Ancestral Herbalism
If you’ve been around my classes, books, or channel for any length of time, chances are you’ve heard me mention how much gratitude I have for the herbwise folks that chose to gain green wisdom and then ensure that it was able to be handed down to you and me. These folks essentially preserved ancestral herbalism- a look at how the people who came before us experienced the plants, worked with them for healing and magic, and learned directly from them. In this week’s class I did an informal chat which ended up being less about who the ancestors are and what ancestral herbal practices may be, and more on why a connection to them has been so important in my own personal journey down the plant spirit path- and in the herbal clinic where I practice full time as an herbalist in Salt Lake City, Utah.
I’ll post the class video below for you to watch, and begin here with some of my favorite points from where the chat went.
REAL PEOPLE, REAPL PLACES, REAL RELATIONSHIPS
It can be all too easy for us to disconnect the vast wealth of herbal wisdom we have now from the real-life people who worked hard to gain that wisdom and then pass it on to us. Acknowledging ancestral herbalism means that we take a moment to simply be aware that our current practices of spiritual herbalism are rooted in actual people who had full lives and deep investment in their own plant spirit journeys. Without their hard won blessings from the green realm, we would be starting from scratch generation after generation.
RELATIONSHIPS & RECIPROCITY
By engaging in ancestral herbalism in whatever form it may take for you as a individual, we quickly learn that the herbwise who came before us consistently prioritized reciprocal relationships of kinship with the plant spirits. They experienced the plants not as things fur us human folk to use however needed, but as kin who are on a living journey right alongside us.
Any level of connection to the ancestors will directly show us the importance of sacred reciprocity.
LORE WE CAN LEAN ON
Speaking of starting from scratch, the plant lore which exists from ages past informs how we are able to connect with plants, learn from them, co-create with them, and protect harmony with them. The lore preserves some of the most important green wisdom we have access to in story form so that it can stand the test of time.
NO NEW DRAMA - BEEN THERE, DONE THAT!
Plants have seen everything we humans can come up with. Nothing you have ever done or will ever do presents something to the plants they haven’t encountered in one form or another… I promise! A connection to ancestral herbalism reminds us that our forbears went through similar hardships to our own and that their reliance on the herb kin ultimately got them through.
PLANTS THAT KNOW ME
When we work with the same plant spirits that our ancestors worked with, we add a layer of connection, nourishment, and power to how we’re linked up with our own past. The plants, us, and our mighty dead form a triune of power that radically transforms the depth to which our plant spirit work can be performed.
ANCESTRAL SPIRITUALITY & HERBALISM
Regardless of whether or not you practice the same spiritual tradition of your own ancestors, there is an effortless dovetailing that can happen between the paths of spirituality and our work with the plants when they are both rooted in the same people, cultures, places, and times. For example, I honor many of the deities of my Anglo-Saxon and Germanic ancestors while also leaning heavily on the robust plant lore that has survived from those same people, places, and perspectives. My work with herbs, then, fits quite nicely into my Husel offerings to the Old Gods.
Even if you don’t practice this way, you can allow for the spiritual wisdom of your ancestors to flow through your own practice and inform it- even if in small ways.
