for holistic and herbal health and wellness access for all. I began looking for other ways to get involved and do more mutual aid and herbal health access on a larger scale. In my searches I found HWB and joined right away. I connected with the Volunteer Coordinator, and stepped up as a volunteer to redesign the website, and get the membership form online! I also started volunteering as the Clinical Herbalist for the Veterans Resiliency Holistic Clinic, serving Veterans in a multidisciplinary holistic wellness clinic model (from 2017-2022). The rest, as they say, is history!

Tell us more about yourself!
I am a clinical herbalist, certified aromatherapist, medicinal herb grower & plant conservationist, writer, artist, designer, and Permaculture and Advanced Social Systems Designer (PDC). Our small family farmette, Lunar Hollow Farm, is a  a permaculture and regenerative garden botanical sanctuary in the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary Network. I grow food and medicine for my family, as well as medicinal herbs for HWB Free Clinics and save seeds for our HWB Seed Grant program. I live in rural Wisconsin with my 2 teenagers, husband, dog, 2 cats, 5 chickens, and tens of thousands of plants. 

This is the fourth in our Meet a Board Member series!

Rebecca Trinidad

How long have you been a member of HWB? How else are you involved?
I have been a member since 2018, a Chapter Coordinator since 2020, and a member of the Board since 2022. 

What drew you to HWB as a member and board member (and coordinator if applicable)? 
I turned to herbs for my personal care and got myself off of prescription medications doing so. It made me want to help others do the same. I saw the work Herbalista was doing with the herb bus and it inspired me to join HWB and start a chapter.

Tell us more about yourself!
I come from a line of women that work to heal people and communities. After taking my health into my  own hands using herbs, I sought out herbal training from Herbal Academy to obtain a foundation of knowledge to educate others. I started a chapter (HWB of the Big Bend) in my region in 2020 with another coordinator and have been building community ever since. I hope to continue to support HWB's work in my role as Treasurer on the Board as well as a chapter co-coordinator!